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Why daytimers and planners never organize your life

Last updated on April 12th, 2022 • Planners and Planning

You bought in.

You grabbed all the supplies. Set up your planner step by step.

You crafted your goals. You detailed your habits.

You did everything your planner asked you to do. The initial pages were in perfect order.

But then all those magical promises about organizing your life?

It just didn’t deliver.

And worse, you wind up blaming yourself. After all, if you were doing it right, it would work, wouldn’t it?

What if the problem isn’t you?

Here are 4 reasons that your paper planner fails you:

1. It’s too awkward to carry it around everywhere.

Planners that sit around don’t serve you. Yet, many planners are huge, bulky things that are a major hassle to carry around.

Planning is something that happens in real time. So when you schedule an appointment, or scribble a thought, it needs to be at your fingertips. (After all, if you could remember all the things, you wouldn’t need a planner in the first place. )

Planners come as sleek as passport size to as big and bulky as an old school dictionary. When you choose a journal or planner, it has to be portable.  If you don’t carry a briefcase every day, then go pocket sized. If you regularly sport a purse or messenger bag, you can go larger, but definitely not heavy and thick.

Choosing something that’s convenient to carry everywhere means you have what you need when you need it–which is wildly more effective than having it sit back at your place gathering dust.  

2. Your planner is too much like Sheldon Cooper.

The reason analog planners can be more effective than digital ones has to do with their emotional quotient. Beauty, color, handwriting, and art connect with us at a deep level. They engage our emotion.

But, if your planner is limited to the facts and figures of appointments and task lists without feeling–much like a favored character on The Big Bang Theory–then it has no power. You may as well just log things into your phone and call it a day.

The saying goes that “logic produces reason, but emotion produces action.”

If you want your planner to affect your life, it needs emotion. This can come through art, gratitude, the physical act of handwriting, inspirational quotes, vision casting, or a focus on “a why that makes you cry.”

Planners become impotent when they lack emotion because that’s the piece that sparks the action.

3. Your planner triggered a stationary addiction.

Our brain’s job is to keep us safe. So, it would rather focus on anything other than doing what we need to do to stretch ourselves to achieve our dreams–including spending hours deciding what plannner accessories to buy.

Our brain’s job is to keep us safe. So, it would rather focus on anything other than doing what we need to do to stretch ourselves to achieve our dreams–including spending hours deciding what plannner accessories to buy.

Who doesn’t love pens, paper, stickers, ink pads and dividers? With the vast array of planning supplies in gorgeous patterns and formats, it’s easy to run up an embarrassing credit card total.

The thing is that planner manufacturers know this about us. So much so that paper products for planning are a multi-million dollar a year industry. There are even huge conferences revolving around it.

Here’s what’s insidious about all of the clever products:

Our brain’s job is to keep us safe. So, it would rather focus on anything other than doing what we need to do to stretch ourselves to achieve our dreams–including spending hours deciding what plannner accessories to buy.

Our brains will gladly focus on whatever is new and shiny rather than doing the work of outlining the steps we need to take to get where we want to go.

It feels way safer to shop, than to think about things that will push us out of our comfort zone. Plus we get to rationalize that shopping is part of the planning process.

Remember, the first step in getting healthy is admitting you have a problem.

4. Your planner doesn’t think the same way you do.

All of us are wired differently. We have unique gifts. Different ways of seeing the world. (And quite frankly, different definitions of what an organized life looks like.)

Plus, our daily rhythms can be radically diverse. A single dad has a much different schedule and task list than a med student. (Though I’m pretty sure it requires the same amount of hours.)

A tool you are going to use daily to manage everything has to fit your life. Which is why one-size-fits-all doesn’t work. If your planner forces you to enter information in a format that doesn’t fit, there will be huge swatches of it that just aren’t relevant.

But it’s more than just fitting your life, it also has to think like you do.

Planning is putting thoughts to paper. If the planner lays out things in a way your brain doesn’t like, then it’s never going to harmonize with what you want to accomplish in the world.

Here’s the thing…

The main reason daytimers and planners will never solve your organization problems is that:

It isn’t the planner that gets you organized. It’s your brain, your eyes, and the paper.

Paper can be a powerful tool in getting things out of our heads so we can see them. And that shift from internal to external processing is a game-changer in getting control of our lives.

When we pull out a blank piece of paper, we can:

  • Mindmap an idea.
  • Pour out the random tasks pinging around in our head into a cogent list.
  • Remind ourselves of what’s important.
  • Journal jumbled thoughts until they become clear.
  • Diagram a plan.
  • Spill gratitude in the margins.
  • Vision board where we want to go.
  • Hatch mark habits to see progress.
  • Add color, artistic touches, and inspirational quotes to engage our emotion.

Which is why the most powerful planner is just a simple notebook with blank pages.

Why?

Because it gives you the freedom to not only think on paper, but to keep those thoughts, scribbles, and connected dots for reference later.

For sure, pre-printed planners can work like training wheels. But if they aren’t working for you, it isn’t that your planning is bad.  It’s that the tool doesn’t match your need.

You don’t need a better planner. You need something that helps you think, visualize, and remember..

Now, look at you getting organized!

Is your daytimer or planner failing to organize your life? Would it surprise you if I told you its the planner’s fault and not yours?

Why Daytimers and 
Never Fix Your Organization Problems
This is a handy Pinterest graphic so you can save it there

Doesn’t it feel great to have a tool that actually does what you need it to? To feel more organized in your head because your brain has a place where it can process the things that stress it out?

You have pages that only do what you need them to because you created them. You didn’t have to stress trying to pour your life into someone else’s boxes.

(And maybe your desk is even a little lighter because it doesn’t have an unused planning tome sitting on it anymore.)

Most importantly, you now no longer work for your planner.

Your planner works for you.

Which is what it was always meant to do.


Want tips on how to journal? Get the free ebook on How to Journal with 28 ways to journal and hundreds of resources so you can find the method that is right for you.

About Cathy Hutchison

Cathy Hutchison helps people get more joy, meaning, and freedom in a world of demands through the practice of visual journaling.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rosemary

    11/07/2018 at 9:18 PM

    Hi Cathy,

    I’m beginning to get the hang of a journal but don’t you need to carry round a big book for a planner? What would recommend for something really small that you can tuck into your handbag (purse) and that doesn’t pull your shoulder muscles out of their sockets?

    Reply
    • Cathy Hutchison

      11/07/2018 at 9:39 PM

      I find the A5 size of the Moleskine or Leuchtturm works really well for slipping in a purse or messenger bag. If you want to go smaller, look at the Midori Traveler. The traveler works off of inserts so you only have with you what you need. If you want to go even smaller, Midori has a passport size.

      Reply
  2. Michael F. Knowles, CPSM

    11/02/2019 at 3:20 PM

    OMG! Where was this my entire life??? I’ve bought every organizer known I think! I even have a shelf with those really cute Executive notebooks you get at conferences lined up. This whole time I thought it was me that was the problem, and it wasn’t!… for once 🙂
    I think I’ve finally found my sweet spot with organization. Got the right book, nice size (I like Executive size) and just got a cover that holds items like colored pens for drawing (Thanks Cathy).
    Not perfect, but getting there little by little. And each time a guy says something about my purple cover I just smile a big Texas grin… why? Because they will remember that cover and me from that moment on. Who wants to blend it anyway… that’s easy to do and boring…
    Keep Lighting the Way Cathy!
    Michael

    Reply

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Cathy helps people banish overwhelm,
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Simple can be beautiful. A small doodled flower. A Simple can be beautiful. A small doodled flower. An underline of color. Your #bulletjournal can be as elaborate as you like, but our lives are complex. #Simplicity feels good.
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I bought something that I wanted SO BAD when I was I bought something that I wanted SO BAD when I was seven years old. 

I realized that now that I'm a grown up I could just buy it. 

On Amazon. 

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I love learning about the authentic fascinations o I love learning about the authentic fascinations of the people in my world. The obscure hobbies they love. The ideas they just can't stop thinking about. The things they pour time (and money) into for no reason except that it gives them joy .

As you jump into 2023, I highly recommend purchasing a #notebook that you can take with you everywhere to feed this part of your life . Write down your inspirations. Capture ideas. Develop thoughts by reviewing them periodically. (And definitely scribble doodles in the margins--that's an important part.)

Engaging a #journaling practice--whatever that looks like for you--can give space for the quirky, beautiful, creative part of you to grow. And as it turns out, #visualthinking in a #journal is my personal, random fascination.

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I just did my 2022 annual review—a practice I le I just did my 2022 annual review—a practice I learned from @michalroots . 

As one part of this, I wrote the sentences that jumped out at me from my 2022 journals as I went page by page. It left me with a sense of what the year was about and gave me an appreciation for the incredible beauty of friends, creativity, inspiration, and big ideas. 

I also looked at my vision board to see what happened, and what didn’t. For the things that didn’t happen, I gave some heart time to figure out the level that I actually want them (and learned it was low.) The things that happened had a lot of desire behind them. (It was an interesting thing to observe.) 

If you want to take Michal’s course, DM him for the link. I found it a valuable process that I will continue going forward.
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Some links on this site are affiliate links and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The author receives a  small (really small) commission if you happen to buy something.  Funds are used to support journaling supplies & four crazy sweet Aussies who bark for treats every time I come in the door. (To be fair, I have a pattern of giving in to them.) I write about all kinds of journaling, and if Bullet Journaling is your thing, I’m here to support you. But if you want to go deep, go to the original source–Ryder Carroll, who created the system, and started it all at bulletjournal.com. I use the method daily which is why I started writing about it here.
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