Organizing Your Life While Tapping Into Your Creativity

In a world filled with digital calendars and apps, a paper planner remains a favorite tool among most for keeping your life organized. There's something uniquely satisfying about putting pen to paper, it brings mindfulness, helps prioritize tasks, and creates a record of your accomplishments. This will in turn help you to improve the running of your daily life and as you see progress you will want keep it up. But before we dive into planning, we will talk about how you want to use your planner and how yoy want to set up your planner in order for your planner to work to its fullest potential according to your lifestyle, family and schedule.

When you first begin planning, you want to make sure to choose a paper planner that will fit your daily needs. These days there are so many different options to choose from it can be extremely overwhelming at first. You really want to research and do your homework to make sure the planner you do choose will be the right fit for your family’s needs. Whether this be a daily planner, weekly planner or monthly planner. On top of what I just mentioned there are also different kinds of planners such as ring bound, coil bound, disc bound and bullet journal style. You can look on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest and so on to get some ideas.

If you’re looking for a great place for inspiration try Wild For Planners over on Facebook. That is one amazing group and you will gain so much insight and clarity when it comes to using a paper planner.

Just don’t get ahead of yourself, you will see all the beautifully decorated paper planners and it may sway your choices to a choice that may not be quite right for you. I also suggest while checking out all these paper planning options to download some free digital printable planner pages from different websites. I offer free digital planner printables on my website as well here.

Step 1: Choose Your Planner Style

Before you begin, think about your preferences, needs and what you want areas in your life you want to plan. Then you need to ask yourself are you a minimalist who thrives on clean, structured layouts, Or do you enjoy adding color, stickers, and drawings to personalize your pages. Here are a few different types of planners to consider.

Daily Planners: Perfect for detailed scheduling and task tracking.

Weekly Planners: Ideal for a broader overview of your week.

Monthly Planners: Great for long-term planning and goal-setting.

Customizable Bullet Journals: Allow complete flexibility in creating your own layouts and the ability to switch it up off need be.

Step 2: Define Your Planner’s Purpose

Every planner has a different purpose for organizing, whether that will be daily-weekly-monthly, You will need to figure out what role your planner will play in your life. Are you using it for work, personal life, family scheduling, or all of the above. Identify the primary purpose of your planner to ensure you not only pick the right kind of planner but most importantly, focus on the areas you need to plan out the most within your life.

Step 3: Set Up Your Calendar Pages

Start by jotting down important dates on your monthly or weekly calender. These could include birthdays, anniversaries, school activities, appointments, or deadlines. You could use color-coded pens to differentiate the tasks or stickers to categorize events, for example blue for work, green for personal, red for urgent. This visual organizational tool makes it easier to spot priorities all in one spot at a glance.

Step 4: Create Dedicated Sections

Depending on your lifestyle and needs, you might want to include specific sections in your planner. Especially if you have kids. You want to keep a running cleaning list such as daily and weekly to keep your home more tidy. Or maybe you create content or have a blog and want to keep a running brain dump of ideas. Here are a few lists you could make.

To-Do Lists: A dedicated space for daily, weekly, or monthly tasks. This is a big one most should consider.

Goals: Keep track of personal or professional objectives.

Budgeting: Record expenses and monitor your finances.

Meal Plans: Outline meals for the week to save time and reduce stress.

Habit Tracking: Track your progress in different areas of habits like exercise, water intake, cleaning schedules or reading.

Notes and Brainstorms: Leave room for ideas, reflections, brain dumps or doodles.

Daily Cleaning: Having a daily cleaning routine has been a life saver for me. You can start by listing the main tasks inside your home that must get done daily. As the month goes on I promise this will turn into a habit.

Weekly Cleaning: Having a weekly cleaning list is another great idea. Yes you have your daily cleaning list but you also have areas of your home that you don’t want to clean daily such as your bathroom or changing bedding. This is why I personally always keep both a daily and weekly cleaning list.

Habit Tracker: You could make a simple list or do the popular wheel with blocks you color in daily after your habit is completed. So if there something you have been wanting to do but can’t seem to quite stick to it, a habit tracker is a great list to have.

Blog Title or Content Ideas: if you have a blog and/or create content this is a great idea. You can make a post structure with links to add or even brand collabs you may need to review on film.

Social Media Posting: if you have a blog,channel or you’re an influencer you want to keep track of the best time to post, when you post and brand deals. You definitely want to keep track of this if this is your niche.

Step 5: Personalize Your Planner

Make your planner uniquely yours. Are you a sticker planner a simple planner or in between. Add motivational quotes, photos, stickers, stamping impressions or washi tape to inspire and brighten your pages. If you love journaling, consider integrating gratitude entries or daily reflections into your routine. Personalization keeps your planner fun and engaging, encouraging you to use it more regularly. I myself am a full sticker kit weekly planner, all though it will get expensive. So I have so many left over stickers from kits over the years that I will incorporate into my weekly to save money. It looks pretty but it’s really expensive unfortunately. You can go onto Etsy and buy digital planner stickers you cut out yourself by hand. Make sure to keep good full sheet sticker paper on hand for these occasions.

If you are interested in sticker kits for planners here are a few of my all time favorites.

1.Krissyanne Designs

2.Once More With Love

3.The Coffee Monster Co.

4.Lets Plan It

5.Avalon And Ninth

Here is my favorite stamping shop. Stamping these cute impressions then coloring them in with copics has such a calming feeling. I do suggest using a black momento permanent ink stamping pad, your impression won’t smear.

1.Love Cynthia

Step 6: Establish a Daily Planning Routine

Consistency is key when using a paper planner. When you do this for thirty days it will turn into a habit. Set aside time each day or week to plan, review, and update your pages. I like to do my planning the night before or the morning of. Whether it’s a quiet moment with coffee in the morning or a reflective session at night, choose a time that fits seamlessly into your routine.

Step 7: Evolve and Adjust

Life is dynamic, and your planner should be, too. Don’t hesitate to tweak layouts, add new sections, or try different methods as your needs change. The beauty of a paper planner is its adaptability, like I already mentioned above make it your own. I can’t even begin to tell you how many different planners I switched to but always went back to The Erin Condren Vertical Neutral Life Planner.

Wrapping Up This Post….

Setting up your paper planner is more than an organizational task, it’s a creative process that allows you to design a system that supports your goals and simplifies your life all while also tapping into your creativity. Whether you're juggling work, family, or personal projects, your planner can become your trusted sidekick in staying focused, motivated, productive, and grounded. I know with even as a mom who has adhd, the major impact it has had on my motivational and productivity habits. By using a planner and writing down my tasks directly onto paper makes me more productive, gives me that sense of accomplishment, makes tasks stick more easier as well as nurturing my creative side. After using a paper planner for 9 years now, I can see the positive impact it has made in my day to day life.

Not only does it help to keep myself and my family organized it also helps me to use my creativity and incorporate that into my weekly pages. This motivates me to keep planning out my day daily as well as not getting bored of planning. The creativity aspect keeps me coming back, especially as a mom with adhd and anxiety. Just give it a try what do you have to lose.

Do you have a favorite planner style or tip you'd like me to incorporate? Or do you have any type of questions. Let me know in the comment section below.