Which Of These Types Of Planners Do You Need In Your Life?

Types of Planners – Introduction

What types of planners might you need in your life?

Here are the possibilities:

Self-care Journal
Health & Exercise Planner
Home Management Binder
Productivity Planner
Budget Planner
Project & Hobby Organizer

Let’s dive into more details..

Life Organization on Paper

Life can be complex with so many different categories, and roles happening. You could be mom in one minute, CEO of your business in another minute, and a chef in another minute. There are so many things that we could end up feeling like we are drowning in responsibilities and tasks.

The way to deal with all these things, I find, is to get them out of my head. We really need to create space in our head for ideas, creativity and imagination. So let’s organize life on paper and keep our head for the good stuff.

[Of course, there is the option of digital planning] – Read:

Make a Digital Planner: Everything you Need to Start

Let’s dive into these different types of planners and help you to decide which planner is best for keeping YOUR life organized.

Self-Care Journal

WHAT IS IT? A self-care journal is a notebook or scrapbook that is dedicated to writing what we are thinking or feeling at any given moment of time. It is a way of becoming aware and getting to know ourselves and what is going on on the inside.
WHY IT HELPS? A self-care journal has helped many people to make huge changes in their lives. It helps us to become more mindful with our actions and not to just be numb to the emotional side of ourselves. Many have said that journaling is the single best thing they did to improve their mental wellbeing.
WHAT’S NEEDED TO GET STARTED? This is the easiest thing in the world to start. All you need is a notebook and a pen. Some do like to decorate their self-care journal, but that is personal choice. It’s not necessary. If you need some inspiration you can find that here.
HOW TO DO IT? It’s very easy…on a daily basis write what you are feeling, or if you prefer you can use a guiding prompt question, like: what did I feel proud of today? Then I recommend taking the time to go back over and read the things you have written to see if you gain some insight about yourself.

Health and Exercise Planner

WHAT IS IT? These types of planners vary a lot. But the simple idea is that you create planner pages that focus on keeping fit.
WHY IT HELPS? It helps because for many of us the inclination is towards slothfulness. We need something that gets us up and moving. It helps us also to be aware of symptoms and gets us checking in with our physical health and wellbeing.
WHAT’S NEEDED TO GET STARTED? Maybe a good start is to be realistic – set some reasonable goals for yourself. You will then need to decide how best to translate these to your planner. So to get started requires a bit of thinking and deciding, and maybe also some trial and error. I suggest using a dot grid notebook and creating your own personalized planner.
HOW TO DO IT? Once you decide which planner spreads are best for you, maybe a calendar, a tracker of some kind, some ideas for exercises, or a weight chart. Then just create these in your bullet journal and try to keep going back to it every day or week to fill it in.

Home Management Binder

WHAT IS IT? A home management binder is a whole organization system in itself. It can include other types of planners inside it, like – cleaning schedules, laundry schedules, meal plans, recipes, home maintenance trackers etc.
WHY IT HELPS? A home that runs smoothly makes life a bit more pleasurable. It’s so helpful to know what needs to be done in the home and when. It saves a lot of time, you are not wondering every day – what shall I cook, what shall I clean?
WHAT’S NEEDED TO GET STARTED? Like the last one you need first to decide which planner sections you want in your home management binder. Oh and of course, you will need a binder! Either a ring binder or disc binder is great because you can take pages in and out.
HOW TO DO IT? I suggest because there are many sections, take one at a time, and try to keep it simple. Maybe start with cleaning. Do a brain dump first and then make a plan. Then start to make and add your pages. Tweak them when you see something doesn’t work for you.

Productivity Planner

WHAT IS IT? This is simpler than it sounds. It is a planner to plan your activities. It includes a calendar or some kind of schedule so you know what you are doing on any given day. There are again different types of planners for productivity – time blocking, original bullet journal method, etc.
WHY IT HELPS? It helps not to forget appointments and plans. It helps not to waste many hours on non important things. It keeps us moving from one activity to the next without us getting overwhelmed.
WHAT’S NEEDED TO GET STARTED? You need to decide which planner is best for you to buy. This is not easy. [I probably will do another blog post on this subject]
HOW TO DO IT? Once you buy your planner, it really is just a matter of filling in your events and activities and keeping a check on it so you don’t forget anything.

picture of a printed spreadsheet with someone’s yearly budget

Budget Planner

WHAT IS IT? A budget planner is a planner to manage our finances. The answer is in the name really.
WHY IT HELPS? It helps to save and to keep track of spending. Especially with how the cost of living is really rising everywhere, it is becoming more and more helpful to have a budget planner.
WHAT’S NEEDED TO GET STARTED? A very good means of making a budget planner is using a spreadsheet. Because there usually are so many sections in these types of planners it’s probably going to be hard to do hand written. Doing a spreadsheet makes it easy because it does the calculations for you.
HOW TO DO IT? Once you have decided which planner system to use and set it up, you just need to fill it in. This is the hard bit to remember. Every bit you spend has to be recorded and tracked. So it really is a daily practice.

Project and Hobby Organizer

WHAT IS IT? It is a system to keep our hobbies and projects organized. It could be gardening, needle craft, or a project like decorating a room.
WHY IT HELPS? These types of planners are probably not considered essential, but they do help. The amount of times I have lost a pattern or information that I later wanted is bad. But if we have an organizer we can keep all that information together at our fingertips.
WHAT’S NEEDED TO GET STARTED? Really it depends on your project/hobby. But a simple ring binder with some file holders would be a great place to start.
HOW TO DO IT? I suggest gathering together all the bits and pieces you have for your hobby, then start planning your projects on paper. You could do an inventory, and maybe also write a wish list of what you need to get.

Which planner is best for you?

picture of a woman looking very relaxed. The title says - which of these types of planners do you need in your life?

In conclusion for this long blog post….

Which planner collections do you need? When deciding the planners you need I would suggest it probably isn’t all of the ones mentioned above, but maybe you have been inspired to get something organized on paper that wasn’t before. Please leave me a comment to answer this:

What type of planner could you not live without?

Thanks for being here today! Happy planning and I hope you found some inspiration! 👋

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE..