Are you using the right vertical weekly planner? (10 layouts to consider)
Today’s post is the next part in my series on how to use a vertical weekly planner:
- Choosing a planner: Horizontal versus Vertical versus Hourly planners (which is right for you?)
- The best vertical weekly planners (my top 5)
- Are you using the right vertical weekly planner? (this post)
- 15 Quick and Simple Vertical Bullet Journal Weekly Spreads
- How to organize a vertical weekly planner (coming soon)
- Favorite planner supplies for a vertical weekly planner (coming soon)
Are you using the right vertical weekly planner? (10 layouts to consider)
If you’re not sure you’re using the right vertical weekly planner for you, here are some different layouts to consider (and some planners I like in this layout).
In no particular order…
1. Smaller weekend boxes
I really like the Whistle and Birch layouts. They’re simple and clean with sufficient space to plan and really maximise the page with zero dead space. This is the teacher layout.
Read more: Whistle and Birch Weekly Planner Review (All layouts + pen testing)
Whistle and Birch Rainbow Weekly Spread using the Zebra Mildliners
Use this layout if:
- You’re using a planner for your day job and you don’t need as much space on the weekend
- Trying to maintain a good work life balance – you could use the 3 boxes per day for tasks, fitness routine, meal planning
- Juggling multiple things but you want to keep everything in the 1 weekly spread e.g. study, work, life admin
2. 5 boxes for weekdays, with more space on the weekend
On the other hand, if you need more space to plan your weekends, there is this printable from my shop:
Part of the vertical weekly planners set if you want to experiment with multiple layouts
Instructions for resizing printables to any page size are in this post.
Agendio also has this very unique layout where you can choose the configuration of the sidebar. For this spread I chose skinny daily columns with jumbo lists but you could use the 2 columns for more weekend planning.
Custom Agendio Vertical Weekly Planner Review
3. Space underneath the weekday boxes
Many vertical weekly spreads have either 1 big box for each day, 3 boxes for each day, or are far too structured for my liking with sometimes 5 boxes / sections for each day.
I don’t like to schedule every single task to a day. If you feel the same, maybe you only need 2 sections for each day and a larger notes or habit tracker section underneath.
Read more: How long does it take to plan the week using an editable printable planner?
4. A dashboard vertical spread
So I just came up with that name as I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the below type of layout – one of those ‘everything has a place’ type layouts that are more than just the 7 days of the week.
This is a free printable from the Limelife Planners website. More details in this post.
5. Half vertical / half hourly
The Top Down Planner comes to mind:
If you like have a schedule but you don’t want the spread to only be a schedule, a split spread like the one above could work. You may need to use a key or some other method of coding recurring tasks, to keep the descriptions short to fit in the boxes. And you’ll have to give up half hourly and instead use an hourly schedule,
These planner companies offer vertical weekly planner layouts
- Plum Paper
- Erin Condren
- Happy Planner
- Day Designer
- Limelife planners
- SHP Planners
- Posy Planner
- Top Down Planner
These companies can create a custom planner for you
Related post: Biggest Ultimate Planner Roundup (Most Comprehensive List of 300 + Daily and Weekly Planners)
Bullet journal layouts
Bullet journaling allows you to get really specific with a layout you can tailor exactly to suit you. The cost of manufacturing a planner and marketing it in a saturated market and then compete with printable planners and digital planners – companies aren’t going to go down the route of creating non-generic planners that can be adapted in the ways I mentioned earlier in this post.
So if none of the above has worked for you, it’s time to experiment with some bullet journal layouts. See this post for ideas: 15 Quick and Simple Vertical Bullet Journal Weekly Spreads
Here are a few of my favorite ‘non-generic’ vertical weekly spreads:
6. Dashboard vertical weekly
Combining list boxes and specific sections you’d typically see on a separate page on their own, a spread like this can integrate them into the weekly spread, while still giving you the vertical boxes for each day. This layout works well if you only have a few set tasks or appointments to get done each day, but want more of an overall to do list that you can refer to when you have some spare time, instead of scheduling things out to the hour.
Here’s another variation I drew up based on the Roterunner Purpose Planner.
Roterunner Purpose Planner inspired bullet journal weekly spread
7. 3 columns per page
Move one of the daily boxes to the top of the page so you can have 3 wider columns per page. If you’re keeping your meal planning, habit tracking, projects etc. on the spare notes pages of your planner, or a separate planner entirely, then there’s no need to squish your plans into narrow columns.
8. Work and Personal
If you like to cluster categorised together, keep things organised with separate sections for your work and personal to do lists.
9. Combined weekend with habit tracker
I see a lot of planners put the days of the week at the top of the page and any space space down the bottom. If you’re using the note space for reminders, goals or anything else important that you want to highlight, then you could consider reversing the order like this:
10. My life is chaos and I can’t find anything
If you want to organize everything into mini lists by category, but still have space for daily planning, try a layout like this:
I used the Zebra Mildliners for this spread
11. Maybe I need a schedule, maybe I don’t
If you aren’t sure if you need an hourly schedule for each day, or maybe you work part time and only need it on those days, then a layout like the one below is flexible:
12. Half blank, half checklist
Blank box for appointments, meal planning, reminders, fitness etc. with checklists for daily to do’s. Or, you could use the top box for daily life admin tasks, and the bottom box for your project tasks
13. Daily priority
So I’ve seen this layout many times before in vertical planners but the priority boxes are too small for my liking. I don’t know how people manage to cram things into such a narrow width (most vertical columns are only 1.25″ wide). So if you’re drawing this up yourself, consider keeping 2 (or more!) lines per task.
What next?
Once you’ve tried some of these layouts and have found one that works for you, you can turn it into a printable and start creating a DIY planner. I use and recommend disc binding.
More posts in this series
- Choosing a planner: Horizontal versus Vertical versus Hourly planners (which is right for you?)
- The best vertical weekly planners (my top 5)
- Are you using the right vertical weekly planner? (this post)
- 15 Quick and Simple Vertical Bullet Journal Weekly Spreads
- How to organize a vertical weekly planner (coming soon)
- Favorite planner supplies for a vertical weekly planner (coming soon)
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