In Defence of Planner Printables aka Why You Should Love Them Already
This entire post could be summarised in five words: printable planners are THE best.
Hands down the best.
But you could argue I’m biased.
So, let’s take it from the top.
Printable planners are delightful files of planning goodness, that come in digital format so you can print them out, however you like, whenever you like.
Exhibit A – a pretty decent example of a printable planner.
Saves Time
There’s a certain joy to be experienced when the doorbell goes and the delivery driver says ‘package for you’. This joy is quadrupled when the package is anything planner-related. And that is the first benefit of printable planners.
There’s no waiting. You browse a printable planner shop, you squeal with delight when you find a great weekly planner on 2 pages.
Then you buy it.
You download it.
You print it.
And you have a great time making next week’s plans.
How long did all of that take? Not long at all.
That your honour is the first advantage of printable planners. Saves you time. No waiting for Fedex, Amazon or anyone to send you the goods.
Just choose it and use it.
Saves Space
I was gifted a printed planner a few months ago. It looks good. It’s compact. The back cover has me interested. I thought I must sit down and have a look through it.
But I didn’t.
You know why I didn’t open it immediately? It was wrapped in cellophane and it didn’t have perforations to tear it open. Nor did I have anything near me to cut the wrapping (side note: it’s the small things that cause friction).
So, I put it on my bookshelf to come back to later. Have I been back to open it?
Of course, I haven’t. You probably guessed that. It has now blended in with all the books on my shelf, so much so that last time I looked for it, I couldn’t find it.
And it hadn’t crossed my mind since then.
Until now.
Let’s contrast that with the last printable planner insert I printed off.
You know where it is?
Taped inside the cupboard door above the dishwasher. It took 0.2 seconds to tape it there after I printed it off. Because I printed it off knowing I would use it.
Maybe it takes you longer to use a printable page you’ve printed? Even so, I can almost guarantee that it had a home. You put it on your desk to use immediately, or you put it in your planning corner, or you hole-punched it and put it in your planner straightaway.
That’s the second benefit of printable planners. They have a home. They save us space. Not only because they’re thin and flat and lightweight, but because we use them with intention so we store them with intention.
Multiple Sizes
May I ask you a question?
How many planners do you have?
I mean binders, organisers.
More than one?
Thought so.
Now another question, if I may.
Why do you have more than one planner?
One stays home, one stays on your desk at work and the other one lives in your bag for on-the-go-planning and reminders.
Isn’t it great hat you don’t need to rip out pages from your home-based planner to take to work?
Isn’t it a cleaner process to just print out another planner page and pop it into a different sized planner?
Isn’t it great that printable planners come in over 20 different sizes?
That is what makes life easy when you carry your medical printable planner around with you all day to track your symptoms, record your blood sugar levels and jot down questions to ask your specialist at your hospital appointment at the end of the week.
You’ll reach planner peace a whole lot faster if you could try out a planner in different sizes. #justsayin’
That’s reason number three. The case for printables is building.
Multiple Designs
Whether you’re planning the vacation of your life, tracking your online shopping, revamping your beauty regime or taking serious steps towards wardrobe rehab. It’s great to know that you can daydream all day, research like a professional academic, join the dots AND have a dedicated home to capture it all.
That’s because there really is a printable planner for everything, all the above and more (can’t find what you’re looking for? Try a custom-made design. All you have to do is ask).
Once you’ve found the planner pack for you. You can go ahead and print a single page or two or print the whole entire thing. You get to decide what goes into your planner.
You can easily have a planner page with the shortlisted destinations for next summer’s vacation sitting right next to a next week’s dinner plans. Or perhaps your weekly work outfits next to your monthly beauty treatments.
Choosing which planners inserts you want from the vast selection available to you might make you giddy. Giddy with delight as you build up a planner that works for YOU.
The power of printable planners is that it lets you condense the bigger picture into a planner you can hold in your hands. YOUR bigger picture.
That was number four. But I think we can stop counting now.
Printable planners have a few other positives. Saves you paper as you only print what you want, rather than having a 212-paged printed planner with umpteen blank pages that you don’t need or want. You get to choose the colour of the paper, and the quality too. Here’s to printing to do lists on pink paper. You can use your inserts in a ring-bound or disc-bound planner. And sometimes you can try a printable planner before committing to a full-version printed planner.
And with that, I rest my case. Printable planners save you time, save you money and will save your sanity as you sit down and pour your thoughts onto paper. Go ahead and make some half-decent plans. Sticking with the plan is your bit. Over to you.