When I meet people that use a planner, they usually fall into 2 categories:

1. Planner addicts that use stickers to plan their day. They range from those who use a few stickers, to those that do no white space themed weekly spreads

2. People that plan using no planner stickers. These people may look at your planner and think, ‘what the heck is an adult doing sticking stickers in a planner?’

Well if you’re one of those people that fall into the second category, or if you’re part of the first category and just want some new ideas for using planner stickers, then read on.

Why I plan my day using planner stickers

Planner stickers not only look pretty and add a pop of color to your planner, they also serve a couple of purposes:

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Linked mentioned in the video

• 52 Planners in 52 Weeks challenge
• Free printables library
• Week 8: Weekly Planning using the Plum Paper Memory Keeper Book
• Week 6: Planning using the Horizontal Erin Condren Life Planner 
• More tips on how to choose the right planner stickers for you in this post
• Printable planner stickers are available in my Etsy shop
• Printed & kiss cut stickers are available in my sister’s planner supplies shop

1. Helps flag important tasks and due dates

Planner stickers are my favorite way to flag due dates! Some of the ways I use stickers for things I need to remember are:

• Icon stickers for bin day and cleaning tasks
• For bills there are numerous types of bill due stickers from icons to stickers with space to write what the bill is for and the amount
• Asterisk stickers for priority tasks
• I also use a mix of don’t forget header /title stickers for creating categorised lists within my planner spreads
• Habit tracker stickers for social media posting as well as healthy eating and exercise

Tip: place stickers for due dates like bills a few days before it’s due. This gives time for money to transfer so you aren’t hit with late fees.

I think there’s a mis-conception that you have to use a sticker for everything you plan. You don’t. Some weeks I’ll use lots of planner stickers, and other weeks I’ll keep it fairly minimal. I also change it up so some weeks I’ll use mainly icon stickers and other weeks I’ll use lots of header stickers for list making.

This year I’m trying 52 planners in 52 weeks as I’m on a quest to find planner peace (If you aren’t already, click here to follow along on the challenge). So I’m trying different combinations of stickers to suit the different planner spreads. That’s another reason I love planning using stickers – you can use them with any type of planner (especially icon stickers).

Related: Which planner stickers are right for you? 

Planner stickers add a pop of color and stand out among a sea of text! This was week 7 of the 52 Planners in 52 Weeks challenge.  

2. Keeps your planner neat and organized

I have messy hand-writing and if I don’t use planner stickers, my weekly spread tends to turn into a jumbled mess of hand-written scrawls. As soon as my planner starts to look messy things get messier because I think ‘oh well, it’s already a mess’ then I start writing things in the margin, in sections of the planner where they’re not ‘supposed’ to go (such as personal reminders in the work section). All of this leaves me disorganized, stressed and unproductive.

Category stickers are ideal for segmenting a planner. Some category ideas are:

• Different colors for each subject you take at school or college, or if you’re a teacher, each subject you teach
• Extracurricular activities
• Chores/cleaning tasks
• Cleaning zones – you might also like this cleaning zones planner insert
• Meal planning – you might also like this meal planner insert
• Children’s schedule
• Exercise
• Scheduling
• Mom
• Dad
• Bills to pay
• Blog to do
• To do
• Business to do
• Things to order (if you have a business, direct sales business etc.)
• Errands
• Reminders/Don’t forget
• Appointments
• Organizing by school subject e.g. assignments, homework and examples for math in blue, or all exams in blue, all assignments in pink, all homework in orange etc.
• Different colors for different clients e.g. if you have a photography business
• Different colors for different products you’re working on if you’re a business or different projects if you have a hobby e.g. sewing
• Any recurring/routine task that you’re sick of hand-writing into your planner all the time!

Yes you could write these titles out using pen and use a colored pen or highlighter to make the titles stand out, but stickers stand out more 🙂

Weekly Planning using the Plum Paper Memory Keeper Book (52 Planners in 52 Weeks: Week 8)

3. Keeps you productive

There are many types of stickers that can increase your productivity. My favorite are top 3 planner stickers. They can be used in each box of the monthly calendar, in the sidebar of the monthly or weekly view of your planner, as well as the daily planning space.

By choosing the top 3 tasks it keeps me focused and on track to achieving my goals.

At the start of each month I choose 3 goals to focus on. This then filters through to the goals I set each week. So in February I was working on getting ahead on blog posts, learning via an ecourse on blogging that I enrolled in and focusing on social media (follow me on Pinterest if you aren’t already!)

Then this filters down to each day. So I plan what I need to do each day, to achieve the weekly goals to, in turn, achieve the monthly goals (think of like a hierarchy).

 

Customising the Erin Condren hourly planner for task based planning 

Daily habit tracking stickers such as these are also ideal for tracking routine tasks. I mainly use routine stickers for:

• Water intake
• Hair washing nights (and nights I need to do a mud mask for my acne)
• Laundry
• Social media posting
• Days I posted on the blog

If you don’t have many habits to track, stickers are ideal. However, if you have a lot of habits, you might prefer this free printable habit tracker.

Related: 100 things to put in your habit tracker of your planner or bullet journal (plus free printable habit tracker)

4. Quicker to set up the week

I’ve considered trying bullet journalling but to me it looks like it would take a long time to set up the spread. I’m a perfectionist so would spend far too long deciding on a layout  and rubbing out lines until it was perfect. In the past I’ve been prone to spending too much time planning how I’m going to plan rather than actually implementing the plan.

Plus, blank pages tend to overwhelm me. So many possibility, what to choose? So I end up not choosing anything! I much prefer structured planners or planners with minimal layouts that have ‘good bones’ that I can customise to suit my planning needs. Planner stickers are the main way I customise planners by creating extra sections such as the sidebar stickers in the image below.

Icon stickers are perfect for reminders for recurring and routine tasks. So instead of writing ‘post to Instagram‘ or ‘Pin to Pinterest’ every day of the week, I can use a mini icon sticker (such as those in the image below), which take up hardly any space, or habit tracking sidebar stickers to save even more space by combing it with other tasks.Such as these for healthy habits and these social media stickers.

Planning using the Horizontal Erin Condren Life Planner 

5. Make better use of white space

The notes pages of planner tend end up being under-utilized and left blank due to indecision of what to use those pages for, or they end up being a disorganized brain dumped mess. Stickers can be used not just in the monthly calendar and weekly view, but also on the notes pages.

Title stickers such as to do lists, meal planning, books to read etc. are a good way to make better use of the pages. Yes you could hand-write these titles but like I mentioned ^ above ^ when I hand-write it tends to get messy – stickers stand out amongst a sea of pen. Plus when I’m flicking through my planner, stickers stand out more so I can find the page I’m looking for faster.

Related: Which planner stickers are right for you? 

Planning with stickers has many benefits!

The weeks I plan using stickers:

• My planner ends up more neat and organized
• I don’t waste space in my planner, nor have to re-write the same tasks over and over again
• I’m more productive
• I don’t miss due dates and hence, I never pay late fees
• I can set up the weekly spread quickly, so I can focus on the most important part – implementing the plan

I hope this post better explained why us planner addicts squeal over planner stickers on YouTube. If you know someone who doesn’t understand your planner sticker addiction, please send them to this post or pin it to Pinterest 🙂

Want to learn how to make planner stickers?

If you were part of the second category and I’ve persuaded to give planning with stickers a go, or you love planner stickers and want to create your own custom stickers that suit your planning needs, in the colors you like, fonts you like, using graphics and patterns you like and in the the perfect size for the planner you’re using, click here to enrol in my ecourse: How to Make Planner Stickers.

Want to learn how to make your own planner stickers? Click here for step by step tutorials! 

SOME OF THE TUTORIALS IN THE COURSE INCLUDE:

GETTING STARTED

• Silhouette portrait versus cameo: how to choose which machine to use
• Printed versus printable stickers
• File formats (and which file format you should be using)
• Different types of label paper: which one is best?
• Tips/things to keep in mind when making planner stickers
• Choosing the right size for your sticker sheets
• Printing stickers: how to make the colors POP

SILHOUETTE BEGINNER TUTORIALS

• Introduction to silhouette studio (I shared this video as a free pre-lude to the course in this post)
• How to use the align tools in Silhouette Studio
• How to create perfectly proportioned shapes
• How to ensure there is no white space on your stickers, even if your blade slips (2 methods)
• Choosing cut settings for your silhouette

FONTS

• Using the text tool in Silhouette
• Downloading and installing fonts
• Recommended fonts list

CHOOSING COLORS

• How to choose colors (and my favorite resource)
• Popular color combinations
• Other favorite color tool resources
• How to change colors in Silhouette
• How to color match anything
• The printables I use to keep track of colors used in sticker kits (download)
• Bonus: how to make icons white

STICKER SIZE DIMENSIONS

• Plum Paper Sticker Size Dimensions (monthly calendar, vertical, horizontal, student planner, notes and checklist)
• Erin Condren Planner Sticker Size Dimensions (monthly calendar, vertical, hourly, horizontal, teacher planner)
• Limelife Planner Dimensions (All planner styles & sizes)
• MAMBI Happy Planner Dimensions (mini Happy Planner, Classic and Big Vertical)

DESIGN TUTORIALS

• Icon stickers (video tutorial)
• Rounded rectangle or square stickers (video tutorial)
• How to make header stickers (video tutorial)
• Checklist stickers (video tutorial)
• How to make quarter box labels – perfect for appointments, bill due stickers, reminders etc. (3 different styles) (video tutorial)
• How to make hydrate stickers (video tutorial)
• Routine stickers (video tutorial)
• How to make flag stickers (video tutorial)
• Ombre stickers (2 different ways) (Video tutorials)
• Sidebar stickers (2 different ways) (video tutorials)
• How to make word only stickers (video tutorial)
• How to add lined writing space to stickers (video tutorial)
• Making stickers (at any size you like) with patterns (video tutorial)
• How to make teardrop stickers (video tutorial)
• How to make scallop border (video tutorial) and ideas for using it in your sticker design
• How to make hexagon stickers (video tutorial)

 

HOW TO MAKE YOUR STICKERS UNIQUE

• 15 Ways to make your stickers unique
• Making multi-colored stickers (video tutorial)
• Making stickers using pattern overlays (and where to find them) (video tutorial)
• 10 Ways to use leftover space on your sticker sheets

If you’re thinking, I’d love to make them and I’d love to start a sticker shop on Etsy, but aren’t there already enough people making and selling stickers? The answer I always say is no! There are plenty of sticker shops making the same type of stickers. In the course I provide lots of examples of sticker designs and tweaks you can make to a basic design to make it unique and make your stickers stand out. The planner craze isn’t going away anytime soon!

SPEEDING UP THE DESIGN PROCESS

• How to quickly recolor stickers (video tutorial)
• My secret weapon for making a LOT of stickers in a short amount of time
• How to quickly resize stickers (video tutorial)
• How to efficiently make an entire sheet of stickers – 2 options (video tutorials)
• Download my quality control / workflow checklist for making perfect planner stickers

MAKING PLANNER STICKER KITS

• How many (and what type) of stickers to include in your sticker kits
• How to make a sticker kit
• Essential things to include when making a sticker kit
• How to make a lot of sticker kits in a short amount of time (video tutorial)

Click here to enroll in the course

STARTING A STICKER BUSINESS

• Pricing your stickers
• Tips for selling physical stickers
• Selling digital files
• Additional Tools for growing your Etsy business

RESOURCES

• 10 Printable worksheets to organize your sticker making
• Where to get icons to use for your stickers (my favorite resources list)
• How to download icons and save them to your computer (video tutorial)
• Best printer brand for printing stickers
• Where to buy label paper (resource list)
• 130+ sticker ideas
• Guide to terms of use and licencing
• Where to get graphics & patterns to use in your stickers
• 100 Stock Photo Websites for making promotion images for your stickers (downloadable list)
• Coupon for my graphics shop: PaperCravings and planner printables + business tools shop, AllAboutTheHouse
• Coupon for my ecourse: How to make patterns in Photoshop and Monetize your Designs

Click here to enroll in the course

I’m intending to add more tutorials to the course (you’re welcome to send me an email with a request for a tutorial ? ) and if I do so and you’re already enrolled, you’ll get access to any updated and additional tutorials for no additional cost. You’ll receive lifetime access to the course!

If you haven’t already, you can watch the first tutorial of the ecourse here.

If you’d like to enroll in the course, here is the link.

If you want to finally learn how to make the perfect planner stickers that suit YOUR planning needs, in the colours you like, in fonts that you like etc. then what are you waiting for?!

Click here to enroll in the course

If you have any questions about the ecourse, just send me an email: allaboutplanners@gmail.com