If you have a planner with half empty pages or you need an excuse to use more than 1 planner (no judgement here, I’m so indecisive I use a different planner just about every week!) here are some ways to use your planner:

30 Purposes for Your Planner

1. Meal Planning & Grocery Lists
2. Work & deadlines
3. Renovation Planner
4. Birthdays & Events
5. Appointments & reminders (list of 50 in this post)
6. Trackers – habit tracking, TV show episodes etc. (100 things to put in your habit tracker in this post)
7. Projects / hobbies (for me this is ecourses but it could also be craft projects, DIY etc.)
8. Blogging
9. Business
10. YouTube channel, Instagram, Pinterest or other social media
11. Health – food & water intake, fitness, exercise
12. Travel / vacation planner
13. Budget planner
14. Productivity planner – pomodoro tracking etc.
15. Checklists – cleaning, last time I did etc.
16. To do lists – bucket lists, things to do when bored, weekend to do, routine tasks etc.
17. Novel writing
18. Home maintenance e.g. repairs, seasonal tasks, warranty information
19. Car maintenance
20. Garden planning
21. College & school
22. Inspirational quotes
23. Gratitude
24. Bible journaling
25. Property management / real estate
26. Wedding planning
27. Party planning
28. Reflection – weekly review, monthly, annual etc.
29. Orders & deliveries e.g. online shopping
30. Direct sales planner

What planner to use

There are so many different planners these days for just about any of the above. See my planner index of more than 300 planners in this post.

With so many planners it can be rather overwhelming trying to choose just 1 to stick with so here are a few posts about choosing a planner with some things to consider:

• Finding planner peace: 18 things to check before choosing a planner 
• Choosing a planner: Horizontal versus Vertical versus Hourly planners (which is right for you?)
• Finding planner peace: how to choose the right planner page size for you 
• Hardbound versus coil bound planners (pros and cons)
• How to choose a binding system for your planner (comparison and which one I like the most) 

If you can’t find a planner that suits your needs then printables or a bullet journal may be a better fit for you as can design the exact page you want.

Using 1 planner versus multiple

You may already combine a few of the above into 1 planner but I prefer to keep things separate.

• Budgeting – I used to use printables now I use Excel spreadsheets
• Weekly planning – I tend to use a different planner each week (I do combine personal planning & blog posts into the 1 planner)
• Blog & business planning – I use this for the bigger picture stuff when it comes to this blog, ecourses, my Etsy shops, master list of blog post ideas etc.
• Habit tracking – I used to do this weekly but have switched to monthly using printables I made (easy to stay on track & takes up less paper)
• Project planning – I’ve used various methods for ecourse planning – goal planners, bullet journals and my own printables
• Home maintenance – I have a reference book with printables in my ARC Staples discbound
• I use 3 ring binders for organizing tax & property documents
• Travel planning – I used to use printables in the ARC notebook, now I use Excel spreadsheets

I use a combination of planners made by others, my own printables, bullet journals plus the Happy Notes books & ARC Staples discbound notebooks.

I could try and cram it into 1 notebook… but it wouldn’t work very well. I don’t want something that is as thick as a brick, weighs a ton and that I’m flicking back and forth between the weekly spread and other pages. I prefer to keep pages that aren’t used as often e.g. packing lists separate to more frequently used pages. I’ve also switched to Excel spreadsheets for travel planning & budgeting.

More planning tips

• 10 Planner supplies that will help you plan your week faster
• ARC by Staples versus MAMBI – Which discbound system is better?
• Favorite dual tip highlighters for planning (roundup) 

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