Planner’s Guide: The Weekly – Daily Dilemma
If you’ve added daily planning to your routine recently (or want to try it), you may encounter the “weekly-daily dilemma”. Specifically, we are referring to the #plannerproblem that seems to be creeping up around the community. You love the functionality of using a daily layout but have remorse for letting go of your beloved weekly overview. Or you decide to keep both a weekly and daily layout, but feel as if you are constantly rewriting your tasks and appointments over and over again. Don’t take this the wrong way, daily planning is amazing and can even boost productivity. But considering all planners also come with a monthly spread too, it can get a bit overwhelming.
In theory, it seems like ultimate planner peace. The monthly layouts are for high level planning, weekly layouts for “at-a-glance” upcoming appointments and daily layouts for granular tasks. However, figuring out the best system that works for you can be a bit tricky. So what’s a planner to do?
We have a few suggestions to help with the struggle of wanting/needing to use all the layouts without loosing your mind in the process.
Consider using an “all-in-one planner” because it is specifically designed for all the layouts to flow in a sequence that will work for your optimal productivity and planning. Rather than “franken-planning” which may cause you to take out extra pages and spreads that are not necessary and compromising the flow and design which could leave you feeling frustrated.
Commit to a system (either weekly or daily) and make it work for you. Having double planners will for sure lead to double the writing and in most cases double the decorating and stickers as well. It’s fine to have multiple planners if there are specific intentions and purposes for each (ie. wellness, memory, faith) but having several planners to keep track of your schedule and tasks will ultimately become overwhelming and things can start to fall through the cracks.
Try to be intentional with “what goes where” like using your monthly to track your budget or dashboard pages for goals or brain dumps. Get creative and make the pages work for you. This will help minimize the duplication of writing things multiple times and increase the function of whatever planner you are using.
Designate a “catch all” layout where everything goes and then refer back to it when planning in the other layouts when the time gets closer. Choose the layout that you tend to gravitate towards most and works best with your brain/thinking. This will make planning less stressful and you won’t be flipping through pages wondering where you wrote something down.
Create a routine or system for migrating information between planners and layouts so nothing gets lost. Whether you are using one planner with multiple layouts or multiple planners, having a routine in place that is easy to maintain will make sure your planner is always up to date and keep you coming back and excited to use it.
Here is some inspiration from the community on using multiple layouts, planners and tracking all the things:
It’s totally ok and fun to try out new planners and layouts but don’t feel pressured by what other people are doing. Stick with what brings you joy and helps keep you organized. Happy planning!