What is a Digital Planner?
Updated: Sep 9, 2021
A Beginner's Guide to Digital Planning
Define the what: A Digital planners is a completely digital and innovative PDF document embedded with hyperlinked tabs serving as a digital version of a traditional paper planner by holding on to the essence of traditional pen-to-paper planning experience.
Are you curious about what is a digital planner? Are you ready to take your organization to a whole other level? Let’s find out, shall we!
Digital planners are innovative digital PDF documents embedded with tabs and links to conveniently allow users to access anywhere in the file with just a click of a button. These files are designed to open on a note-taking application on an IPAD or Tablet for the most ultimate planning experience yet. Essentially, digital planners are completely digital and innovative planners that hold on to the essence of traditional pen-to-paper planning, but now you have the control to make adjustments and create a working plan at a moment's notice. Digital planners go above and beyond the limitations that come with printed planners which is the reason why everyone is making the transition to go digital!
Read the blog on how to make the digital transition to learn more.
Planning is a great habit for anyone looking to find purpose in their lives. You learn to have a grasp over your time. There is so much time available in a day that often goes unaccounted for. Maximizing how we use our time is essential to reaching our goals.
Without planning my days, I feel lost and hopeless. It’s easy to lose sight of your goals if you don’t work on them. We all have a purpose in life, we just need to figure out what it is. It is not like you will be just sitting there one day and it will hit you, that “Woah this is my purpose, this is my goal” -that doesn’t just happen. You have to work towards your purpose. You have to get up and work on yourself to figure out who you are, what you can do, what you like. You see, my favorite part about planning is that you learn a lot of things about yourself. You find purpose in your lifestyle, in your daily routines, and in your actions. To organize such a plan for a lifelong journey really needed a type of planner that can live up to that. Digital Planners bring that to the table. They make planning not only productive, but it is so much fun. They are organized by completely hyperlinked tabs that take you to each page of the planner. It can be customized to whatever your planning needs may be. The way the planners are organized improves your productivity and be able to manage your time.
What are you waiting for? Get your planner and start making your plan, you will be glad you did.
Similarities to Traditional Printed Planners
Digital Planners' capability to be used on an IPAD or Tablet allows users to hold on to the traditional pen-to-paper planning style to make the transition smooth and relatable.
Both traditional planners and digital planners use tabs to organize the planner into sections for quick accessibility.
Digital Planners are designed with similar planning templates that appear in traditional printed planners to allow for consistency in what you are already used to seeing.
Benefits of a Digital Planner
Digital Planners remove several limitations encountered in traditional printed planners when it comes to making changes, adding pages, & editing.
There are several links conveniently provided in digital planners to jump from page to page with just a click of a button.
Digital Planners can be customized with new templates and stickers to fit your planning needs without any hassle.
Your digital asset can be reused again & again.
Ultimate customization experience without breaking the bank with so many options to modify and customize your digital planner to your liking.
There is no better way to improve your time management skills and boost your productivity than with the benefits of new digital planners.
My Experience
I spent my whole life searching for the perfect planner. I like to plan every aspect of my life from the day up to the hour on what I plan to do. Planning keeps my mind on track with a working purpose towards my ultimate goal. It allows me to break down my goal into smaller, more manageable steps in a much bigger pursuit. I am a complete mess without a plan. There is a feeling of uncertainty and disorganization that just overwhelms me without my schedule. The biggest problem I encountered with traditional planners was that once I made my plans if there were any changes (which there were often, cause let's face it, life never goes how we plan) I would create such a mess in my planner just to accommodate for any change. I tried several planner applications from the app store, which definitely helped with making any adjustments to my schedule, but I couldn’t ever find an app that held onto the traditional pen-to-paper aspect of planning. When I found digital planners, I found an all-in-one solution for my planning journey. Digital planning takes away the hassle of making changes and provides a simple interface for an easy user experience. There was so much room to be creative and build a custom digital planning experience for me.
Before I knew it, I was making my own digital planners that included everything I needed to plan for. Making the transition to digital planning was probably the best thing that I ever did. I found myself being able to easily manage my time and truly saw a boost in my productivity levels. Digital planning solutions bring a new face to time management and productivity.
Download our FREE MINI PLANNER by clicking on the image to preview what a digital planner is and get a feel of the digital planning experience.
Join The Visionary Club to download this Free Digital Notebook and get a feel of the digital note-taking experience. Also receive FREE access to our exclusive FREEBIE LIBRARY, PLANNING TOOLS, HEALTH & FITNESS TEMPLATES, FREE STOCK PHOTO LIBRARY & much much more valuable content. Click on the image to sign up.
Types of digital planners
I believe that no planner is a one-size fit. We all have our own lifestyles, priorities, and preferences that all need to be accountable for when finding the right planner for ourselves. Digital planners offer a variety of different types of planners to plan different areas of your life. If you're like me, you might want to consider building your own custom planner to include your personal preference and criteria for the best planning experience.
There are several ways to make your own custom planner which I will share with you below.
Build from scratch on software like Keynote and Powerpoint (tutorial coming soon)
Download a pre-designed keynote template and customize the document to your preference (Template coming soon)
Order a custom planner using our custom digital planner form here.
While there are several places to search for digital planners online, the main platform with the largest selection can be found on Etsy.
In your search, you will find different types of digital planners such as:
School Digital Planners
Personal Digital Planners
Business Digital Planners
Travel Digital Planners
Fitness Digital Planners
Digital Notebooks
Digital Flashcards
Undated Digital Planners
Dated Digital Planners
Landscape Digital Planners
Blogging Digital Planners
Social Media Digital Planners
Faith Planners
And much, much more
How to Use Your Digital Planner
With 3 simple steps, you will be ready to use your digital planner to make your planning experience a breeze.
1) Find the right type of planner for you. Take the Planner Vision Quiz to narrow down your options.
2) You will need a note-taking application to be able to edit your digital planner on an IPAD or a Tablet.
Recommended Applications:
- IPAD: Notability, Goodnotes, Noteshelf
- Tablets: XODO
3) Download your digital planner asset to your note-taking application and begin planning!
Planning tips
Planning is more than just finding the right planner. Just because you have the right planner doesn’t mean you will automatically become more productive. There is a series of steps to a planner journey that shapes your mindset, habits, and routines that build a character for improving productivity. Being a planner is a lifestyle itself. And just like any lifestyle, it requires consistency and repetition to be constructive. My goal is to share some planning tips and hacks along the way that I used in my planning journey that helped me improve my time management skills and boost my productivity levels to shape my vision of becoming the best version of myself.
Goal-Setting Planner Free Template
It is always a great idea to take our time to learn more about yourself by refreshing your mind and reminding yourself what is your purpose. Living a purposeless life can come to resemble that of a circle that keeps going round and round, but you always end up at the same spot. If your looking for growth and improvement, setting your goals and outlining your purpose will help break that circle to form a line that keeps moving forward.
Chasing dreams requires a lot of courage. Especially if you have big dreams and want to make an impact in the world. There is just one major variable between those goals and accomplishments, which is DISCIPLINE. Discipline is the act of knowing what needs to be done even if you don’t feel like doing it in the moment all to serve and benefit your ultimate goal. Having a clear vision of your goal set allows the mind to formulate smaller more achievable steps to help reach your goals. You learn to identify what needs to be done to get closer to your end goal.
If you desire to take back control of your life, you are going to have to sit down have a serious talk with yourself, and ask yourself the real question - what is my purpose? What do I vision as my lifestyle? What is my goal? Ask yourself specific questions to help define what your goals are. Make them measurable to be able to record your progress in your journey. Establish an ultimate purpose you are reaching for accompanied by smaller more achievable goal sets that ensure you are going in the right direction. Make sure your goals are relevant to your purpose. And finally, make sure you set an estimated time-bound deadline to motivate you to reach your goals.
Download a goals-setting worksheet template to help highlight a clear vision of what you are working towards by clicking on the image.
Follow me on social media @syvlimitless and @syvplanner for more lifestyle and digital planning hacks tips that you can apply to your planner experience to help improve your lifestyle. I will take you through a journey to improve your productivity levels through planning and personal development exercises to help reach your goals.
