Best Planners for 2022: What I’m Trying

I’ve known for a while that my current system for personal organization and time management isn’t working for me anymore. I just haven’t had any time to do something about it!

Now that 2022 is on the horizon, I’m trying to carve out time to figure out what changes I want to make as we head into the new year.

What’s Not Working

Before I come up with solutions to a problem, I like to truly figure out what the problem is. That way, I can make sure that my ultimate solution aligns with the root cause of the problem.

My current system combines my entire life—personal and professional—into one system. And that approach was absolutely necessary when my job overwhelmed every single aspect of my life. But now that I’m 9 years into my current job and it’s more under control, I feel like I want separation between the personal and the professional.

I’ll keep using my Google Calendar for work and my One Note system for tracking all of my work to-dos. I also use an assortment of Google Sheets for project planning across the year and prompting my monthly reflection process.

But instead of tracking my personal to-dos in my One Note system, I want to move them into a separate system.

What do I want to be true about the new system?

Even though I’m moving into two-system territory, I don’t want to lose simplicity and ease. That’s why I decided to combine my notebook habit with the new personal planner system I’m trying to bring into my life. I currently carry a notebook with me everywhere I go to jot down anything and everything. So my plan is to evolve that notebook into a place to keep track of my annual personal goals, monthly tracking, and weekly to-do lists.

When I started my search process, I had only a vague notion about what I was looking for. I wanted it to be a notebook and a planner.

Then I started scrolling through lists (like this one and this one) about the best planners on the market. As I researched options, I started making a more detailed list (in my notebook, of course) of what I was looking for. Here’s what came to the top:

1. Monthly Calendar: I want a monthly view in order to track my exercise, perimenopause symptoms, fun things, and quality of sleep. And I want it to be prepopulated with the dates for 2022. I am too lazy to write in my own dates for an entire year!
2. Weekly, Not Daily To-Do List: I don’t have enough time on any given day to do a lot of my own personal stuff. My professional work takes up most of my bandwidth. So it’s not helpful for me to have a daily to-do list. I prefer to keep one list for the week so I don’t have to run on the hamster wheel of rewriting unfinished tasks from one day to the next.
3. Daily Gratitude: Even though I don’t want to track my appointments in a paper planner or my daily to-dos, I do want a spot to capture daily gratitude.
4. Habit Tracker: In this podcast episode, I shared my 5 Daily Questions for a Life Well-Lived. I want to reflect on whether or not I achieved those things at the end of each day. Habit trackers are useful for these kinds of things.
5. Random Ideas: I get random ideas throughout the week (like things to include in my weekly newsletter), and I need a place to consolidate them.
6. Blank Paper: If I’m truly going to replace my notebook with a planner, I need blank paper! Ideally, it would be unlined.
7. Ease of Use: I want to easily be able to flip between the monthly view (which I update every day) and the weekly view (which I will also use every day).
8. Annual Goal Setting: I need space to Dream Big—to think and plan from the end of my life –> this year –> this month –> this week.
9. Beauty: My planner/notebook and I will be attached at the hip! I want it to be beautiful to behold.
10. Inexpensive: I always try to be as frugal as I can, so the less expensive, the better!
11. Simplicity: Some planners are very, very detailed. While some of the prompts got me excited, I ultimately felt inundated and overwhelmed. I decided to write “less is more” as one of my guiding principles.
12. Hardcover and Book Bound, Not a Coil: All of my notebooks are hardcovers and book-bound right now. I find hardcovers without coils to be very durable and flexible. I can write in my current notebook any time, any place.

What a list! The thing about lists like this is that we all have different things that matter to us. That’s why there are so many different planners on the market!

But knowing what matters to us is what helps us make decisions that bring us contentment.

Best Planners for 2022

Based on my criteria, here are the planners I considered:

• Moleskin Weekly Planner
• Purpose Planner
• Clever Fox
• Golden Coil
• Medium Ardium Planner
• Laurel Denise

I also considered going the Bullet Journal route and building my own planner. But I realized I do not have enough free time in my life for that!

In the end, I landed on the most simple of all, the Moleskin Weekly Planner. It has the monthly calendar I’m looking for, a place for weekly tracking, and blank pages. The only thing I don’t like is that the blank paper is lined.

My plan is to use it as a hybrid Bullet Journal. I will set up the blank pages to track the regular things I want to track, like my recurring to-do items, my 5 daily questions, etc.

I’m going to get myself some Bullet Journal supplies and maybe even a book like this for inspiration. I’ll probably sit down and make my journal for the entire year in one fell swoop. I know that’s not a great plan for making adjustments based on what I need. However, I want to work ahead and get it done during a vacation or a weekend instead of adding another weekly to-do item to my list.

Actually, I’m going to spend the next month or so testing out some formatting ideas in my current notebook. That way, I can make adjustments before preparing my planner for the entire year.

What’s Missing?

I definitely know I’m missing some of the more goal-oriented prompts found in other planners. What are some of your favorite pages and prompts in your planners? Maybe I could recreate them on my blank pages!

Final Thoughts: Best Planners for 2022

I’m really excited to bring a little creativity back into my life. It seems like a sign that things are stabilizing a bit for me. I’m looking forward to having beauty in my life. And I’m also excited for my boys to see me work on creative endeavors that involve doodling and coloring and stickers and washi tape (instead of just typing away at my computer).

I’ll let you know how it goes and whether or not I’ve truly found one of the best planners (for me) for 2022!