When it comes to being a successful student, having a system that keeps all your tasks in one place is essential. But not all student planners are the same, as each one caters to a different type of person, depending on their individual needs and habits.
Luckily for you, I’ve searched far and wide for a planner that suits my own wants (and greed for aesthetics), as well as just looking at what planners are available, and I’ve compiled a list to share some of my findings for your benefit. Enjoy!
- BULLET JOURNAL
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For those who aren’t familiar, a bullet journal is a notebook with dotted grids. They are completely blank and allow for the most control and creativity with designs and templates. In my experience, bullet journal spreads can be the prettiest form of planning. I used one for academic planning in my senior year of high school, and it helped me organize everything in my life, from school assignments and tracking my mood to monthly budgeting, and more.
Because every next page was completely blank, I was able to focus on whatever I wanted next. I really enjoyed building a layout tailored to my aesthetic preferences, as keeping my bullet journal pretty to look at was a huge motivator for planning in general. However, it takes so much time to come up with and make each layout, not to mention decorating them. For this reason, I couldn’t keep up with how time-consuming my bullet journal became in college, and I had to abandon it.
I would rate the bullet journal highest for creative freedom and aesthetics, but lowest in terms of usability and convenience.
- GOODNOTES DIGITAL
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I turned to digital planning as a means of trying to balance convenience with what I wanted from a planner. As I searched for physical planners with a pre-determined layout, none of them felt right to me or stuck. I looked at several pre-templated planners on the market, but nothing exactly matched the weekly layout and habit trackers I had in mind. I decided the next best thing would be to make a single layout in Canva, and copy that until I had all the pages of a planner. All of it would be digital, so making a new, fully finished page took two clicks rather than two hours.
I found that Goodnotes was a great software to keep my planner and class notes in one area, but having to open an app to see what was next began to wear me down. I wished for something that could be integrated with my phone and give me digital reminders of the next thing on the list. While I still use my digital planner and template, it is more for organizing my thoughts each week rather than something I reference every day.
I rate digital planners highly for aesthetics and in the middle in terms of convenience and practicality.
- GOOGLE CALENDAR
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Finally, I landed on the humble, always reliable Google Calendar. This is what I use most often now. Once I figured out how to turn each type of task and event into a different colorway and settled on the cutest strawberry matcha theme, planning came as conveniently and integrated as it could get. I love that I get notification reminders for all my tasks, and I never forget an upcoming assignment or meeting now.Â
If you’re willing to settle a little bit on aesthetics and completely sacrifice budgeting and mood tracking, then Google Calendar is for you. This is what I use now in combination with my digital Goodnotes planner, and it serves me well.
I rate this extremely streamlined method as top tier for usability and convenience. It is in the low-mid tier for aesthetics and the lowest for creative freedom.Â
Hopefully, my experiences with these planners help you decide which is best for you and your needs. Let’s finish this semester strong!
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