Ready to ditch the paper and dive into the world of digital planning? This is the perfect beginner-friendly guide to help you kickstart your digital planning journey!
As a product manager who is familiar with Jira and Google Calendar, along with occasional journaling using notebooks, I found myself craving a more efficient and fun way to plan my life. That’s when I discovered digital planning on iPad and Notion! They are super convenient and allow me to be creative, hence I’ve never looked back. Now I do most of my planning on my iPad and phone, only reaching out to post-it notes and papers when I need physical reminders or to jot down stuff quickly.
In the following sections, we will explore three ways of digital planning, and help you kickstart your journey with each one.
What is digital planning and how to get started?
Digital planning is planning done digitally via electronic gadgets such as tablets, PCs, or phones. If you’re seeking an experience that emulates traditional paper journaling, a stylus pen will also be necessary. Here are the three ways of digital planning:
- Digital planners with PDF annotation apps: Goodnotes, Notability
- Project management apps: Notion, Jira, Trello
- Calendar apps: Google Calendar
1. Digital planners with PDF annotation apps
Wonder how productivity and study influencers plan and journal on their iPads? These are what you need to start planning with a digital planner:
- Get a tablet, iPad, or computer. The iPad and Apple Pencil combination is the most popular option, but you can also do digital planning on almost any device that offers the ability to write or type. This includes devices like Android tablets or laptops. You can use a stylus that is compatible with your device, or a keyboard, if available.
- Install a PDF annotation app or program compatible with your device. As the digital planner is a hyperlinked PDF, you need a PDF annotation app to make edits directly within the digital planner. Put simply, this app allows you to write or type on the digital planner. The choice of the app depends on the device you’re using. I’m using Goodnotes and they are currently providing FREE three notebooks for each user.
- Apple apps:
- Android apps:
- Windows:
- Get a digital planner. With a wide array of planners to choose from, it’s important to match your choice with your goals. Is it to organize your daily life, embark on a spiritual journey, journal your thoughts, or engage in self-reflection? To begin, I suggest experimenting with a free planner available in my upcoming freebie studio! There are also plenty of free planners you can download from the internet.
- Import the digital planner and start planning. Here are some tutorials you can check out if you are using Goodnotes.
2. Project management apps
Instead of an iPad, you can plan on your laptop or phone using Project Management Platforms like Notion, Jira, and Trello. Notion has a more intuitive UI and note-taking feature which will give you greater flexibility in digital planning and journaling. so let’s start with that:
- Get a Notion account, it is free.
- Learn about the Database feature. This is the most important Notion tool for me and I love the way I could easily switch between different views. The ones I use often are Table and Calendar. I build my content calendar via Notion, and this is what it looks like:
3. Know what you want to use Notion for and look for resources. For example, if I want to have a book review tracker, I would search for “book review notion template” and get free tutorials on YouTube that can help me build one myself. Or I would just download those free templates and start playing around with them. Don’t worry about getting perfect as it’s the time for you to learn and experiment.
3. Calendar apps
This is the easiest way to start digital planning, especially if you prefer time blocking and setting reminders for yourself.
- Choose your preferred Calendar app – whichever is most convenient for you. I’m using Google Calendar daily as it can sync across all devices.
- Group your activity by colors. This helps you easily differentiate the activities, events, or tasks. You can group them by categories, importance, difficulty, and more.
- Start off your day with important tasks. Since your energy wanes as the day progresses, prioritize tasks that demand your utmost focus.
- Incorporate regular focus and downtime. It’s important to ensure your productivity and well-being are balanced.
- Set reminders. You won’t overlook important activities anymore with helpful email and push notification reminders.
The benefits of digital planning
I have been planning digitally since 2022 and I’d like to share the reasons why I believe everyone should consider transitioning from traditional paper planners to digital planning. If you haven’t yet embarked on any form of planning, I hope the following points will persuade you to give digital planning a try!
1. Redo as much as you like
This is my utmost favorite feature of digital planning. When you are using a paper planner, it is difficult for you to cover up your mistakes. For example, if you change your mind about the layout halfway while doing November planning, it is almost impossible to restart because there’s only one November page!
With a digital planner, this is not a problem. Whenever I write something and I don’t like how it turned out, I just erase my writing and do it again. On Notion, I can simply clear the page and start fresh as many times as I want to!
2. Portability and convenience
Nearly all digital planning apps offer the convenience of content synchronization via the cloud, enabling you to access your plans from any of your synced devices. For instance, you could outline your plans on your phone or tablet during the day, and when you transition to your computer, you can seamlessly continue your planning there.
Instead of burdening yourself with multiple notebooks and planners, all you need is your iPad, smartphone, or laptop! Consider the space you could save!
Even more conveniently, you can search through your document and locate the information you wrote easily without sifting through pages and trying to recall where you wrote it down.
3. Segment your life easily
We are all different, and hence we plan our lives in different ways. For instance, I am a working professional juggling various projects and hobbies, thus I want to separate planning for each life domain. Luckily, there are different kinds of digital planners and templates tailored to different needs: student planners, business planners, life planners, mental health journals, meditation journals, therapy journals, and more.
4. Customize your own digital planners
If you still couldn’t find the perfect digital planner, you could easily customize one to your liking. You can always add extra pages to your digital planner, or add digital planner inserts.
If you have a student planner but want to add a section for manifestation you can easily find a manifestation journal prompt template or printable and import it to your digital planner.
The same thing goes for Notion and calendar apps, you could easily customize the template yourself to your liking. No one could stop you!
5. You can start with $0
If you already have the devices, you can try out the free apps, and get a free digital planner online or you could build one yourself. If you want something fancier, there are tons of digital planners on Etsy.
This saves a lot of money compared to a paper planner where after you have finished one, you have to buy a new one. It’s a constant expense, while with a digital planner, it’s a one-time purchase and you can reuse it as many times as you want, provided it is undated.
6. Environmentally friendly
Another reason to switch to digital planners is that they are better for the environment. Old paper planners either get thrown away or stored somewhere until ultimately they get disposed of too.
With a digital planner, everything is stored on your device, or on the cloud. You wouldn’t have to waste any paper or have piles of paper stored somewhere.
Tips to make your digital planning more efficient
These are the things I wish to know before I start digital planning. Please make sure you learn and apply these, to prevent unnecessary time and effort wastage.
1. Be consistent. Make time for planning
According to studies, the average time it takes to establish a new habit ranges from about 2 to 8 months, with an average of around 66 days. So, you have to be consistent to start building your digital planning habit. Start small, begin with 10 minutes of digital planning to incorporate into your life
2. Build your own digital planning system
There are so many tools out there and you don’t have to stick to one. You can pick a note-taking app, or a to-do list app, and pair them with a calendar app. I’m currently using digital planners on Goodnotes, Notion, and Google Calendar. So, let your creativity shine and build your own system!
3. Learn from others
I get my digital planning inspiration from YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. There are a lot of study accounts and productivity influencers who share about how to do goal setting, reset your life, manifest, achieve a glow-up, and many more.
Occasionally, they provide downloadable templates that can be easily imported into our planning tools. Alternatively, I incorporate the digital planning and time management advice they share into my own digital planning system.
Here are some of my favorites:
- How I Plan My Week | Notion & Google Calendar Workflow by Jules Acree
- How I Consistently Study with a Full Time Job: My Scheduling Formula – YouTube by Elizabeth Filips
- How I Manage My Time – 10 Time Management Tips by Ali Abdaal
- how to use notion 💻💡 notion setup tutorial + free template! by Michelle Kanemitsu
- 5 Practical Ways to Use Your Weekly Layout by Rachelle in theory
Mistakes made by digital planning starters
As dedicated planners, efficiency is our goal! Steer clear of the following errors when engaging in digital planning.
1. Looking for the perfect planner or apps
Perfection does not exist, so stop looking for it. Download a few free ones and try them out, you could slowly build your own one along the way when you have better ideas of what you’re looking for.
2. Spend too much on digital stickers, inserts, templates
I know the adrenaline kicks when you are scouting for pretty tools but those actually deter you from starting right away. More options don’t make your digital planning easier, in fact, it makes it worse. Let alone, you don’t want to spend too much money before you decide to commit to it truly.
3. Focus on handwriting
A lot of Instagram influencers have been showing their beautiful handwriting on their digital planners. Don’t get caught up by it because you want digital planning to serve you in the most effective way, instead of stressing yourself up. Anyway, there are many handwriting fonts available that can help you achieve perfect handwriting without putting in the hard work.
4. Try to be like That Girl on Instagram
Same as point 3, stop looking for perfection and burden yourself with unnecessary expectations. As long as your digital planning system is helping you sort out your life and focus better, it is good!
5. Beat yourself up when you miss a page
It’s natural to have days where you might miss your habit. The key is to get back on track as soon as possible, instead of being hyper-fixated about it.
Are you ready to explore digital planning? With a wide range of choices available, there’s a digital planning system suited for everyone. The best part is that it’s budget-friendly too. Having experienced the benefits of switching to digital planning myself, I cannot stop sharing my learnings and I want to help you get started on your own journey.
Happy digital planning! Feel free to share your experiences with us in the comments below.
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