65+ Planner Ideas You Need to Get Organized
A good planner is like a girl’s best friend! It will get you places, help you stay organized, and reduce stress. Learning to use a planner takes trial and error. Here are 65+ planner ideas to get you started.
I’ve used a planner for as long as I can remember. In my early planner days, I started with a pocket-sized planner in my purse to track my work schedule at Wal-Mart. After college, on my first job, my boss gave me a weekly planner with an hourly layout. Over the years and planners, I have refined what I like and the best planner ideas.
If you are looking for a new planner, check out these Best Planners for Moms.
What can you track in a planner?
To get started, I like to track appointments, meetings, daily “to-do” lists, shopping lists, and dates to remember, but there are so many more planner ideas.
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What to track in your planner – 65+ Best Planner Ideas
Schedule and Time Management
When you purchased a planner, you were probably looking to organize your day and time. To get started, try these ideas:
- Daily schedule
- Weekly schedule
- Monthly schedule
- To-do lists
- Priority tasks
- Projects including schedule and due dates
- Personal care (hair appointments, manicures/pedicures)
Recommended – Best Weekly Planners
Health/Fitness
Health and fitness tracking is a great way to manage your health. We often don’t realize how what we eat impacts our health in good and bad ways. Here are a few ideas:
- Calories daily/What you eat
- Daily/Weekly exercise
- Menstrual cycle
- Migraine headaches
- Frequency of recurring health symptoms
- Daily weight/weight goals
- Daily habits
- Daily steps
- Water intake
Feelings/Mental Health
Feelings can change daily and even throughout the day. Just as food impacts our health, feelings and moods impact mental and physical health.
- Feelings/Daily mood (like happy, sad, angry)
- What made you feel this way (a memory, an event, a person, etc…)
- Self-Care
Recommended Resource – Self-Care Planner
Kids
Don’t let your kid’s schedules and plans get out of control. Keep everyone’s schedule on our planner so you always know who needs to go where and be on time.
- Kid’s schedules (lessons, sports practice, doctor’s appointments, play-dates with friends). Kids can be very busy. Your kid’s schedules need to be incorporated into your daily schedule and planning
- School needs (i.e. early release dates, homeroom helper dates/times, school programs and events)
- Your child’s health (when did illness start, symptoms)
- Chore schedules
Recommended resource – MomAgenda
Home Organization
Maintaining your home requires a cleaning schedule, meal planning, home projects, and more. Track all these tasks on your planner.
- Daily/Weekly/Monthly Home cleaning schedule
- Meal planning
- Family favorite meals
- Recipes to try
- Routine home maintenance (i.e. change the AC air filter)
- Special home projects
- Car maintenance (reminders for tire rotation and oil changes)
You might also like:
- The Smart Mom Home Organization Binder for a complete home management planner.
- Declutter Planner – a room-by-room plan to get the clutter out of your home
Student/School
Before we homeschooled, I would track all my kid’s assignments and due dates in a planner. It helped me stay organized. Now, they each have a planner with assignments.
- School assignments/homework
- Projects (important dates/due dates)
- Tests and quizzes
- Group projects
- Reading assignments and notes
Pet Care
Pets are important in our lives. Sometimes they have special needs. Your planner is a great place for pet care reminders.
- Veterinarian Appointments
- Pet grooming schedule
- Pet medicine schedule
- Pet allergies and reactions
Important Dates
We all have special dates we want to remember. Keep track of your important dates in your planner. The monthly pages in a planner are perfect for important dates to remember.
- Birthdays for family and friends (a perpetual calendar is great for these dates so you don’t have to start over every year)
- Anniversaries (not just wedding anniversaries) track all the important dates in your life
- Vacation plans
Financial
One of the biggest reasons we don’t succeed with our financial goals is that we don’t plan. We don’t set spending limits and we don’t track how we are spending our money.
- Monthly budget
- Daily spending (understand where your money is going by tracking how you spend it each day)
- Weekly spending
- Monthly recurring expenses
- Financial goals (pay down debt and savings)
You might like this Financial Planner.
Memories
You can use your planner like a personal journal and write down a special memory from each day.
- On this day (write down a quick memory from each day)
- Recall memories from this date in the past
Recommended resource: Mom’s Memory Journal
Spiritual/Quotes/Inspiration
It’s vital that we don’t neglect the spiritual part of our lives. Daily Bible readings, special verses, and quotes can inspire us.
- Encouraging daily Bible verses
- Bible reading plan
- Inspiring quotes
- Prayer lists
- Daily prayers
- Answers to prayer
- Daily Gratitude
- Weekly Bible verses to memorize
- Church activities
Recommended resource: Prayer Journal
Business
If you have a business, tracking key elements for your business is important.
The Clever Fox planner is a great business planner to track all your important business goals.
- Income goals
- Daily income/daily pageviews
- Social media planning
- Content schedule
- Promotion schedules (your own and affiliate offers)
- Email planning
- Planned sales
- Comparison beginning of the month goal to the end of the month’s actual
Recommended resource: Monthly Blog Income Planner
Goals
Setting goals is important because it gives us direction and helps us know what to do next.
- Personal goals
- Financial goals
- Health goals
- Bucket list
Recommended resource: Smart Mom Monthly goal planner
Travel/Recreation
We all need downtime. Rather than spend an hour looking for something to watch, keep a list of movies and TV shows you would like to watch when you have time. Don’t forget places you would like to go, too.
- Travel plans
- Places you would like to visits
- Restaurants you want to try
- Movies to see
- TV shows to watch
Recommended resource: Travel Binder
As you can see, you can track just about anything in your planner. What planner ideas do you have? Leave me a comment and tell me what you track.