The Benefits of Using a Paper Planner

There’s something distinctly CHIC and efficient about using a paper planner as opposed to a digitized one. For starters, physically writing down your to-dos and schedule forces you to get serious about your plans. Since writing helps you process information, you’re more likely to commit to your plans and follow through on them. 

And unlike trying to use a calendar on your phone or laptop, there are no distractions competing for your attention, so you’re able to really zero in on the things that are most important to you. Instead of that endless digital calendar scroll to nowhere, with a paper planner, you’re able to take stock of your weekly, monthly and annual goals, or just more easily lament how quickly time flies by.      

Of course, only the chicest of paper planners will do, otherwise we’re right back in high school with our Five Star notebooks. I’m quite partial to the planners by Papier. They have daily planners if you’re the plan-your-days-down-to-the-hour type, or weekly planners if you’d like a more bird’s eye view of things. If you simply enjoy counting down the days until people’s birthdays or summer vacation, the monthly calendar is your best bet. 

Another perennial favorite is Smython’s paper planner, which is so POSH that it makes to-do lists like ‘buy more milk and eggs’ seem of utmost importance. It also looks like a planner the Queen might use. 

Now for the planning of the planner. I recommend starting off your daily to-dos with your top three priorities. Mark Twain once said, “if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” In theory, if you complete the most dreaded tasks first, the rest of your day will be a breeze. Following this edict gets easier with repetition, and it’s truly the most effective way to overcome procrastination. 

Alternatively, there’s time-blocking your day, which is exactly as it sounds. This form of planning allows you to devote chunks of time in your day exclusively to one task at hand. It’s a very practical, no-nonsense way to organize your day that prevents you from feeling overwhelmed. I personally toggle between these two planning methods, but I’m probably successful at both because I mostly just like ticking things off my list. 

In the end, you can make your planner as goal-oriented as you’d like, or simply use it to schedule your day-to-day. Nonetheless, it’s nice to have the option to include some loftier plans in the mix. One easy way to create a hybrid system is to create goals you’d like to accomplish on a weekly basis, which is far more manageable than continuously tracking monthly and annual goals. 

And if all of this scheduling and planning sounds a tad overwhelming, start simply and don’t cram your daily to do lists (which goes for your actual life, too). You can be as involved as a novel or as sparse as morse code. Someone else’s planner full of color coded post-its and gold stars might look nice, but it might not work for you! Plan accordingly.