12+ Printable Daily Planner Templates

Your personal and work life may have many responsibilities, making it hard to balance the two. This can lead to situations where you cannot meet deadlines and forget appointments and meetings, necessitating you to use a planner. A planner helps you manage your resources while doing a specific task. It is essential to plan your day earlier since it ensures you prepare and utilize your time well, leading to a productive day. When you plan your day, you can prioritize your tasks, focusing only on important ones, enabling you to form habits that contribute to your success in the future.

Daily planning involves being aware of the tasks you should accomplish during the day. This is done by listing all your pending tasks, prioritizing them depending on their urgency and significance then allocating time to do them. Daily planning can also assist in your dietary plans, budgeting, and other instances that may be of concern. It is essential to make a daily plan since it helps you manage your time better, especially if you are busy, and it only takes 10-15 minutes to make one.

This article guides you on how to come up with a practical daily planner.

A pre-made template can be used to plan your day as it contains labeled rows and columns. The labeled rows and columns allow you to add significant aspects of your life and allocate your time. However, developing a suitable template to make your daily plans can be challenging, and we can help with that.

Below you can find free and downloadable templates that you can customize to make your daily planner:

What is a Daily Planner?

A daily planner is a vital tool that helps you plan your day better by listing your pending tasks and allocating time towards completing them.

Daily planners have evolved from simple books and charts where you write activities and appointments to mobile applications that are easy to use. In conventional planners, pages are divided into sections, allowing you to write your plans for the day.

In contrast, modern applications give you space to key in your tasks and notify you when to switch from one task to another. A daily planner is helpful since it keeps you organized and lets you complete your tasks on time. It also allows you to manage your stress levels since you can set reminders and work on tasks before their due dates.

A daily planner helps in time management as you can devise techniques to focus on your tasks, minimizing time wastage. A daily planner ensures you do not forget anything important, allowing you to avoid instances where you are caught off-guard. A daily planner allows you to control your life, especially if you are busy, since you ensure that all your tasks are accomplished on time. Although time-consuming, a daily planner helps you navigate your day efficiently, making it essential to use it regularly.

Note: Make planning a habit. It may be challenging to form habits since the lack of results may be discouraging. However, planning is an activity that has an immediate positive effect on your life, making it a habit you should adopt. It is essential to plan a daily activity since you can manage your time more effectively and feel motivated. You can do this by setting the alarm for your daily planning session or by planning as you do parts of your morning routine, such as listening to podcasts. In addition, it would be best if you update your to-do list even on weekends and free days since it allows you to note down any important tasks and create time to relax or work on other projects.

It is vital to use a daily planner since it allows you to organize yourself every day, eventually making you successful. A daily planner also ensures you are aware of all pending tasks and always in control of your time if you have a hectic life.

This helps in the timely completion of your tasks. The following are some of the advantages of using a daily planner:

Manages time

It is normal to have a busy life, and the best way to navigate through it is by use of a daily planner. It allows you to prioritize your tasks and allocate enough time toward their completion. In addition, a daily planner ensures that you plan on important upcoming events, essential errands, appointments, and tasks that you may forget.

Boosts productivity

A daily planner is essential when balancing your personal and work life. It is vital to balance the two because one aspect of your life may become overwhelming to the point that it makes you underperform in another. Your daily planner helps you keep track of all pending assignments at your workplace, allowing you to have time to complete them. This increases your productivity since you get to achieve all your objectives at the workplace.

Maintains records

You may not be able to remember all tasks and appointments unless you write them down. A daily planner allows you to record previous and upcoming tasks or appointments to help you plan and prepare for them.

Relieves stress

Your daily planner gives you control over your day by knowing the activities to be done at different times. This gives you peace of mind since you know that everything is well planned for and nothing is forgotten. It is vital to use your daily planner often since it helps you stay motivated during the day. This is because you can do tasks daily to make it a habit and perfect it. Also, you can include motivational quotes and affirmations in your daily planner to keep you motivated.

Your planner lets you prepare for the day and control how you spend it. As a result, you can utilize your days efficiently when you plan your time, allowing you to work towards achieving your goals and objectives.

The following sections should be included in your planner:

Daily goal

Your daily goal could be anything you strive to achieve by the end of the day. It is essential to include your daily goals in your planner because the achievement of these goals leaves you satisfied and pleased with yourself. In addition, this motivates you to achieve more as days go by. An example of a daily goal would be to spend an hour reading your favorite book.

To-do-list

It is essential to have a list of all your pending tasks. You should consider your long-term objectives when planning your daily tasks since they are your ultimate goals. Your to-do list should have check boxes next to each task, allowing you to tick upon completing the task.

Following these steps helps in making your to-do-list:

1. Break down your big goals

It is essential to know your long-term objectives since you need to use them to develop daily tasks. Your daily tasks help you achieve your big goals, and it is vital to ensure they are aligned. If you find yourself unable to come up with daily tasks because they are too many, it could mean that you have too many goals, and you should reduce them to a maximum of five.

2. Look at your week as a whole

Some tasks are repeated on different days throughout the week, making it essential to plan for the week. This enables you to build momentum as you do these tasks, which helps in achieving your big goals. In addition, planning for your week lets you assign tasks to different days, enabling you to focus on different professional goals each day.

3. Add your have-to-do tasks last

When making your to-do list, it is advisable to prioritize the tasks that help you achieve your goals and then fit your have-to-do tasks around them. This is because some of your daily tasks are not helpful in your personal or professional growth but still have to be completed.

4. Appointments/schedule

One way to ensure you do not forget or miss meetings and appointments is by including them in your planner. It also helps in planning and preparing for them. For example, you can arrange your meeting schedule in columns, each representing an hour of the day.

5. Urgent/priority

Your tasks may vary in urgency and priority. This is because some have a closer deadline than others or greater significance in your life. Ensure you list these tasks to include them in your planner.

5. Meal tracker

It is vital to track what you eat, especially if you follow special diet regulations. Your meals should be included in your planner because it reduces time spent deciding what to eat. It also allows you to know whether you have been eating healthy meals.

6. Gratitude

You may experience beautiful moments as the day unfolds, and it would be great to write about them in your planner. You can write anything in this section if it makes you feel good. For example, you could write, “my boss told me that I submitted the best project,” or “ I got to meet a stranger who paid for my bus fare.”

7. Extra notes

Your planner should have a section where you write essential information you may have received during the day. This information may be sensitive and easy to forget if you do not write it in your planner. Also, it would be best to allocate enough space to write all the relevant information concerning a task so that nothing is left out. Finally, it is vital to fit all your day’s plans on one page to prevent missing out on details that may have been included on another page.

You may achieve success in life when you plan your days effectively. This is because you can prepare and focus on essential tasks, utilizing your time accordingly. In addition, it allows you to meet deadlines and become more efficient in your work.

The following tips help in planning your day effectively:

Stick to the planner

Many interruptions may break your focus, making you unable to follow your daily planner. This leads to time wastage and turns into unproductive days, which may be discouraging for you. Ensure that you follow your planner by doing each task at the right time.

Eliminate distractions

Distractions prevent you from completing your tasks on time, and it is essential to minimize them. You can come up with ways to reduce the number of distractions, for example, by putting your phone on silent when you work to avoid notifications.

Track your time

It is essential to track your time since it lets you know whether you have been efficiently using it. You can also identify tasks that prevent you from adequately utilizing your time and devise solutions.

Try hourly check-ins

It is advisable to check your planner regularly to ensure that you are going at the right pace. You can do this hourly as you move from one task to another.

Review and readjust your planner

Some urgent responsibilities are unexpected, and you may need to deviate from your initial plans to take care of them. Review your planner and make another to-do list containing your abandoned tasks. These tasks can be planned for and done the following day or during your free time.

Choose a productivity method

A productivity method allows you to devise a strategy to plan your day effectively. Productivity methods have different results for each person, and you should choose a method that suits your daily activities.

Productivity methods include:

• Eat the frog
• Pomodoro technique
• Time blocking
• Eisenhower Matrix

You can use different tools when making your daily planner, including software and writing on paper. A planner on your devices can be helpful because you can walk around with your plan and refer to it whenever necessary.

Some of these tools include:

A to-do list app

A digital daily planning application helps you plan and keep track of your day from your mobile phone or tablet. It also allows you to link relevant documents to the tasks and share information with other contacts. The app is helpful, especially if you prefer carrying your phone over your notebook, since you can refer to and make changes to your planner anywhere at any time.

A digital list

A digital list provides a solution if you want a less-specialized digital planner. You can make your digital list in applications you use in your day-to-day activities, such as Word and Excel. This list can contain your pending tasks with spaces to tick upon completing them.

A digital calendar

You can use your digital calendar to plan your day by including your meetings, appointments, and plans on the dates you want to do them. A digital calendar is a convenient daily planner since it allows you to use time blocking and is easily accessible, enabling you to refer to it anytime.

A paper planner

You can plan your day on paper. However, do not do it on scraps since tracking the activities is challenging. Instead, you can write your plans for the day in your notebook by including your activities in the grids provided. For example, on a plain notebook, you can write the date at the top, list the tasks, and then tick them after completion. You can also use daily agendas to write your plans for the day since they have spaces for you to fill each day of the year.

One of the ways to become successful in life is by having a daily plan. You can make your daily plans on paper or in a digital application by noting down all your tasks and prioritizing them. This helps you manage your time well by allocating enough time toward completing essential and regular tasks.

Including meetings and appointments in your daily planner is crucial since you may forget them if you fail to do so. You can also include your meal plans in your planner to ensure that you stick to your diet. It is also essential to note down good moments during the day in your planner. It would be best to stick to your daily plans since slight deviations can make your day unproductive and discourage you from following plans. Ensure that you stay away from distractions since they can waste your time. In addition, it is essential to review and readjust your schedule whenever unexpected events occur, allowing you to plan for incomplete tasks.