How I Use My Day Designer Planner for Weekly Organization

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Last updated on September 15th, 2023 at 01:53 pm

One of the biggest struggles in life is finding the time to do everything you need to do. From working to decluttering, from homeschooling to having fun, making time for it all is a struggle. The solution I’ve found is using a planner for organizing.

I know a lot of people prefer to use digital tools like iCal or Google Calendar, or ever Trello and Asana, to plan their days. While I use these tools, they’re not enough.

My planner works as an extension of my brain. In fact, writing things down by hand has been shown to be incredibly beneficial versus typing.

It’s always difficult to try out a new tool, digital or not, without understanding how to use it. So I’ve put together a tutorial on how I use my Day Designer planner for weekly organization.

If you want to know why I chose Day Designer, read this post.

Tips for using a Day Designer Planner

Before we get into using the planner, I want to give you some tips I wish I knew way back at the beginning.

Tip 01

Don’t be afraid to make a mess! It looks pretty and organized but planners are meant to get messy. I’ve learned to look past the pretty planner pictures on Pinterest. I use my planner as an extension of my brain –and it’s messy!

Tip 02

Keep it open in a place where you can see it. I spend most of my day at my desk, so I leave it open right next to me. 

Doing it this way ensures that I’ll actually use it. And the key to using a planner is to actually use it.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how I use my Day Designer Planner for daily and weekly organization.

Step 01

Before I begin marking anything in my planner, I do a brain download on a piece of regular paper. It looks like a typical to-do list, where everything that’s on my mind is written down in list format.

I don’t try to organize it yet. I just need to get it all out of my head and onto paper where I can start making sense of it all.

Step 02

Next, I highlight the things on the list that are essential to living. Those tasks are meal planning and prep, school drop-offs, paying bills, etc.

Step 03

I review the goals I wrote down in my Powersheets to make sure the next tasks I choose to do are aligned with my goals. 

The Powersheets make this easy because you create a Tending List every single month to focus on specific goals.

Then I highlight tasks on my to-do list that align with my monthly goals.

Step 04

Now I can start working inside my planner.

I’ll schedule items into my planner starting with tasks I call anchors. These are usually things that happen daily, such as homeschooling, lunch, quiet time, and dinner.

Next, I’ll add tasks that only happen on specific days. This is where batching your days helps you to figure out what to do on specific days.

Step 05

I decide which tasks to work on based on the projects I have in the works. Instead of floundering, I created a batching schedule for what types of projects I’ll work on for that week.

Step 06

On the right-hand, “To-Do” section of my planner, I’ll write down in more detail the tasks that need to happen during a particular block of time. I’ll also include any little tasks that don’t necessarily need scheduling but still need to get done. 

Step 07

I fill in the top boxes of the Day Designer planner. I really only use the “Dinner” and “Don’t Forget” boxes, which are extremely handy.

Step 08

I wait until the actual day to write down my top three for the day. Sometimes plans and priorities change, so I have to leave space for that. Waiting to write down my top priorities for the day helps me to stay more focused.

That’s a look behind-the-scenes at how I use my Day Designer planner. This process is liable to change because I’m constantly assessing if it’s actually working for me.