If you've taken a peek around my website, you know that I have a love for digital planning and all things digital organizing. However, my love for planning didn't start digitally. I was born in the era when pen and paper were king. I remember it being a huge deal for my first-grade class to have these huge, clunky desktop computers where you had to use a floppy disk to save your work at the end of class. My love for planning comes from simply writing down all the things you need to do and the feeling of satisfaction when you can cross off something that you've done. It's such an accomplished feeling; I can't get enough of it.
Paper Planning
I am guilty of being one of those people who buys a million notebooks and planners because the cover is beautiful. I've gone through a lot of trial and error in finding planners that don't really suit my needs, so I've been through a lot over the years figuring out what type of planner works best for me. I love that there are different options out there, whether it's a monthly planner, a weekly planner, or a daily planner. I love that there's a variety, but only one really works for me: the daily planner.
As a late-diagnosed ADHD girly, I reflected on why I couldn't get certain things done even when I tried to map things out. I realized I wasn't mapping it out in a way that my brain could accept, visualize, and then execute against. Mapping things out at a weekly level when my day-to-day may change based on my mood or what's going on just didn't make sense to me. A daily planner has helped me focus on what's in front of me and not worry too much about tomorrow, because that could change based on what I got done today. Unless I had appointments scheduled in advance for a particular day, the weekly planner really did nothing for me. However, if you're someone who doesn't get bogged down by the details, a weekly planner can be great so that you can see everything at once without having to rifle through multiple pages.
Buying a paper planner also gave me an excuse to buy really nice pens and stickers to help with planning my days. Reminding me of birthdays or appointments, the stickers were really helpful in making those stand out.
A Mix of Both?
Because we live in the 2020s, you can have the best of both worlds: a "paper" planner, digitally. When I first started dabbling in digital planning, I initially looked into templates made in tools like Canva or GoodNotes to write out my day. There are so many nice templates that allow you to map out dates, mainly in a monthly or weekly view. I had just gotten an iPad and decided to see what it would be like to have a digital notebook instead of a physical one.
However, I quickly realized that this approach wasn't for me. My handwriting isn't great, so writing on the iPad was not aesthetically pleasing, which is half the reason I think it's become a popular option. I didn't see the value in trying to learn how to make my handwriting nice or figuring out digital stickers. It took much more time than I thought it was worth. So, I quickly pivoted back to paper planning until I realized that certain aspects of my life could be handled in a project management tool.
Digital Planning
My recent love of digital planners comes from my career as a project manager. I've found that using a project management tool like ClickUp can also be used in your personal life. What makes them so different from a paper planner is that these tools talk back to you—not in the literal sense, but they're interactive and can send you notifications. For example, they remind you of something you scheduled, like a dentist appointment or calling City Hall about getting a new recycling bin. With a paper planner, you might forget to go back to check these tasks, whereas a digital planner like ClickUp or Monday sends you reminders.
It's probably because I am a project manager that I look at life as a project. On top of that, having ADHD means a task isn't simply a task. I see getting up and getting dressed for work as multiple steps: I have to get out of bed, get in the shower, brush my teeth, wash my face—not just one task of getting dressed for work. So I naturally break things down into each step to ensure I don't miss something. That's where a digital planner in a project management tool can be really helpful because you can break down those steps to avoid missing anything. For instance, if you have to go to the dentist, the tasks can be broken down into researching the dentist, calling the dentist, making the appointment, and then setting the date of the appointment. You'll get a notification, for example, "Dentist appointment at 12:00 p.m. on April 13th." There's something magical and extremely helpful about having that reminder automatically set, whereas with a paper planner, once you write it down, if you lose that notebook or leave it somewhere, there's no reminder from that paper planner.
By using both digital and paper planners, I can leverage the strengths of each. Paper planners provide tactile satisfaction and creative expression, while digital planners offer structure, reminders, and detailed task breakdowns. Together, they help me stay organized and manage my life more effectively.
Reminder: This is how I plan to help me stay productive Everyone must decide for themselves what the best option is, even if it means creating your own!