I love sticky notes – they’re one of my favorite planning supplies (especially for color coding) apart from planner stickers and pens! Sticky notes have so many uses and are oh so functional 🙂

How to use sticky notes for planning

1. School planning

I did an entire post on using sticky notes for school planning:

2. Meal Planning

Weekly meal planning (using transparent sticky notes & color coding by type)

Related: How to do color coded weekly meal planning in less than 5 minutes using sticky notes

Monthly meal planning

Related: Color coded monthly meal planning using sticky notes 

Weekly meal planning & shopping lists

Related: Quick and easy weekly meal planning using sticky notes 

Keeping a recipe meal bank to avoid re-writing the meals I cook often 

Keep track of what ingredients you use for the recipes you cook most frequently. The photo is dark and probably doesn’t show it well but I color coded the sticky notes to correspond to the meat e.g. a green dot = a chicken recipe. I’m OCD like that 🙂

3. Bill Paying

If you have bills due on the same dates each month just peel and re-stick instead of re-writing them out all the time

Related: How to color code bill paying in your calendar (7 different ways)

If you don’t have many bills to pay, a small sticky note in the sidebar works well

4. Recurring tasks

For your personal life such as cleaning, or for weekly and monthly blogging and business tasks.

5. Notes to self

6. For when you run out of space in your planner!

Related: Using the daily and weekly Momentum Planner by Productive Flourishing

7. Quick tasks

This is ideal for adding to your weekly spread to make sure you don’t forget anything.

8. Blogging

I’m a bit obsessed with color coding especially color-coding blog content. Not only is it much easier to relate something to a color, but it also makes your plans look pretty!

More on how I use sticky note for blog planning here: How to keep track of blog post ideas using sticky notes and a notebook 

I keep an idea bank of published blog posts and the date published so I can re-post an old blog post if I’m short on time

If you prefer to keep track of blog post ideas on the monthly calendar, use small post it notes with numbers that match up to a numbered list of blog post ideas. I like to color code but you could use any colored sticky notes.

9. Weekly spread

This was week 28 of the 52 Planners in 52 Weeks Challenge – I planned the entire week using sticky notes! Love all the color <3

This was Week 2 of the 52 Planners in 52 Weeks Challenge 

10. Pre-planning your week

Sticky note are ideal when you want to use planner stickers to work out where they go before you stick them and can’t re-peel them!

Related:  Week 13: Using a Kmart lists book to plan your week (planning by task, rather than by day) 

11. Page Markers

Tabs are ideal when setting up a new planner and you’re trying to decide what you’ll keep where, and also for marking pages in your textbooks.

12. Cleaning tasks

Other ways to use sticky notes

9. Clean your keyboard with the sticky side

10. Study notes & goals – place them on your bathroom mirror

11. Most important tasks for each day / week /  month

12. Borrowing books from the library – place the date it’s due back on a sticky note in the front of the book

13. Flashcards for studying

14. Wrapping around charger cords so you know which cord belongs to what device

15. A project that has a lot of sub-tasks and you’re short on space and are just working through them when you have time so you can move them from week to week

16. Quick tasks lists

17. Pre-planning the week (brain dumping tasks and and moving the sticky note from week to week – ideal for dispersing tasks you don’t want to do in between the more ‘fun’ tasks)

18. Definitions when studying – they stand out more on the page

19. Color coding your study notes e.g. associate each color with urgency such as due today, to revise etc.

YELLOW VERSUS COLORED STICKY NOTES

My personal preference is colored sticky notes. They stand out more, especially if you have a lot of categories to plan.

On the other hand, yellow sticky notes are cheaper, and if you like using colored pens you can see the ink, whereas if you use colored sticky notes you can really only use black pen.

Related: 50 Category Ideas for Color Coding Your Planner

If you can’t find sticky notes in the size you need to suit the planner that you’re using, you can always triim them to size.

MY FAVORITE STICKY NOTES ARE:

This list contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of these links I’ll receive a small commission in exchange for referring you.

• Small sticky notes are from Post it Note 3M (they have the biggest variety of colored sticky notes)
• 2 x 2″ colored sticky notes (Post it Note 3M brand)
• 2″ long x 1″ high sticky notes (Aspire Brand)
• Target lined sticky notes
• Post it Note lined sticky notes (although they’re pricey!)

Planner hack: If you don’t want to pay for lined sticky notes, place the sticky note over a page with lined paper and use the lines of that page as a guide instead.

More planning tips

• Best Paper for Printing Printables
• How to choose a binding system for your planner (comparison and which one I like the most) 
• 7 Planner supplies I don’t regret splurging on 
• 50 Tips for writing a better to do list that will make you more productive
• Choosing sections for your planner: what to keep in your weekly planner versus a household binder 

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