How To Create An Epic Digital Life Planner Even If You’re Scatterbrained!

If you’ve been trying to create a life planner but haven’t been successful, you’re not alone.

Many women think they should know how to create a life planner, but they get lost in the multitude of templates, ideas, and expectations of perfection.

I’ve been there before, until I discovered that creating a life planner can be relatively easy with the right guide. Digital planners have helped me to take charge of my life’s goals and activities, and they can help you, too.

This post will teach you how to create a digital life planner that stays simple, flexible, and perfectly suits your life.

It starts with deciding what you want your plan to do, the sections your plan should contain, and creating a simple weekly system.

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Step One: Decide What You Want Your Planner to Do for You

The first step in designing pages and layouts is to establish a purpose for your life planner. What aspects of your life do you want it to support?

Some questions can help you decide the core areas to focus on, such as:

• What areas of my life need organization the most?
• What things do I forget or need to stay on top of?
• What aspects of my life feel overwhelming?

For some women, their digital life planner setup focuses on task management. For others, they track finances, meals, or habits, helping them reflect, stay mindful, and be accountable.

Don’t try to make your planner do everything at once, as this could also get overwhelming. Rather, take the time to decide on the most important sections. You can add more with time.

Step Two: Choose Your Core Sections

Now that you know what you want your plan to focus on, it is time to define your core section. These sections are the very heart of the planner. It is best to keep your core sections within six and eight.

A digital planner for beginners often includes the following sections:

• Calendar/Schedule

This section helps you track important events, appointments, deadlines, and other dates. You can structure your day and time within this section to avoid forgetting your commitments or overscheduling activities.

• Finances

The finances section should help you track your spending and savings. With a simple income, expenditure, and savings tracker, you can be more mindful about your finances.

• Health and Habits

This section focuses on your health and helps you track habits that improve your wellbeing.

You can track healthy habits like exercise, water intake, rest, and other habits you want to build. This will help you remain consistent with your health goals.

• Home Management

Household chores can be overwhelming for many women, myself included. This often makes it easy to forget important household responsibilities.

You can use this section to track cleaning, home maintenance, and other family responsibilities. This’ll help make home management less chaotic.

• Meal Planning

Deciding what to eat, whether alone or with your family, doesn’t have to be tiring.

Include weekly meal plans, meal prep ideas, and grocery lists in this section.

This section helps you plan, saving time, reducing stress, and helping you eat healthier.

• Tasks or To Do Lists

A list of tasks takes all the mental notes out of your head and puts them in one place. With this section in your planner, you’re free of mental clutter, and you’ll focus better.

Organize your to-do list by day, week, or categories.

• Weekly Dashboard

This dashboard shows a simplified overview of your week and its activities. For many people, this is the most useful page because it shows their week at a glance.

Ensure that your dashboard contains priority tasks, important reminders, and one-line mentions of things that need your attention.

• Notes or Brain Dump

This section is a free space where you can write down ideas, random thoughts, or anything else that other sections don’t cover. After dumping, you can send things into other sections or handle them from here.

Step Three: Create a Simple Weekly Planning System

Many women think their digital life planner setup ends with sections, but it doesn’t. A weekly planning system is what keeps your planner effective.

Your weekly page should be simple, with clean layouts that you can easily edit over time.

The most important things that should go on your weekly page are:

• Top weekly priorities
•  Important reminders
•  Meal timetable and plan
• Task list
• A space for notes

Avoid overcrowding your weekly page with too many sections, as it’ll affect the simplicity and clarity that a digital planner for beginners should have.

Reuse the same layout weekly so that it becomes familiar, and planning becomes easier.

Step Four: Add Optional Sections to Personalize Your Planner

After setting up your core sections, you can add other pages to personalize your digital planner.

You can have other pages like:

Journaling page: This page is where you can write your thoughts, things you’re grateful for, and track your wins.

Personal projects: Track all your creative projects, ideas, and hobbies.

Long-term Goals: Write out your professional or personal goals and review them as you achieve them or your goals change.

Reading/Watching List: Keep a list of books you’re reading, videos you’re currently watching, and those you want to read/watch.

Travel planning: Keep a list of travel destinations, trip ideas, and itineraries.

Don’t include sections you won’t use. The goal is to have a small planner that won’t overwhelm you when you open it.

Step Five: Keep the Layout Clean and Easy to Navigate

A good digital life planner setup shouldn’t be cluttered. Keep the layouts simple and avoid too many colors or fonts, as they can be visually distracting.

Use simple labels, and keep the number of pages manageable. Remember, your digital planner doesn’t have to be perfect from the get-go. You’ll make changes as your routine evolves.

Final Thoughts: Your Planner Will Grow with You Over Time

There’s also no such thing as a completed planner. It’ll change and grow with you.

So, don’t wait until you have everything figured out. Start small, use the planner for weeks, and then adjust accordingly until you have something that fits into your routine.

Digital planners get easier with practice, so give it a try, learn as you go, and practice until you get it right.