How to Use a Planner to Become Super Organized?
You know what you want to do in life and how to go about doing it! So, what’s all the fuss about planning out every step of your day, week, and month in a planner?
Well, as much as doing this might sound like extra unwanted work, there are a ton of benefits! Yes, planning your day, journaling, and organizing your tasks can help you in many ways.
So, what are these ways, and how can you become super organized and productive by using a planner? Read further to find out!
The Benefits of Using a Planner
Using a planner can help you to achieve many things, not least organize your life. Here are some of the main benefits of using a planner to get things done!
- Using a planner helps you manage your time better.
- A planner helps you to remember important tasks, dates, and occasions.
- Journaling encourages you to set goals.
- Your journal or planner keeps you on track with your life objectives, aims, and goals.
- Planning helps you to maintain your work/life balance.
- You can use your planner to allocate the right amount of time for each of your tasks.
- Journaling in your planner can be therapeutic.
- Writing down your thoughts in a planner can help you recognize hidden fears, desires, and things you need to work on.
- Organizing your life with a planner leads to less stress, no more forgotten tasks, and feeling in control of your life.
- Your planner helps you to focus specifically on the important things in your life.
- Being more organized also means being more productive at work, with your business, and at home.
- Your planner will keep you motivated as you can see all the things you’ve already accomplished!
- Organizing your life and tasks with a planner results in more free time to spend on the most important things!
- Planning helps you to achieve big goals by breaking them into small, achievable tasks.
- Your planner helps you keep a record of important details, tasks, and information, so you don’t have to remember them!
20+ Ways to Use a Planner to Get Organized!
So, now you know all the benefits, there’s no reason not to start using a planner yourself! But, you may wonder, “what are the best ways to get organized with my planner?”
After all, achieving this boils down to a lot more than just buying a pretty planner, right? So, let’s explore how to get the most out of yours and become super organized!
Jot Down Important Dates, Events, and Appointments
If you’re half as busy as me, things often do slip your mind! Generally, this is ok – except when the thing you were supposed to remember was an important birthday, anniversary, or a meeting!
The mortification of forgetting a special date (and perhaps even a gift) can be easily avoided, though! Simply jot down the date in your planner and highlight it to ensure you don’t ever forget.
Make a General List of all of Your Tasks
Aside from those special dates, all your tasks may seem quite hard to stay on top of. That’s ok – forgetting to take out the trash, pick up some groceries, or send that email is normal!
But, you can easily avoid these mishaps! Simply make a list of your daily, weekly, and monthly tasks in your planner – so you never forget!
Color-Code Your Important Tasks
Once you’ve filled your planner with tasks, dates, and other info, it may be hard to navigate which are the most important! This is where color-coding comes in!
There are a variety of ways to color-code the content of your planner. One way is to use highlighters, and another is to have a few different colored pens to write with.
Go Into Details About Your Tasks for the Day
When writing a general monthly or weekly task list, you’ll likely just include a short description of the task. But, things are a bit different when filling in your daily planner pages!
You see, it’s a good idea to expand on the finer details of each task here. By breaking daily tasks down into practical steps, you make them more achievable.
Take the Time to Plan Ahead for the Week
Keeping an eye out on longer-term tasks can be a handful, as you’re more likely to forget about these. However, you can easily use your planner to keep track of these.
Doing this will allow you to have a larger overview of what’s going on in your life. So, do take the time to jot these down a week or month in advance to ensure you stay on top of every task.
Record Your Monthly Tasks, Too!
Maybe you have some tasks that you only do once or a few times per month? If so, use your planner’s monthly section to jot these down and keep track of them.
This way, you can keep track of distant tasks that you may easily forget about! Longer-term organization like this means being consistently productive in the long-term, too.
Allocate Time to Plan
Using a planner can definitely help you organize your life and become more productive. But, you’ll also need to put aside time to actually plan for your day, week, and month ahead.
As such, do make some space in your schedule to sit down with your planner. A quiet area of the house is an essential, as is a cup of your favorite hot or cold beverage!
Record Important Information in Your Planner
Aside from planning tasks, there is more you can do with your planner. Some planners will have a section where you can write down important contact details and information.
Though many of us save most of this information on our phones these days, writing these down can still be handy. For example, if your phone’s battery dies, it gets stolen, or you lose it.
Set Your Goals for the Days, Weeks, and Months Ahead
Did you know that you can also use your planner for goal setting? Yes, some do come with goal-setting sections for you to fill in!
If not, you can still use a page of the blank notes section to write down a list of goals with tick boxes. Once achieved, you can tick off the goal.
You can also separate these into daily, weekly, and monthly goals. And, don’t be shy to assign yourself rewards for achieving each, too, if you want!
Make Notes About Special Occasions
So, you’ve jotted down those special birthdays, anniversaries, parties, and dinner dates in your planner calendar. Now, how about using your planner to organize or plan for the day, too?
You can include notes on potential gifts, surprise party ideas, party location, RSVP details, and more. So, you will not only remember the day but also be super prepared and organized for it!
Use Your Planner as a Journal
Usually, most planners will come with a blank section for writing notes and other bits and pieces freely. You can use this section for a variety of things, not least journaling!
Keeping a journal can be both therapeutic and beneficial for your mental health. Plus, who knows – you might turn your journal into a best-selling book one day!
Use Your Planner to Achieve Exercise and Health Goals
If you have made any New Years’ health and exercise resolutions before, then you know how hard they can be to keep! That’s ok – you’re definitely not alone in this respect!
However, there is one way to help yourself get organized to reach these goals. You need to jot those resolutions down in your planner!
Whether it’s health and fitness, or another personal goal, you can get it done! Writing the goal down in your planner along with practical steps on how to achieve it can make a difference.
After all, making resolutions is one thing, but actually planning how to do them is quite another. You may find that doing this changes the game, allowing you to finally reach those goals!
Use Your Planner as a Gratitude Journal!
Using your planner as a gratitude journal is an excellent idea and totally doable, as well! So, do take time to write down whatever you’re grateful for every day or week in it.
You can even set a challenge to write down one thing you’re grateful for every day. This way, you can also look back at your year and each unique thing you were grateful for on each day!
Use Your Planner to Keep Track of Your Shopping & Grocery Lists
Doing the shopping or grocery shopping unprepared can be confusing and result in forgetting important items. That’s why it’s important to create a shopping list before you go to the shops!
Writing this list in your planner is an excellent idea as you can keep everything in one place! Your planner is also too big to get lost – and it doesn’t have a battery that will die like a phone!
Use Your Planner to Stay on Top of Bills
Remembering what bills you have to pay and when is not always easy, especially if you’re working and running a household! So, let your planner help you out in this area!
You can jot down each payment or bill on your planner’s daily task page and include reminders for the days before, too. So, you can easily remember when you need to pay these bills!
Budget With Your Planner
Budgeting is an important skill for anyone to learn, young or old! If you haven’t mastered this skill, maybe it’s time to do so with the help of your planner?
If your planner doesn’t already have one, set out a page where you can keep track of your expenses. Jot down your income, outgoings, expenses, and important things to buy.
You may find that doing this results in smarter spending – therefore, some extra cash to spend! You’ll also be able to become aware of any bad spending habits you have and correct them.
Use Your Planner to Keep Track of Your Business Finances
Aside from a personal budget, your business’s finances are another topic to cover in your planner! Use yours to track your profit, losses, stock, and more to stay on top of the finances!
You can use your planner to track various aspects of your business, too. For example, taxes, petty cash, travel expenses, salaries, and more!
Make a Reading List & Record it in Your Planner
Knowledge acquisition is an important part of growing as a person. Perhaps you want to read that book on spirituality or listen to that interesting podcast on running a successful business?
Either way, it can be difficult to keep track of all the podcasts, books, documentaries, and other things you want to listen to, read, or watch. However, you can do this using your planner!
Simply create a list of the book, podcasts, or films with an empty box to tick off next to it. Then, tick off each item when you’ve completed watching, reading, or listening to it.
This way, you can easily keep track of what you have or haven’t listened to, watched, or read! You can also record items of interest, so you don’t forget about them.
Create Your Bucket List!
Aside from goal setting and tasks, you may have things you want to do in your life (aka, your “bucket list”). So, don’t forget to create a bucket list in your planner, too!
Whenever you have a spare bit of cash or some extra time on your hands, consult the list. Then, select a worthy entry to spend that time or cash on!
Before you know it, you may have crossed off a considerable amount of things from your bucket list. You can also quickly add items whenever you think of them to avoid forgetting!
Use Your Planner to Enforce A Healthy Routine and Good Habits
Getting into a routine can be hard, but it is definitely worth it. If you feel like your bad habits and a lack of structure may be negatively affecting you, then it may be time for a change!
Use your planner to help you set out a routine with a list of positive things to do each day. These actions can include drinking water, eating a healthy breakfast, waking a little earlier, and more!
Once you’ve done this routine repeatedly, it will become a habit that positively affects your life. And, you will likely start to do the actions automatically without much thought, too!
Use Sticky Notes & Bookmarks
So, you’re using a planner to organize your life? But, how about also using stationery such as sticky notes, bookmarks, and page markers to organize your planner?
Doing this will help you to use your planner more effectively to complete tasks, achieve goals, and more! You can stick sticky notes in full pages to expand on the topic.
Or, you could place sticky notes or page markers slightly sticking out of your planner to mark important pages. Labeling pages like this will help you to find them quickly and easily later on.
Conclusion:
Yes, organizing your life can be a daunting task – yet it is very rewarding and worthwhile! Using a planner can definitely help you to achieve this and so much more in your life, though!