This is a questions I know many ask, “Should I have a paper or digital planner and which is better?”. I don’t know if there is a right or wrong answer to this question but lets break it down a little.
What are the advantages to a paper planner? I personally love to doodle, make the boring come to life. I have tried several different planners over the years. Last year I used The Happy Planner. I really enjoyed this planner because there were so many options for page inserts for all the different things like schedules, home school planning, habit tracking, meal planning, financial logs, etc. I enjoyed filling the pages with stickers, doodling and pictures of things we did and saw. There are even several Etsy files that work to fit into this planner. I purchased the punch that allows me to enter printed pages into the binder. I also purchased the weekly box punch and used it to clip printed pictures and memes to add to my pages. I had a lot of fun with it. Did I keep up with it all year? Yes and no. There were weeks that I got really busy and didn’t get to everything I wanted including decorating my awesome planner.
This year, I knew there would be a lot of new things coming down the pipeline. I knew my time would have to be split amongst all of those things and decorating a planner may not be as doable. I decided to go with a simplistic planner this go around. I went with the Legend Planner. It had all the things I needed like weekly scheduling by the hour, goal planning, space for doodling if I so choose or keeping notes. Though it doesn’t bring out as much of my creativity, it works for what I need with less stress about decorating.
What about digital planners? My family uses Cozi which is a digital calendar. This works nicely for my kids to see what the week is going to bring us. Anyone who is given access to the calendar is able to add events or activities to the schedule. There are To Do lists, grocery lists, contact lists, etc that can be used in the free version. There is a paid version that has even more options for functionality. The free version does not allow for doodling or adding picture content. You can add one family picture to the calendar but otherwise, it is the standard design background.
Another factor that swayed my decision for a paper planner this year is that my kids started giving me a hard time about being on a device when we don’t allow them to as much. What they don’t realize is that I am working on my devices, not playing games and watching videos. Kids don’t see that though, they see what they would do on it. There is also just something about flipping pages in a real book.
What are you using? Are you all digital, paper or a mix of both? I would love to hear what works for you, maybe it would be a benefit to me and others that keep changing our minds due to circumstance.
