So, you want to begin using a planner and getting organized, but don't know where to start? Look no further than Alycia's Ultimate Guide to Planning. Here, I'll share everything there is to know about planning and organizing, including types of planner bindings, how to choose a layout, and what should be written down.
I've been planning since 4th grade. I received my first planner in school as a way to keep track of assignments and reading progress. My mom also had to sign it everyday, and I usually forgot to give it to her. It wasn't a pretty, or fun, planner. Just a basic book full of pages to help nine and ten year olds navigate homework. As a twenty-something year old, I now use the fanciest, highest quality planners you can get your hands on. Why? Because I can. And I love paper and using pretty pens. I've cycled through so many planner types and layouts on the hunt for the elusive, and probably fictional, "planner peace" everyone talks about. Have I found it yet? No. Am I qualified to help you find it? Absolutely.
Ready for Planning 101? Get out your pens and notebooks, and prepare to take notes. (Like any good student should).
Why Should I Plan?
If you're here, I assume you already have an answer for that. But if not, let me sell you on the idea. Ever heard of the saying, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."? I'm here to tell you it's true. You're 42% more likely to accomplish what you set out to do if you write it down. A very important psychologist at Harvard did the research study to prove it. It's not only science: I've personally experienced the power of writing your plans and goals down. Will I accomplish my task if I don't write down? Maybe, maybe not. Will I accomplish my task if I do write it down? The answer is still "maybe", but 42% more likely to happen. See how that works? Alright, now that we've established that, let's move on to planner types and layouts.
Why so many different planners?
Have you ever looked at planners online or in-store and been super overwhelmed by what you see? I've been there too. There's many choices because everyone lives a different lifestyle. A college student or a stay-at-home-mom will have different needs from a small business owner or an attorney. There's also many choices because some people think they can create something better than what's already available. And to them I say: thank you. Please take my money as I continue searching for Planner Peace.
I digress. So, to start, you can look at the different bindings. You have three main choices: ring-bound, spiral-bound, or disk-bound. Each have pros and cons.
Types | Common Brands | Pros | Cons |
Ring-bound | Filofax, Kikki.K, Agenda 52 (Hobby Lobby brand) | Removable pages. Can add your own dividers and sections. | Awkward to write in with the rings. Pages can fall out. Rings can become loose over time. |
Spiral-bound | Erin Condren, Day Designer, and Plum Paper | Pages will not fall out. Easy to fold over and write. Comes in many sizes | Cannot move pages around. Sometimes bulky. |
Disc-bound | Happy Planner and Tul | Removable pages. Can expand ring size easily. | Sometimes hard to put pages in. Pages can fall out. |
I love a good chart, don't you? Moving on to layouts! The most common layout is horizontal. That's what your typical planner will have. Absolutely nothing wrong with that layout, and it can get the job done for a lot of you.
There's also hourly, for those of you who have a lot of appointments and places to be, or need to stick to a rigid schedule. I personally use hourly (for now; ask me next week if it's the same) because I like time-blocking. We can talk about planning strategies another time. That's going to be a totally different guide. You can find that layout in Day Designer and At-A-Glance planners, at most big-box stores.
The vertical layout is common as well, and you can find that featured in Erin Condren planners and Happy Planner. What I love about the vertical layout is that there are three boxes you get for each day of the week. You can divide your day by time (morning, afternoon, and evening), or by category (kids, work, and home).
For those of you who are interested, here's a more in-depth look into some of the different planner brands:
Happy Planner
This was one of the first planners I ever purchased. Erin Condren had really blown up, but was pricey for a planner back then. Now, we'll spend $100 on just one planner and not bat an eye, but in 2015, most people thought $50 was insane. Myself included. Enter the Happy Planner. Created by Me and My Big Ideas (MAMBI), it was a cheaper alternative to Erin Condren's planner. It came with the same vertical, three-box layout, but for less than half the price. Throw in craft store half-off sales, and you could get a high quality planner for less than $20! The Happy Planner also had something else going for it-it was disc-bound as opposed to coil. Why is that special? Because you could add and remove pages to personalize it further.
Today, the Happy Planner is one of the biggest planner companies, and easily rivals Erin Condren. A year or two after launch, MAMBI started to create themed sticker books, which made planning even more fun. You could really express your creativity through them. I bet you weren't expecting a history lesson, but what do you expect from a planner-obsessed girl? Happy Planner now makes student planners and teacher planners, and has so many different layouts: dashboard, hourly, vertical, horizontal, and color block. They also make ring-bound planners as well, but those aren't as popular.
Passionate Penny Pincher Planner Home Planner
I tried this planner in 2021. I loved it! The Passionate Penny Pincher company was created by Laurie Hise. Her specialty is budgeting and saving money. She started with a blog(!) and posted about store savings and of course, budgeting. I didn't follow her in the early days, though I read some posts occasionally.
Her planner is fantastic because it includes her home routine schedule. It's what I built my current one of off. She includes a daily checklist, and weekly chores, as well as a special project to work on every week, such as cleaning carpets, organizing closets, etc. The best layout to compare it to would be horizontal, though Laurie truly created her own one-of-a-kind planner. I'm considering purchasing it again for 2024, but I haven't decided yet. I am getting to the point of actually needing multiple planners to separate my home and work/business life. So I may take the plunge and truly use it as a home planner.
Season by Season Daily Planner
This is the planner I'm currently using, and one I know you've seen a lot of on my socials. I love this one because it's created by Cultivate What Matters, one of my all-time favorite companies. It builds off of their Powersheets Goal Planner, and includes a weekly prep page, and a habit checklist. It also includes a place for "win of the day" on the daily pages. The Season by Season planner is hourly, which works well for me right now. For 2024, they released a weekly Season by Season planner. It's just like the daily, with an hourly week-at-a-glance layout. There's also a weekly checklist, and includes the weekly prep page. Bonus? Saturday and Sunday are included in the hourly layout. That's one thing I wish I could change about the daily layout.
Whitney English Week-on-One-Page Planner
I'm not sure if anyone still uses this one. It used to be quite popular a few years ago. I only tried it once, because I found an un-used one at the thrift store. Maybe that should've clued me in. Anyway, it was a cool concept because it was a week-on-one-page. The other page was a checklist, divided into four sections. There were also list pages in the back. Basically, if you like lists, this one might work for you. Is this still in production? I'm not sure. I'll check and I'll be back...
It is! I also learned she's from Edmond, Oklahoma-my home state (she also created the really popular Day Designer planner). Maybe I'll have to reconsider...the launch for 2024 is this month, which is so exciting. I love planner release time. It's like Christmas. Side note: Whitney English also makes a Day-on-One-Page layout, which is hourly, similar to the Season by Season daily planner.
Agenda 52 Ring-bound
Agenda 52 is a Hobby Lobby brand and has a couple of different types. Their most popular one is their ring-bound planner. I think this is a cheaper alternative to Filofax or Kikki.K. Agenda 52 do not come in beautiful leather bindings, but it is much cheaper, and they come in some cute designs. I've purchased a couple of these over the years, and they've always held up nicely. Agenda 52 also designs planner inserts, though I prefer to get mine on Etsy.
Agenda 52 also makes ring-bound planners that come in vertical or horizontal layouts.
Erin Condren Planners
Oh, Erin Condren. This company definitely dominates the planner space. This is one of the first premium planners I remember seeing. Everyone used the vertical layout, and loved the separated boxes. They used sticker kits from Etsy to personalize every week, and put it out on YouTube. Their layouts always looked so pretty, and I was slightly jealous I never took the plunge.
Now Erin Condren makes student, teacher, and homeschool planners, wedding planners, and horizontal, vertical, and hourly layouts. I think the best part is being able to customize your cover and coil color. I have my eye on the rainbow coil...though I really don't need yet another planner, unless it's the Home Planner. They have the Focused collection, which is full of neutral colors. She created "Man with a Plan" so men can have something too (Side note: many years before I launched Alycia Plans, I came up with the name "Man with a Plan". I was a genius). Erin Condren has planner folios, which are basically traveller's notebooks with different inserts you can purchase. There's pet care, plant care, self-care, fitness, meal planning, budgeting, and of course, monthly and daily planning. There's more to Erin Condren than that, but I think that pretty much covers it.
Simplified Planner
This planner was created by Emily Ley. She has authored many books, many of which I've read. They're very inspirational. Anyway, her planner is very...simple. Which I think is the point. It comes in a daily layout, with a checklist on each page, and a weekly layout, which is most similar to a horizontal layout. I've tried her weekly planner, and I did like it. It's not customizable, but gets the job done. Emily also created Dapper Desk, which is very neutral and is popular among men as well.
Day Designer
This planner is one you can find in any office supply store, or even Target or Wal-Mart. I like Day Designer because it's simple. It comes in weekly, daily, and monthly layouts. I've used the monthly planer to plan my blog content, and that has worked out so well. I've used the weekly and daily planners in the past as well. I think these planners are perfect for someone who wants to get into planning and organizing their life, but doesn't want to spend a lot of money or is overwhelmed by all of the choices out there.
You've chosen your planner. Now let's get planning!
This is where the magic happens. Now, you start by looking at the month. Is there anything important happening, such as birthdays or vacations or appointments? If so, write those down! What about bills that need to be paid? Those can be added as well. Your monthly pages are a quick overview of what's happening, so detail isn't necessary. You can be vague, and there's not a lot of room to write in anyway.
Next, go to your weekly pages. This is where you can get more detailed about your plans. Need to pick up a birthday gift or pack for that vacation? Write those details here. I like to include to-do lists as well.
Some quick ways to organize your thoughts and tasks include using different colored pens (example: red for kids, or blue for work), writing tasks on sticky notes, or using flags to mark things. There's a ton of options. Have fun, play around with layouts, and make it your own!
Some planners include extras such as contact pages, password logs (I don't recommend using those), and even coloring pages. If you're using a disk-bound or ring-bound planner, there are additional pages you can purchase for note taking, budgeting, wellness, and more.
Still overwhelmed?
That's okay. There's a lot to cover, but I hope this guide will help you get started and pointed in the right direction. The important thing to remember is, it's just paper. It doesn't have the power to give you the perfect life or make your kids do what you ask them to do the first time. It's not magic. But maybe it can help you find some extra minutes in your day to have fun or cultivate a new hobby, or help you see you're overbooked and need to create some space to breathe. You can't thrive in a space without air-or fun.
If you have any questions, leave a comment or send a message and I'll be more than happy to help. Happy planning!
P.S.
Check out one of my favorite planners here (Ashley Shelly): https://ashleyshelly.com/ref/103/
And here (Silk + Sonder): https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=1461423&u=3765598&m=93424&urllink=&afftrack=
*I earn commissions from my sponsored links*
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