There are 3 main planner layouts:

• Vertical
• Horizontal
• Hourly

My personal preference is horizontal planners but if you’re still trying to decide on a layout, here are some pros and cons to consider for each!

Horizontal Planners

Pros of Horizontal Planners

• Room for writing long tasks without needing multiple lines to write those tasks
• Can split the daily planning space into 2 and still have enough room to write tasks

Week 6: Planning using the Horizontal Erin Condren Life Planner 

Cons of Horizontal Planners

• Less planner stickers available that are pre-sized to fit horizontal planners although you can use stickers designed for vertical planners and trim to size like I did when I used the mini MAMBI Happy Planner
• Can be awkward to use with stickers – e.g. an icon sticker can cover multiple lines leaving your planning space a bit of a puzzle to squeeze everything in
• Most horizontal weekly planners don’t have an extra notes section for habit tracking etc.
• Make sure you check weekends aren’t combined (i.e. the space for daily planning split into 2 so Saturday and Sunday have half the planning space)
• Difficult to do time blocking
• Most horizontal planners don’t have hours of the day pre-printed (if you want one where you can choose your own I recommend the Ashley Shelly planner)

Using an Erin Condren size sticker kit in the Horizontal life planner

Using Erin Condren vertical life planner size stickers in the MAMBI Mini Happy Planner (trimmed down to fit)

This could be a pro or a con depending on your personal preference, but horizontal planners tend to have neutral color schemes (black and white)

Who should use a horizontal planner?

• If you write long tasks
• Most vertical planners have 3 or more categories per day but if you only need 2 then a horizontal layout provides a good amount of space, if you rule a line through the middle of the box
• If you don’t like tasks to extend over multiple lines – you want to keep your spread clean and simple

Using the Goal Digger planner for week 30

Vertical Planners

Pros of Vertical Planners

• If you have short tasks you’ll fit a lot in
• Many options for planner stickers to choose from (especially themed kits)

Week 17: Using the Plum Paper Vertical Weekly Planner

Cons of Vertical Planners

• It can be harder to find vertical planners that are lined (not good if you write crooked without lines like I do!)
• More prone to wasting space – if there aren’t lines I like to leave a gap between each task so it doesn’t end up crowded. The problem with doing this is that you’ll soon run out of space
• If you have long tasks, you’ll waste a lot of space – most of them you can only fit about 3 words before needing a new line – you’ll probably need to use abbreviations e.g. MP for ‘Meal Plan’ or write really small to fit it all in
• Overall, I feel there’s less functional space for planning in a vertical planner

Week 24: Using Erin Condren Size Planner Stickers in MAMBI Classic Happy Planner

Who should use a vertical planner?

• People that don’t have many tasks
• If you like using planner stickers & decorating your planner in general
• Bloggers – vertical layouts are ideal for blogging as the workflow tasks for a blog post ‘write draft’, ‘edit’ post’ etc. are short, so they fit perfectly in a vertical planner without wasting space

Related: How to make your own custom Erin Condren (or any planner) header title section planner stickers (step by step video tutorial)   

Something in between?

A good cross between a vertical and horizontal planner are planners with lots of categories to compartmentalise your life such as the Plum Paper ‘Me Planner’ and Limelife Planners (layout C).

Week 29: Using the Plum Paper Me Planner

Hourly Planners

Pros of Hourly Planners

• Ideal for scheduling – if you’re someone that procrastinates an hourly planner will help keep you on track
• You’re not left wondering what you should be doing next – the day is all planned out for you so if you stick to the plan you know you’ll get it done

Cons of Hourly Planners

• Less planner stickers available that are pre-sized to fit hourly planners although you can use stickers designed for vertical planners and trim to size
• Sometimes you have extra tasks that pop up, if you’ve already scheduled your entire day for each hour it doesn’t leave much room for flexibility
• If a task takes longer than you expect it to, you’ll be whiting things out and it can leave you feeling like you didn’t accomplish much that day
• The hours pre-printed may not work for you. Some people like to wake up at 5am. I’m not one of them. I’d rather the planner start at 9am and go to midnight. I created hourly planner stickers but if you’re having to cover up the hours each week (or white them out using correction tape) it’s going to get a bit annoying and time consuming to set up the weekly spread.

Week 9: Customising the Erin Condren hourly planner for task based planning 

Who should use an hourly planners?

• People that work from home or don’t have a traditional 9 – 5 job for example, if you work for a direct sales company
• People that work a 9 – 5 job that involves a lot of client meetings, deadlines and appointments
• Students for managing class times, extra-curriculars, social events and part-time work

Dashboard layout

Dashboard is another option that’s not as widely available (but you could always rule up your own in a bullet journal, or making your printables). This layout has days of the week on 1 page and lists, notes, habit trackers, meal planners (and sometimes other sections) on the right page.

Read more: Trying out the Happy Planner Dashboard Layout

Pros of Dashboard Planners

• Wider columns than vertical planners, but less dead space than in horizontal planners
• If you turn the pages back on themselves i.e. only want to view / have open one page at a time you can still see your entire week – it’s not spread out over 2 pages

Cons of Dashboard Planners

• While there are more planner companies offering dashboard layouts nowadays, there are still less options than vertical, horizontal and hourly planners
• The categories / titles on the second page may not suit your needs so you could end up spending a bit of money on stickers, or having to spend a bit of extra time setting up your spread (whiteout, re-writing your titles)

Who should use dashboard planners?

• People that don’t have a lot of appointments, they prefer to work off a to do list and don’t need to complete things on a specific day
• Would rather work off a to do list (hence the smaller weekly planning section)
• if you want to keep things separate e.g.one page for your schedule, and one page for all of your work stuff

Want to learn how to make your own planner?

Related Posts:

• Buying a planner versus DIYing and making your own (pros and cons) 
• How to choose a binding system for your planner (comparison and which one I like the most) 
• 60 Facebook groups for planner addicts
• The Process Behind Making a Printable Planner

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