Hello everyone!
This episode on my back to school series will cover an array of planners, calendars and
apps so you get organized this year in the best possible way, while simplifying your
planning routine and making sure you won’t forget any of your appointments and assignments.
For school advice and tips follow me on Instagram and Tumblr where I post every day.
Also, don’t forget to subscribe and click the bell button to get notified for all my
back to school videos coming up this summer.
I will post twice a week until the mid of September so you can kickstart your school
year fully prepared.
For a full schedule just check the description box below in case you are curious about a
specific topic.
A good planner is the foundation of an organized school life.
Different people need different types of planners.
We all have different ways to organize.
Some people prefer to plan in a broader way, using monthly calendars.
Other people prefer more detail so daily planners provide the space you need to fill in all
of your tasks.
I will guide you through different options so you can adopt the best planning system
for you this year, according to budget, layout and bulk.
I’ve teamed up with Graphicstock for this video so I could provide you with a free twelve
months calendar for you to use this school year.
The calendar was created by using Graphicstock’s exclusive watercolor illustrations and a bit
of photo editing.
For instructions on how to download and print the calendar, just check the description box
below.
Graphicstock has the largest unlimited download library of graphics, photos and illustrations.
All of these come with a royalty-free agreement so you can use them freely and distribute
them, just like I am doing with these printables.
You simply save your favorite images into a project folder and then start downloading.
You don’t need to buy or get access to individual files like in other websites – as soon as
you’ve signed up, all of the images can be downloaded, with no hassles.
We are giving away a seven-day free trial of GraphicStock so you can get access to all
their images and DIY your own calendar, agendas and printables for this year.
Just click the link in the description box below to start downloading and get started
today!
Starting with the digital side of planning, there are tons of apps, programs and websites
I could recommend.
Right now I am loving Fantastical 2 for the Mac.
It has a great minimalistic layout, a dark theme, supports multiple calendars and accounts
and is overall really easy to manage.
However, besides being exclusive to Mac and iOs, it’s a paid app.
A free alternative is the calendar app that comes with all mac computers – it’s a
bit less powerful but overall a great program for managing your time and schedule.
Google calendar is also a classic, it’s free to use and it synchs with all of your
devices.
It has great customization options, labels and lets you manage your tasks with a yearly,
monthly, weekly or daily view.
The secret is to use a program or app that can import tasks and events from external
calendar sources and can be synchronized with multiple devices and even different programs.
One of my favorite apps for this is Sol Calendar.
You can use this app on your phone and use your icloud or google calendar account.
All the tasks and events you create with Sol Calendar will then appear on other apps that
use icloud like Calendar for Mac, Fantastical and so on.
The same happens for other windows or android apps and programs.
For all of you iphone users, Sol Calendar isn’t available on the app store but you
have a very similar option called Sunrise Calendar which also supports the major calendar
services and has a beautiful design and layout.
On the non-digital side, you have the holy grail of all planners and agendas, the bullet
journal.
A customizable planner and diary that you can design yourself and personalize according
to your needs.
I have a whole playlist on bullet journaling basics, to-dos, tips and DIY’s so check
that in the link in the right upper corner of the screen to get started.
For standard, printed agendas, the best option for customization are the planners from personal
planner.com.
You can design the exterior and interior of the planner, being able to chose from multiple
sizes, page layouts, covers, elastic colors, ruler colors, back pages and so on.
I also have a full review on this planner that you can check out on the description
box.
I couldn’t do a video about planners without mentioning the Erin Condren Life Planner.
This planner is gorgeous, featuring weekluy and monthly spreads, notes pages, stickers,
a perpetual calendar and multiple interchangeable covers.
The price, however, is not the best, and the international shipping can be a hassle for
anyone outside the US.
I have also felt a major drop in the printing quality during the past year so right now
it’s not a product I would recommend for students.
A good alternative from the same Brand is their academic planner, a more compact, perfect
bound planner that’s more budget friendly.
Still on the search for great coil bound planner alternatives for the Erin Condren, the Plum
Paper Planners have always been a great choice.
You can chose the layout and the cover from a variety of nature and geometrical patterns
and they come much cheaper in comparison, we’re talking about a price drop from 50
or 60$ to 32$ so it’s almost half the price.
The Happy Planner is also a good alternative.
The good thing about this one is that it hasn’t a coil but individual placed rings, which
mean it works like a binder, being much easier to customize and insert your own pages and
spreads.
It’s priced at around 20 or 30 dollars and comes with a whole array of different covers.
You also have tons of accessories to chose from, like planner dividers, stickers, inserts
and so on.
What I don’t like about this planner is the inside layout – I think the design is
still poor in comparison to other planners in the market, the date numbers are too big
and I don’t like the color scheme that they’ve used.
Other planner category that’s great for students is the planner binder.
Besides the Bullet Journal, this type of planner is the king of customization since every single
page that goes inside is of your own choice.
I have used a Filofax for many months and I am currently excited to start using it again
as a home organizer.
Filofax provides tons of inserts, from yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, notes pages, colored
pages, budget planners, you name it.
You can also find tons of inserts at Etsy – some of them are downloadable PDF’s
that you can print at home and cut to the size of your planner.
For the most creative, you can also create your inserts easily with a design or photo
editing software or even with Microsoft Word.
Tell me in the comments below if you’d like to see a tutorial on how to create your own
inserts and I will be sure to make one for you.
Still on the Binder Planner category, Kikki K also has amazing planners.
They are more colourful and cheerful than the Filofax and usually feature gold rings,
and more pockets and organization on the binder itself.
These are shipped from Australia, so if you are overseas, that can be a problem, since
the shipping is expensive and you’ll probably have to pay for customs.
However, Kikki K has opened a variety of stores around the US and United Kingdom so you can
still get your hands in one of their planners without ordering online.
Other alternatives are the CarpeDIem planners and Webster’s Pages Color Crush Planners.
Perfect bound or hardbound planners are the most compact out of all categories and they
are also very lightweight.
A classic example is the Moleskine 18 Months Planners.
They come in a variety of sizes and colors, feature monthly and weekly pages as well as
a page for notes in each week.
I’ve actually used these planners for a couple of years before I was introduced to
other brands and I still swear by these.
They are also the cheaper planners in this list.
Leuchtturm also has similar planners to the Moleskine planners and at a similar price
point.
They also offer different sizes, layouts, from monthly, weekly, weekly with notes, academic
and so on.
Between the two, I prefer Leuchtturm’s paper quality so if I had to choose one I would
go with it.
However, sometimes I have difficulty finding the inside layout I want for the planner sizes
that they have available so that’s something to have in mind.
Erin Condren has also released a new hard bound life planner.
It’s much cheaper than the coiled version but it also comes with less customization
options and only four colored covers to chose from.
The inside layout is very similar to the classic Life Planner but now the neutral and colourful
versions are associated with the cover of the planner, so once you chose a color you
have to go with the inside layout that goes with it.
So I hope you’ve enjoyed this planner showdown.
If I haven’t mention a planner that you love, feel free to comment down below so other
people can see your recommendation.
Don’t forget to subscribe for more back to school videos and I will see you next week.
Bye!