There are different types of planners for different groups of people. This differentitation is based on diversity. The human thinking and behaviour vastly differs according to the cultural and regional background. Due to this diversity, we don’t plan our life in the same way, as we have different pace of life, different daily and weekly schedules. To accomodate individual needs of a person and to maximize personal productivity, daily and weekly schedules and plans play a vital role in achieving the required targets. Thats why we need a planner which matches our requirements. We will go through different types of planners to review them.
Table of Contents
Planners Types:
Minimalist/simple planner – Types of planners
This planner is a beginner level planner, which is vastly used by students. On one hand, minimalist planner doesn’t have much details due to absence of interesting extras and feature blocks, and a lack of vast space to write details, but on the other hand it is very easy to use due to its simplicity and doesn’t require too much budget(cost savvy). That makes it an ideal planner for students and beginners. When discussing about different types of planners, minimalist planner or simple planner is widely the first choice of newbies.
A simple daily planner is often plain and not very futuristic in design/looks, but provides an ideal opportunity to start getting things organized and productive in a professional manner.
As an example, the planner below in the image is very simple as it gives the option to organize things on hourly basis on the left section. On the right section, it consists of to-do list and notes section.
A high resolution printable version of ‘Tea pink daily planner’ can be downloaded from below.
Tea Pink Daily Planner
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1125548414/printable-minimalist-daily-planner-daily
Bullet journals – Types of planners
Bullet journals are also very simple and comprises of dotted or blank pages. People use bullets to plan their schedulte in this kind of journal. Bullet journals are basically catered for the creative individuals. They offer the flexibility to design own spreadsheet or section styles. Bulltet journals are not for everyone and are a time consuming paper gadgets. Why include bullet journal into the discussion of types of planners, well to answer this, bullet journals are also type of planners to some extent and on a very advance level than the simple types of planners.
Plus points of bullet journals:
- Very flexible
- provides opportunity for maximum creativity
- not expensive at all
Cons:
- Very time consuming
- Not suitable for everyone
- Requires patience
- Dotted and blank pages bullet journal, link
- Detailed designer planner
These planners are mostly designed for the advanced level planner personality and also for the professionals who want to keep track of their progress towards organisational and personal goals.
These planners include extra designed sections in addition to the basic schedule, which may include sections for notes, quote of the day, self reflection, mind map, dreams, habit tracker, budget plan, thoughts and ideas etc, etc. There are colorful dividers which make it looks fancier and clearly seperated according to the category.
Dedicated planners like to have such designer planner so that they can plan things in a more thoroughly advanced manner in order to achieve their required targets and goals.
These planners sometimes also consist of either only professional scheduling stuff and sometimes its a mix of both professional and personal scheduling so that a person doesn’t need a seperate planner for personal life. It all depends on individual choice and needs. Those people working as assistant professionally will most likely chose professional designer planners and keep their personal stuff aside, to avoid mixing two realms.
Digital planners – Types of planners
Paperless life exists and continue to grow with the rise of environmental pollution. Digital planners are for tech savvy people, who would like to carry a gadget on a daily basis. Digital planners have the ease of erasing any schedule entry without any dificulty and time constraint, which would be a mess in case of regular paper planner. Some people like to keep record of previous year planner in paper form that brings back digital planner to regular planner form via document printing. Mostly digital journals makes more sense to have it in paper form in comparison to planner when someone wants to save it in paper form records.
There are different kinds of digital planners, also differentiated with variety of platforms. It wouldn’t be fare to exclude digital planners from the discussion of different types of planners. Google also provides its digital planner. Apple has its own software for such planners, that is Goodnotes and Keynotes. Android has its own set of apps. There are literally hundreds of such apps. They allow syncing, alarms, digital stickers, reminders, sports activity trackers, habit trackers, etc.
Although its easier to erase anything and reschedule the stuff, but digital planners also have their own set of limitations, which are connected with the usage of electronic devices, such as students may not be allowed to use such a device in classrooms. Or the limitation of battery power could create a possible problem on any day, if the device switches Off due to this problem, you lose your entire day schedule.
If your digital planner requires internet connection than it can create a problem due to connection interruption, also there may be some glitches in the software due to which planner doesn’t navigate smoothly. Thus digital planners have their own drawbacks differ to those regular paper planners.
There are some other specific niche/types of planners/schedulers such as:
- To-do list daily planner with hourly schedule and daily quotes
- Weekly schedule planner
- Academic planner
- Wedding planner
- Monthly Budget planner
- Travel planner
FAQs
Some of the Frequently asked questions(FAQs) about planners:
How do you use a daily planner to get the most done in your day?
First of all, figure out which type of planning system works best. Does a digital planner is your thing or you like writing things on paper. After that, make sure your planner is attractive and functional for your needs. Use a fine set of highlighters and color coded sections, if you like. Start filling in your daily and weekly to-do’s. Schedule everything, and gradually you will realize how long it takes you to complete your task and then later adjust schedule or your lifestyle pace accordingly.
What are some interesting ways to maintain a daily planner?
Maintain a weekly plan first with the most important tasks, to-do list. Then schedule your daily chore. Now you can distribute most important tasks in to the week days as you like. Use different sections, divide them with different color codes or spacers. In case you are out of space, you can insert some daily tasks written on small paper and that can be thrown away when it is done or kept inside.
What is a good website to use as a daily planner?
What is the best daily planner/schedule Android app this is efficient, user friendly, practical and can hopefully sync between devices?
There are many:
– Evernote
– Wunderlist
– Google calendar
What is the best daily planner app that is compatible with the iPad, iPhone and Mac?
Some of the apps:
– iCal -> sync everything with your iOS devices via iCloud or Google calendar
– Omnifocus -> fairly complex with high learning curve
– Evernote -> used for task management, however custom planners are available
What is the use of a daily planner?
When you feel 24 hours per day are not sufficient to balance your work and personal/family life, or studies in case of students, then you have to plan things beforehand so that you can track your progress. Daily planner is used to prioritize your work, and is very useful when you have too much work/too many tasks to handle.
In this way you can define you can define your tasks into four sections/quadrants, and spend your time first which are both urgent and important. The four quadrants are below:
– Urgent and important – Important but not urgent
– Urgent but not important – Not urgent and not important
What should be in a daily schedule?
What is the best daily planner software for Windows 7?
Google calendar and outlook calendar both work fine, depending on person’s choice and requirements.
What should i write in a daily planner?
First you have to start writing, once you have started writing your daily and weekly plan. You will get to know what should be written and what not. You can somehow write about anything you like, starting with day schedule, meetings, habit tracking, water intake, daily motivational quote, mood today, contract renewal, meal tracking, sports activity, etc
Is it OK to use Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 as my daily planner substitute?
Apart from the limitations due to dependability on electronic devices, such as power limitation, internet connectivity limitations etc, Microsoft office outlook 2010 has several advantages. It includes ability to sync between different devices, easily reschedule/erase unuseful things, meeting reminders, automated scheduling of appointments, and make calls without dial numbers, etc.
What should i gift a wallet or a daily planner?
Daily planner is a better gift if given at the end of the year. So that the person receiving the gift could plan the new year accordingly, if its not the end of the year, then it would be better to go with the undated calendar. And in case of academic planner, best time is before the start of new semester.
On the contrary, wallet can be gifted at any time of the year, and more suitable for a birthday gift. In this case you can signify the importance of savings and new income sources with the start of new life year.
Can freedom mastery(law of attraction) daily planners really make a differernce in your life?
No answer
Do semester, weekly and daily planners work for undergraduate and graduate students?
Planners are useful to get yourself organized, which in return will help you to perform multidimensional tasks in many folds.
What is the best daily planner for entrepreneurs, which is somewhat practical and organized?
Different entrepreneurs have different needs according to their field diversity.
In this case, a fairly good working planner could be the one offering the ability to plan following things:
Networking
Client meetings
Brain storming
Follow up reminders
Learning and research
Product marketing
Sales plan/sales strategy execution
Coffee/lunch meetings for networking
If an entrepreneur couldn`t find an appropriate planner addressing his/her needs, its better to go with custom design planners.
Do people rely on an appointment book or a daily planner?
Some people rely on daily planners and some write specifically an appointment book. While there are others who use online apps, such as google calendar, evernote etc, as it is easier to sync between different devices.
How Google calendar is useful in daily life?
Why paper-based daily planners are becoming more popular again?
Answer to that question is difficult and opinion based, people are already having too much of screen time, that they want to avoid the electronic screens for daily schedules. People are getting too much addicted to their cellphones, some may fear that they can be easily distracted to other apps. Also it could also be true that writing down plans on a paper gives a sense of importance signals to brain that may lack in digital form, depends on the person, because its easier to reschedule or erase in digital form than in paper based planners.
What type of calendar do you use, a small daily planner, a desk calendar or a wall calendar?
How to help an academically successful middle school child to organize? A daily planner isn’t working?
Should i get a 3-months daily planner or 6-months daily planner?
Choice depends on the frequency of personal and work life changes. If that frequency doesn’t change and remains stable, a longer future plan can be made, even extending upto 01 year for some people works really fine.
I tried making a daily planner, organizing my events, keeping a time limit to things, yet nothing works properly, what should i do?
What does a perfect daily planner look like, and what the daily motivation behind to fill it?
Are there any free apps for creating good everday schedule/to-do list?
What is the best daily planner for both PC and smartphone with alerts?
Is keeping multiple journals a good idea? For example habit traker, weekly planner, etc? What kind of different journals should a person maintain?
My daily planner doesn’t work for more that 2 or 3 days, what should i do?
Keep scheduling and executing, and then further scheduling, you will gradually improve your results with time and also learn the art of writing an effective planner. If its still not working for you after 2 or 3 months then start writting 2 or 3 days plan only, by the end of second day write the next 3 days plan, you will improve with time.
