7 Awesome Planners to Sort Out Your Life

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
— Benjamin Franklin

I’ve been planning and organising for as long as I can remember. During the days of university, you’d always find me running off three types of planners with everything colour coordinated and highlighted. It sounds crazy — almost unhealthy — but it helped me keep on top of my work, academic and personal responsibilities. In retrospect, I don’t think there’s ever been a time where I haven’t had a planner to work off, so when I meet people who live their days by the improvised schedule in their own head I’m bewildered.

There’s no harm in living life without a planner. Sometimes the best things in life happen unscheduled. But from personal experience, I find I achieve a lot more by organising my days, weeks and months way in advance. So, without further ado, here’s a bunch of motivating and stylish planners that’ll make sorting your life out a breeze.

1. The Basics

   

   Kikki.K Time Planners & Personal Planners ($44.95 +)

   I’ve been in love with Kikki.K’s leather planners for as long as I can remember and two years ago I finally treated myself to their Teal Time Planner. What I like most about their planners are their refill feature. Instead of buying a brand new diary every year, all I have to do is buy the refills. Plus, because it’s ring bound, I can add my own additions in between the pages like my habit and mood trackers. One thing to note about the Time Planners and Personal Planners is that they vary in content. The Time Planners are all tabbed up with “Monthly View”, “Weekly View”, “Addresses”, “Birthdays & Anniversaries”, “Shops & Restaurants”, “To Do” and “Expenses”. On the other hand, the Personal Planners are almost blank so you can divide the sections up to what’s important to you. While their planners don’t have roadmaps, reflections or daily questions like the planners later listed, it’s very easy to include these and personalise them to fit your own needs.

2. Goal Focused
   

   

   MiGoals ($24.95 +)

   While goals can be difficult to outline, and even harder to stick by, they are worth having around. Goals have an incredible number of benefits. They help you progress forward in life, make your dreams doable, endorse self-belief, allow you to practice self-evaluation and help you to truely understand what you want in life. That’s why MiGoals have designed an inspiring goal orientated diary to help you get your daily shit done as well as triumphing those “one day” dreams. The diary goes through how to set goals (which is just as important as sticking to them) by creating a vision, setting up realistic time frames, and outlining the steps and daily actions necessary to achieve your goals. The MiGoals diary is primarily a weekly view spread over two pages, although it does feature monthly views so you can see your life and goals from a birds-eye perspective. It’s also stocked with weekly habit trackers, motivational quotes, goal worksheets and quarterly reviews so you can track your progress.

3. Driven by Passion

   

   Passion Planner ($25 +)

   Oprah Winfrey once said, “Passion is energy. Feel the power from focusing on what excites you.” It was the power of passion that helped Founder, CEO and Designer of Passion Planner, Angelia Trinidad, to overcome her analysis paralysis after completing college. She realised that her life, and the lives of many others, were driven by the successes other people had defined, rather than driving towards successes that we defined for ourselves. So Angelia made a product she wished she’d had in the overwhelming aftermath of college: a planner that focussed on love, gratitude, self-motivation and pursuing your passions. The planner starts off with a “Passion Roadmap” so you can create your wishlist, prioritise, plan and work towards your dreams. It also includes monthly reviews and is structured with weekly and monthly views over a two page spread. What I love most about the Passion Planner are the extras that surround your every day diary: personal to-do list and projects, work to-do list and projects, people to see, places to visit, week and monthly focuses, good things that happened, not to-do list, mind maps and space of infinite possibility.

4. Minimal, Yet Stylish

   

   
   Jot It Down ($63.83 +)

   These guys are seriously killing the aesthetic factor here! Their diaries and journals are so stunning, it’s hard to not want to organise your life and jot everything down. While their diaries aren’t as diverse as the others on this list, they do feature inspirational quotes, tear out to-do lists and tear out DIY business cards on top of their practical weekly and monthly layouts. Make sure to check out their blog too for productivity tips.

5. Formulated for Writers

   

   Pilot Press ($19.95)

   Recommended by Writers Victoria, Brisbane Writers Festival and Tasmanian Writers’ Festival this nifty diary is perfect for every wordsmith. It’s any wonder, the diary is a massive collaboration between big names in Australia’s writing industry, such as Australian Society of Authors, Australian Writers’ Centre, Emerging Writers Festival and Kill Your Darlings. This spiralled spectacular features a ton of extras that’ll help writers go that extra mile. Their “Pilot Pages” lists sensible and helpful advice from writing pros while their “Craft Pages” offer references for manuscript formatting, submitting, editing, punctuation and style. “Traffic Control” allows you to keep track of your submissions and received feedback, and just incase you’re stuck on ideas, there are 52 prompts to get the creative cogs going again. Throughout their weekly diary layout — which contains inspiration and monthly writing exercises — there are more than 150 writing competitions, awards and festivals listed plus a massive A-Z list of essentials that include literary journals, state writers’ centres and books. My favourite feature of them all is their “Lent and Borrowed Books” section — now you’ll never lose a book to the kind act of sharing ever again!

6. Live for Happiness

   

   The Happiness Planner ($56 +)

   What are we living for if we’re not living to be happy? The Happiness Planner puts this important aspect of our lives into complete focus. The planner starts off with the opportunity to “Create Your Happiness Roadmap” by figuring out what makes you happy and unhappy, what habits do you want to improve on, how do you define success and where do you see yourself in the future. Their daily layouts differ from your regular planners, and includes awesome additions to your schedule, such as a daily inspirational quote, your exercise and meals, a to-do list and side notes. It also gives you the opportunity to reflect on what you’re excited about, what was good about the day, what you’re hoping for tomorrow and what you’re grateful for. Now that’s just the daily layout! The monthly view gives you the opportunity to list your personal and work goals with a motivating pep-talk before the month begins, and to finish off you reflect on the past four weeks to track your progress. If you’re after something a tad more stylish, The Happiness Planner have released The Peony Planner, which is basically a classy clutch and planner put together!

7. Personalise It

   

   The Daily Edited ($99.95 +)

   If you thought your diary couldn’t get any more personal, think again. With TDE, you can monogram any of their 100% saffiano leather goods, including their limited edition diaries. Complete with yearly, monthly and weekly view, their diary also features “Wishlists”, “Bucket Lists”, “Expenses”, “Addresses”, “Monthly Goals”, “Books & Movies” and “Eat & Drink” sections. With a monogram of your choice, plus the diary’s metallic gold foil edging, you’ll not only be sorting out every aspect of your life, you’ll be doing it in style.

Want to check out some more diary and planner inspo? Make sure to check out my Instagram and Pinterest board!