17 Tips for Successful Planner Organization

It is no secret just how productive you can be once you master the art of planner organization. Honestly, a planner is the ultimate tool for time management, motivation, and organizing your calendar. There are countless benefits to using a planner and once you create your own personal planning system, you will begin seeing results instantly.

A personal planner is a way to contain everything in your life in one given location. It is home to your many calendars, task lists, project ideas, budget, workout plans, goals, gift ideas, grocery lists, and so much more. Today, I am going to give you my top tips for planner organization. I continuously use these tips throughout my planning system and see some major improvements in my time management and work rate every month. But, the key to my success is switching up how I use my system every so often. So I challenge you to choose your favorite tips, then return to this post later to find new ones when your planning gets boring or redundant.

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Benefits of using a Planner

There are countless benefits to using a planner. All of which are vital to being successful in life!

Increased organization: Obviously, using a planner will increase your life organization. You have the ability to keep everything (including your appointments, deadlines, tasks, and more) in one central location that is easily accessible.
Increased productivity: Plan out your task lists and busy days with ease using a planner.
Decreased stress: Planning is a great way to reduce stress and anxiety. Once you write everything down, your mind begins to worry less and focus on the things that are most important in life.
Gain perspective: Having a planner makes it easy to understand what all you have on your plate, and if or when it is time to decrease your responsibilities and say no.
Increased motivation: It is easy to create and plan out your current and future goals in your planner. Pair these with some amazing rewards, track your progress, and gain motivation!
Less screentime: If you keep a paper planner, you will lower the amount of time in front of a screen, helping you stay focused on your task list and decrease distractions that continuously pop up on your phone.
Add some fun to your life: Keeping a planner can make the difficult, stressful, or mundane tasks seem a bit more fun.
Get more work done in less time: Utilizing a planner to prioritize your lists will make it easy to identify what is more important and when you can work on each task!
Never miss another deadline: Having your entire calendar in one location helps you track every deadline easily!
Remeber the good times: Keeping a planner is also a great way to memory keep. In the future, you can look back on your previous planner pages and remember all your happy memories!
Related: 24 Amazing Stress Management Techniques to Try Right Now!

Top Tips and Ideas for Planner Organization

So how do you use a planner… you might be asking? Here are my top planner organization tips that I personally use today to maintain my sanity and skyrocket my productivity using my personal planner.

1. Schedule Deadlines, Events, & Appointments

Be sure to always write down and schedule out all of your deadlines, events, and appointments. Utilize the monthly and weekly calendars to add in your dates, as well as reminders (such as when to begin working on a project or studying for an exam).

Related: Organize Your Life with the Only Student Printable Planner You’ll Ever Need in School

2. Create Task Lists

Dedicate a specific space within your planner for your to-dos. Then, whenever a new task jumps onto your plate, be sure to write it down in this section! That is the key here! When doing this, you ensure all of your tasks are in one easy to find location and not scattered around your life.

3. Prioritize your Tasks Lists

Let’s take your task lists one step further by prioritizing them. This could simply just be small numbers or symbols you write next to the task themselves or highlighting the ones that need to be completed first. One of the best ways to do this is to categorize each task into four categories: important and urgent (do now/very soon), not important but urgent (delegate it or do second), important and not urgent (do third), not important and not urgent (delete or do fourth).

Related: Discover 17 Surprising Ways to Avoid College Burnout

4. Categorize your Tasks

Categorizing your task list is a great way to better understand what you truly need to accomplish. Personally, I work best by categorizing my tasks by area in my life. My current categories include: family/adventure, house/home, personal development, health, work/business, school (and each class is separated out), and career/finance. I have an individual task list on separate pages for each of these categories and in order of priority. This way, I can easily flip through my task pages to know what is needed to be done next.

Looking for a new planner? Check out my student printable planner today!

5. Add Time Assignments to Each (Bigger) Task

Looking at a giant list of to-dos can be incredibly daunting. One way to overcome this is to add time assignments to each task. I do this by adding a colored dot before each task, with each color representing how much time I believe each task might take. At first, I thought this was overkill but it actually has proven to be quite useful when I get really busy (like finals week). This way, if I know I only have an hour to get something done, I can quickly scan my task list to choose an hour-long task or get a ton of smaller tasks done. It also gives you perspective on how much you really need to get done and how long you need to complete your tasks.

Color Assignments (using highlighters):

Pink: 2 or more hours
Orange: 1-2 hours
Yellow: 40-60 minutes
Green: 20-40 minutes
Blue: 10-20 minutes
Purple: Less than 10 minutes

6. Make Sure Each Task Begins With a VERB

Make sure each of your tasks are actionable. This is a bit of a phycological trick you can use on yourself to make it easier to get your tasks completed. Let’s look at an example. Instead of saying “Molecular Biology Essay,” put “Write Molecular Biology Essay.” See the difference?

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7. Make your Tasks Specific and Small(er)

In addition to adding a verb to the front of your tasks, make sure they are specific and small enough that you can easily get the task down in one sitting. For example, let’s use the example from above. Go a little further from just saying “Write Molecular Biology Essay,” add “Research Molecular Biology Essay Topic,” “Write Up Bibliography,” “Create a Molecular Biology Essay Outline,” “Write Molecular Biology Rough Draft,” “Edit and Revise Molecular Biology Rough Draft to Final Version,” and “Turn in Molecular Biology Draft via Email.”

I know, writing out these tasks can seem daunting and tedious, but they create actionable items that are much more realistic to complete than just sitting down and pumping out an entire essay all at once!

8. Color Code your Tasks, Deadlines, Events, and More

Color coding is one of the best ways to organize your tasks, deadlines, and events. You can use a different color per class, per category (like in step 4), or per family member. Once you choose your colors, be sure to create a color key and stick to these colors throughout your planning system!

Tip: If you run out of colors, or are trying to create subcategories, use a pen as the main color, and use highlighters as your sub-categories! For example, my school category color is blue, while each of my classes has their own specific color. So, in my planner, if I have a deadline for, let’s say differential equations (purple), I would write “takehome test due” in blue, and highlight it in purple.

9. Carve out Time to Plan

Each day, add “plan tomorrow” to your task list. During this time, be sure to add any tasks that have come up during the day to your task lists and review what needs to be done tomorrow.

Creating a small list of everything you should be doing in your planner each day is an easy way to make your daily planning quick and painless. An example of a daily planning list might include: check off all completed tasks, migrate any unfinished tasks to another day, check tomorrow’s schedule, create a realistic task list and schedule for tomorrow, and check in with any current trackers (workouts, meal diary, check register, memory calendar, etc.).

Then, once per week, complete a weekly review. I highly recommend following David Allen’s GTD Weekly Review Process (from his book Getting Things Done, an amazing productivity book!). During your weekly review, be sure to always:

Get Clear: Collect all your loose papers and jot down any tasks or important items you can think of.
Get Current: Review your task list, upcoming calendar, and large projects.
Get Creative: Review any future task lists.
Plan out your Week: Using the information you just reviewed, create a task list, goals, and initial plan for the next upcoming week.

Check out David Allen’s Weekly Review Checklist PDF from his website for more information on the weekly review process, and be sure to grab his book if you haven’t read it already, it is jam-packed with even more productivity tips!

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Weekly Planning

10. Utilize Worksheets and Freebies

Using productivity printables are a great way to easily organize your projects and tasks. Here are some of my current blog posts with great freebies included:

11. Complete the Project Planning Process on Large Tasks

When it comes to giant tasks you can’t possibly do in one sitting, you might want to consider turning it into a “project,” and complete the entire project planning process. I take a deep dive into this process in THIS POST. Basically, in order to complete larger tasks, you must break them down into smaller, more manageable sized chunks. You also need to evaluate your goal for the project and create a deadline in order to stay motivated. I include a free project planner and a free checklist printable in the blog post, so be sure to check it out!

Related: Master the Project Planning Process in 10 Easy Steps

12. Write EVERYTHING Down

Ever get to bed for a long day but your head is still buzzing about what you didn’t finish? Or, perhaps you keep forgetting to get important tasks done? There is one simple solution to this. WRITE IT DOWN! Write down anything and everything. Remember when we talked about keeping organized task lists (steps 2-4)? Yeah, just write them down there!

But what if you don’t have your planner with you? Add a list on your phone’s notes section of tasks that come to mind throughout the day and just move them to your task list when you get a chance. This will add only one extra location your tasks should be. Plus, I am sure you always have your phone on you so you really don’t have an excuse to not write it down!

Tip: You obviously can’t be on your phone in class, so be sure to bring your planner to write down any specific notes or tasks that come up! If this becomes inconvenient, bring a small notebook to write them all down in and transfer immediately after class.

13. Keep Everything in One Planner

In addition to writing everything down, make sure that everything you are tracking or planning is all in one planner. Be creative! There are hundreds of things you can have in your planner that can make your life so much easier!

Things to put in your planner:

Calendars
- Yearly/long term calendars
- Monthly calendars
- Weekly calendars
- Daily calendar pages
To-Do Lists
- House to-do list
- Work to-do list
- School to-do list
- Family to-do list
- Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Yearly to-do lists (see planning tip 16)
Projects (Large tasks that are broken down and with a specific deadline)
Routine lists
Habit tracker (check off how many days in the month you complete your routines or specific habits)
General notes
Planning Task Lists
- Daily review list
- Weekly review list
- Monthly review list
Goal Setting
- Yearly goals
- Monthly goals
- Vision board
- Rewards lists
Financial Planning
- Yearly or monthly budget outline
- Spending tracker (check register)
- Loan repayment plan/debt tracker
- Savings plan and tracker
- Bill schedule
Lists
- Wish list
- Bucket list
- Gift ideas list
- Shopping and/or grocery lists
- Book, movie, podcast, or TV list
- Detailed cleaning list
- Packing lists
- Child and/or pet health trackers
- Vehicle information
- Gratitude
- Daily journal
- Affirmations
- Favorite quotes
Health and Fitness
- Workout plan
- Meal ideas
- Meal diary
- Calorie Counts
- Medical tracker (note what days you had specific symptoms)
- Weight loss tracker
Work/Career Planning
- Projects
- Task lists
- Billable hours tracker
- Office calendar
- Vacation and sick day tracker
School Planning
- Course information
- Grade tracker
- Assignment tracker/list of deadlines
- Class project planner
- Essay planner
- Exam study schedule
- Textbook section review
- Graduation plan
- Scholarship application tracker
- Student debt tracker

14. Create a Top 3 For the Day

Having a hard time focusing on all of your tasks? Simplify your day by just creating a Top 3 for the entire day. This will help you focus on what is truly important!

Tip: If 3 are not enough tasks for the day, you can always create an additional list of things to get done AFTER you complete your top 3 or during your short breaks.

15. Abide by the 2 Minute Rule

Here is another Getting Things Done tip: if you can complete a task in less than 2 minutes, just DO IT NOW. You could have completed that task in the same amount of time it would have taken you to write it down and think about it later.

16. Create a Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly Task List

Have you noticed that each day, week, month, or year you are completing the same tasks but some just seem to slip through the cracks? To avoid this, create a daily (such as morning or night routines), weekly, monthly, and yearly task list, then be sure to review them during your weekly review.

To get your lists started, here are some tasks that I currently have on my reoccurring lists:

Weekly to-dos:

Grocery Shop
Meal Plan
Meal Prep
Clean Apartment
Run and Fold Laundry
Plan Next Week (Weekly Review)
Check in with goals

Monthly to-dos:

Pay Rent and Other Bills
Review my goals for next month
Create a workout plan for the next month
Schedule when to send out birthday cards
File any important paperwork
Review our budget/Balance “checkbook” for the month
Backup laptop
Run anti-virus software
Replace A/C filter in the apartment

Yearly to-dos:

Complete pre-semester checklist (2 times)
Visit Doctor (Yearly Physical)
Visit Dentist (2 times, bi-yearly cleanings)
Change Car Oil (3-4 times, every 3-5000 miles)
Rotate Tires (2 times)
Create Yearly Goals
Renew Car Tabs
Get a flu shot
Clean out old computer files (3 times)

Related: The Pre-Semester Checklist – 23 Things You Must Do Before Every Semester

17. Educate Yourself: Productivity Must-Read Books

A great way to increase your productivity is to routinely change up your systems and learn new time-saving tips. I have found that the best way to do this is to read! I challenge myself once a month to read a book related to productivity and have seen some amazing results. Here are my top productivity reads:

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen: If you read any book, read this one. Allen packs this best seller with countless productivity tips as well as an entire productivity system you can implement today. It truly is a must-read for everyone!
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey: This is another amazing and must-read book. In fact, this book paired with Allen’s Getting Things Done is often seen on popular career book lists, and for good reason! Covey covers the life-changing habits that you can incorporate into your everyday life that has been proven time and time again to increase productivity and better your overall wellbeing.
The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod: This book has been growing in popularity over the last year or so. It is a detailed account of how your morning routine can truly change the way you live your life, and what exact things you can do to start your day strong.
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business by Charles Duhigg: This bestseller is another great read! It covers the science of habit formation, how to create new habits, how to cut out unhealthy ones, and what habits you should consider adding. He argues that the true key to productivity and living a healthy lifestyle is understanding how habits work.
Smarter, Faster, Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity by Charles Duhigg: Another bestseller and great book by Duhigg. It covers eight key productivity concepts including goal setting and decision making, that set productive individuals and companies apart from the pack. All of his arguments, like The Power of Habit, are backed by science-based evidence. Incredibly enlightening!
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: This book, written by a world-renowned psychologist, goes over the two main ways in which humans think: quickly and slowly. Our quicker instincts are more emotional and intuitive while our slower thoughts are more logical. Having a better understanding of the way we think makes it easier to understand processes, such as decision making, that are vital to productivity.
Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy: Eating the frog is a metaphor for taking care of your most challenging tasks first. This principle is the basis of this great book, exploring many ways in which you can learn how to not get everything done all at once, but instead getting the most important things done first. Learning how to prioritize is one of the best ways to master productivity and this book is a great way to explore this concept.