Common Daily Planner Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Have you been using a daily planner for a while, but find that you aren’t really benefiting from it? Maybe you are losing interest, or you just don’t really see why you should be using it every day. If this sounds like you, it might come down to some common mistakes many people make when using a planner for the first time.

You Are Using More Than One Planner

This is a very common mistake, often made by people who feel like they need to separate their personal and professional life. While this is understandable, it can be really hard to focus on more than one daily planner at a time. Find a planner that allows you to organize both your personal and professional life, whether that means using the monthly calendar for your personal appointments, and weekly calendar for work-related tasks, or getting a planner that has blank pages to write down notes and to-do lists as needed.

You Don’t Love the Planner You Are Using

Another mistake people often make when using a planner is buying one on impulse, not enjoying it, then forcing themselves to use it. While you probably don’t want to waste money on another expensive planner, think of how it is affecting you when using a planner you don’t like. You probably never get excited about opening it up, find it awkward to write in, and don’t benefit because it doesn’t have everything you are looking for. In this case, it is worth the money to buy one that you absolutely fall in love with.

You Rarely Remember to use it Daily

A daily planner is exactly that – something you use daily. If you are just using it once a week to write in your appointments, but don’t check it each day, you are probably missing out on quite a bit. You need to at least open it up every day so you know what tasks you have that day, check on your appointments, and fill out the information on any daily pages your planner might have. This is how you will get the most out of it.

It is Being Used Like a Journal 

While some planners do have journaling pages, it shouldn’t really be used as a journal. Try to keep your planner and journal separate and use them for different things. It allows you to focus on what you are doing, instead of trying to journal in a very small space in your planner, which doesn’t help with major issues you might be facing.