Clever Fox Medical Planner | Symptom Tracker Review for Spoonies

If you've been looking for a medical planner or symptom tracker to meet your needs, this one by clever Fox Planners might be the one.

Stick around for an unboxing, full flip-through, and review.

Watch the video below or read on for the full transcript.

If you are neurospicy or a spoonie and are looking to master yourself and your time in a compassionate way, this is the place for you to be.

Subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when I post a new video every other Tuesday.

One of the most important things I do as a productivity expert and life coach is to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

This means that instead of telling you to copy what I do in my productivity, organizing, and planning systems,

I teach you how to build a system from the ground up that works for you.

This also means that I get to try out lots and lots of different systems, which makes my inner child (whose favorite time of year was back to school shopping) very happy.

Let's get to it, shall we?

Clever Fox Planner was kind enough to send me this planner to review - though this video is not sponsored.

They did give me a coupon code share with you all, however.

So if by the end of this video you decide you want one, use code Cassie10 for 10% off. Click here to visit their online store.

First, let's start with the exciting unboxing once it arrived at my door.

All right, so I have received a package. I have my cat to help me. So hold on, let us ... (*click* box opener engaged)... proceed!

(cat supervises with sniffs)

This- this- this- this is very hard to do one hand.

It's just like the other influencers say (eennnnhhh in "how to do??" quaver).

(determined) Hi-yah.

Hi-yah.

Hi-yah!

*gasp* It do be that. It do be that!

(noises for defeating packaging)

Oooooooh!

(barely contained whisper) I'm so excited.

Now let's get to the flip through.

All right, so here is the beautiful box that the Clever Fox Planner comes in.

I had no idea it was going to come in such a bougie box .. but when you open it up, the first thing you see is a "How it Works".

And it's a little bit dusty 'cause I've already opened the things to check them out.

Let's just take a look at this.

So we have an Introduction, a Table of Contents.

It's basically showing you the different spreads inside the book and things you can do to use it ... that's really nice. I love that.

It's a very quick overview of what is possible inside this planner.

And I appreciate that 'cause opening up a giant planner can be really overwhelming and to get familiar with all of the moving parts in it .. in a blank version .. can be overwhelming.

So I'm really appreciative that this is something that it comes with.

Next is the planner itself.

I have not opened this 'cause there's something really satisfying about removing something from cellophane.

So we're going to do that in a hot second.

But first let's look about - what else comes in the bottom of the box?

Ooh, warranty card and no-hassle refund. That is awesome.

And stickers! Oh my God!

I don't know about anybody else, but I am one of those neurodivergents who has a lot of stress about choosing a place to put stickers (laughs in stress)

Oh, but these are great!

I love these so much. They're gorgeous. They're high quality.

These ones have a fun almost dual-chrome reflect to them.

They're gold in one light, kind of dark brown in another, and, like, rose gold in another.

That is so pretty.

Oh, I love this so much! Stickers are great. So there are the stickers that it comes with.

Now let's take a look at the reason why we are here - the (French accent) piece de resistance.

We'll take a look at the back.

Oh, this is beautiful.

(cellophane crinkle noises) Satisfying sounds.

For scale, here is a Moogy gel pen.

These are, like, my favorite gel pens, highly recommend.

So it's a seven-by-ten-inch (7"x10") planner.

Let's open this up for the first time.

It's a really nice, sturdy elastic band.

I love that the planner comes with a pen loop.

Now the first thing that I really think of with these kinds of notebooks is just quality of construction and materials.

And this material is nice and sturdy and soft.

And I love the color.

They were kind enough to send me the yellow-gold color, cause it kind of goes with my brand colors.

So that was really kind of them.

Let's open it up for the first time.

It's a really, like, blue-white paper.

It's not cream color. It's a very good .. woo ... paper ... it's nice and ... ooooh ... It's nice, thick paper.

I love it.

So there's a place for you to put your name.

(haha) I love that there's a reward for returning it.

Now let's just go page-by-page.

So we've got Health Overview - which is really nice.

An Immunization Record.

Man, this would have been handy (laughs in hindsight) .. if I had had this since I was a kid.

Health Goals, Action Steps.

Oo, this can be really helpful.

So, for example: right now I've got, like, two big goals with my medical things and the first of which is my knee surgeries.

I need two (2) knee surgeries, one for each knee.

And then I also have to have surgery for Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome.

And those are the end goals and the process to get there, to jump through the hoops of the medical system, are huge.

So having a place to document those and keep track of the major milestones - that's really great. I love that addition.

Important Dates.

Oh man!

One of the things that drives me nuts about forms is, like, "list any and all surgeries you've had". And if you're someone like me that starts adding up quickly.

And this could be a great place to keep track of that information.

OOoo and then you can start using it also as just, like, a planner, like, keeping track of your medical journey over the course of a year.

That's really great!

Habit Tracker. Interesting.

So this is one of the things that I would want in a separate area of my system, but I like that it's available to you here. If .. if you don't have another place to keep track of those.

Ooo I love these prompts: "How do I feel about myself in each area?"

Because maintaining your mental health as someone with chronic illnesses or just ongoing health problems ... Taking care of your mental health is so. profoundly. important.

And "what made me feel happy this month" to like give you the opportunity to remember to focus on the positive.

That is .. that is so fabulous. I love that addition.

Medication and Supplement tracker. (savor the space sigh)

And I love how huge this is because fellow spoonies will know: you got a lot to track.

Oh my God, there's more pages!

(data gremlin growl) YESS!

This is fantastic.

This actually makes me realize that there are not page numbers, as of yet.

And there was not an index in the front.

So that might be something - if you were to get this planner - it might be something you'd want to augment and just go through and hand-write the page numbers and then maybe add in an index.

So that way .. We'll see .. Are there any blank pages at the back?

Yes. There are blank pages at the back.

That's awesome.

So you could use these blank pages to create your own index to help you keep track of stuff.

Medical Expenses.

Unfortunately, that is a very important thing to keep track of, if you don't have another place to do this kind of financial bookkeeping.

That's really nice that they include it.

And then it looks like we basically rinse and repeat.

So this is an .. basically an undated, year-long ... let's go back to here ... So it's a 12-month planner and it's undated.

So you can start it whenever in the year you want - which is great.

I'm gonna go back to this page. Yeah..so this is just your month.

So you .. you can date it yourself.

It has these little faded out circles where you can put in the date and a place where you can put in months.

Comment below and tell me what kind of symptom tracker and medical planner you use.

Oh, it looks like I missed this on the previous month that I was flipping through ... which is an important thing to note: that the distinction between the Medication/Supplement Tracker, Symptom Tracker, and then the Medical Expenses Tracker are kind of small.

They're just basically big open tables that have been labeled for you.

So, like, if we look at this Symptom Tracker one: date, symptom, condition, trigger, severity, time, and notes.

And I really appreciate that in this large format journal, like, you've got the whole page ... but something that my kind of neurodivergent brain is frustrated with is there isn't, like, really enough room in one row to really detail an entire situation that I might be having.

'Cause usually I'm not experiencing one (1) symptom unless it's a headache ... but often things that I'm struggling with involve multiple symptoms.

So I might end up .. if I were to use this planner myself ... end up taking a lot of vertical space to document just one ... one (1) event that is happening to me medically on a given day.

And so that's just something to consider if this kind of format would work for you.

All right, I am going to go towards the back of the book.

Ooh, look, Ooh, you get three (3) ribbons!

That's nice.

So considering that there aren't page numbers and there isn't an index, I really like that they give you three (3) different bookmark ribbons ... and they're different colors so that way you can bookmark three (3) different pages in this journal - the three (3) ones that you would use the most often.

So that's .. that's a really nice detail.

Skipping to the back of the book to see if there's anything else in addition to basically the monthly's.

All right, we have arrived at the end of the 12 months ..

So here is the 12 months in the book and now we get a Medical Contact List.

This is really nice because I know how hard it can be to keep track of all of your doctors and specialists, and the labs that you use, the imaging places that you use.

And I love that you can say what specialty they are, if there's more than one phone number, because sometimes doctors give you their personal phone number and additional information.

That is really great.

Oh, that being said, it looks like there are only two pages of this.

Considering how robust the rest of the book is I would hope there would be at least four to eight (4-8) pages of this, honestly, because it is unfortunate how many doctors a lot of us spoonies have to go through in a short time.

Yeah. So it'd be nice to have more pages of this.

Lab Tests. Interesting.

So you get (counts) 1, 2, 3, ... four (4) pages of Lab Tests, which is interesting.

Again, this is kind of the situation where you might use more vertical space for, like, one (1) test.

And again, for a whole year, depending on your circumstances, four (4) pages might not be enough, unfortunately.

And then interestingly enough, (counts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 ... twelve (12) pages for tracking your blood pressure.

If you are someone who needs to track your blood pressure, that's great that there are that many pages.

That being said, not every spoonie needs to track their blood pressure.

Like I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which does affect my blood pressure, but I am not tracking it enough to warrant this many pages.

So I can understand where a lot of people would need this, but to me, I kind of wish this were just a blank table.

It was like .. like, imagine if there were ten to twenty (10-20) pages of just a blank table where you could write in the names of the columns yourself.

So you could track your own metric that you need to track a lot and need a lot of details on.

I feel like that would be more powerful.

And then what they could do ... is in this book, give you examples of how you could use it.

They could be like, "Hey, you could use it as a blood pressure tracker. You could use it as a heart rate tracker. (That's something that I might do.) You could use it as a sleep tracker, for example."

But I think having it blank would actually be more helpful.

You could even just make it dot grid so that way people could choose what size columns they want and that kind of thing.

Then you've got how many pages of Insurance Providers? Two (2) pages of Insurance Providers.

I feel like that is .. reasonable considering most people don't have more than two (2) or three (3) insurance providers at most.

But that's a lot.

And would also make sense to me for this information to be right after the ... the doctor contact information.

Yeah. Medical Contact List.

There's all these pages in between these two things.

And I feel like those should be next to each other.

So I can .. If this seems like something that would really help you .. page numbers and turning one of the blank pages in the back into an index would probably be really great.

Gratitude, Health-Empowering Affirmations, Vision Board, Products.

Oh, interesting.

I love how it says "Products", but all of these are food ... food items, which is really interesting.

And then we get blank pages all the way to the back.

So ... I like that they provide these two (2) pages and these two (2) pages though, I feel like ... if I were to design this notebook .. having these at the very front, so these were front and center right before your specific health care goals, that would be really powerful because then when you go to open the book ... you're first and foremost, reminded of some more positive things.

Not to lean in a toxic positivity bent at all, but ..

it can be really hard to remember the positive things when you're going through ongoing medical issues.

So it'd be lovely if these were at the front.

And then again, this "Products" thing ...

for those of you who do have to track diet stuff, like, if you are allergic to certain foods or have strong reactions to certain foods, it would be .. I feel like more helpful to have multiple spreads.

One for foods that I'm like, yeah, this is good, safe food.

So if someone .. if you needed help from someone to go grocery shopping, you could, like, snap a picture and be like, "these are good for this that are safe for me to eat."

And then you could have another spread of like "these are he foods that are not safe for me to eat", for example.

So yeah, it's just really odd choice .. seemed kind of random.

And then you get, let's see (counts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, nine (9) blank pages, which should be more than enough to have an index.

And also other notes that you want to include in this book.

And then at the very end, they have a nice sturdy pocket.

So I'm going to go ahead and put all of the lovely papers that came with the book and the stickers in this nice little pocket ... and close 'er on up. (hearty elastic snap)

So for my final thoughts, it's a really high quality product.

The materials and construction are lovely.

It's nice, thick, heavy paper.

I don't want to do an ink test 'cause I would love to give this away to one of you lovely Muses.

Let's do an impromptu giveaway. So just write the word "Gimme" (spells) G-I-M-M-E in the YouTube Video comments.

Make sure you're subscribed and you've liked this video.

And maybe in a week or two, I will randomly choose one of you to receive this from me - free of charge.

So again, it's really well-made.

It's .. it's gorgeous. It's really pretty. It's .. it's a nice thing to have.

Now, as for the things inside, I really appreciate that they give you a lot of space for a lot of important things, including planning your month, keeping track of your symptoms.

However, there just seems to be .. an odd balance, like, assumptions about the things you want to track.

Which ... I understand when you're creating a "done-for-you" product you have to do that to a certain extent.

That being said, some of their choices, for example, the eight (8) or ten (10) pages of blood pressure tracking sheets towards the back?

That's a huge assumption.

Not all people who need to track their medical issues need to track their blood pressure.

I would really appreciate .. if they were to ever redesign this planner in the future, to open it to more customizability because the month-to-month was really great to keep track of your calendar, your medical stuff, how you're feeling, how you're doing, keep track of your symptoms, that kind of thing.

That was great.

But the other stuff just seemed to be odds and ends thrown in.

That's not necessarily good or bad.

That's why I wanted to do a full flip-through because you might have watched that and be like, "oh my goodness. That is perfect for me. Thank you for showing me the whole thing because now I know that meets my needs."

And awesome! I'm so glad to have helped you find it.

But for others you might be like, "oh, I would only use half of this planner and I don't want to be wasteful."

Which is also okay, there are other solutions.

Like I .. I use Notion, personally, for my symptom tracking and I teach about it in this video.

It's more important that you have something that works for you, meets your needs and is easy enough for you to maintain, keep up to date, and then to use, to actually see patterns in the information that you're tracking that might help you talk to your doctor and have better conversations or just improve how you're caring for yourself.

So like I said, at the beginning, I like to be descriptive instead of prescriptive.

I don't want you to arbitrarily copy how I keep track of everything, how I stay productive and organized.

I would rather empower you with the tools and skills to make empowered choices for yourself.

So that way you're not spending your precious time and energy as a spoonie on things with diminishing returns.

I want you to have more spoons to actually do the living of your life instead of the maintaining and the surviving.

This is a wonderful product. I hope in doing this video, it has helped you decide if it's a good fit for you or not.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

I'd love to hear everybody else's thoughts on this product.

Earlier, I mentioned that I'm a productivity expert and life coach.

If you're thinking "I need me some of that!"

The main way of working with me is through my signature course, The Action Navigator.

It's packed to the brim with tools and techniques for mastering your time, getting organized, and offering yourself radical compassion as a neurospicy spoonie.

If that sounds like exactly what you've been looking for, use this link to book a Zoom call with me to learn more.

I can't wait to meet you.

Again, if you're curious about a digital symptom tracker, check out this video next to learn how to build one in Notion.

If you liked this video, hit that Like button and subscribe and be sure to share it with your friends.

I'll be back in two (2) weeks with another video.

See you then. Bye!