Planning is a regular part of life. We plan trips, projects, assignments, and more because it’s an essential first step to getting anything done. It helps us take action and decide what we want and what we need to do to gain it.

I’m learning more every day the benefits it has on my time management and goal-setting skills. Most of all, on my personal productivity and motivation. There are many ways to go about planning your life. On paper, you can use a wall calendar, a premade diary, or a bullet journal. Digitally, there are calendar apps, productivity tools, and other note-taking apps.

In my own life, I enjoy using a blend of writing and typing, digital and paper, when planning out any tasks, goals, or commitments I have.

I incorporate both methods for many reasons because I believe there are benefits to doing both when you want to focus on productivity and achieving your goals. In this post, I’m sharing several reasons why you should plan your life on paper and digital tools for your daily, weekly, or monthly routine.

Why You Need To Plan Your Life Using Paper Stationery

Paper is permanent, whereas digital tools are not and capable of malfunctions and errors. As an example, I started using Notion again to plan my social media and blog content. One weekend, the desktop and app versions shut down, and I couldn’t access any of what I’d written in the app for three days. Similar issues may also occur with your digital bullet journal and the app you use to write in it. Because of this, it is essential to have physical backups of anything you store in your digital planner on paper. It is necessary to have a paper component, especially if you plan your life in greater detail across your digital apps. 

The act of writing itself helps you become more focused and clears your mind. When you put pen or pencil to paper, you clarify your thoughts and gain a sense of direction. You’re able to generate ideas more thoughtfully. I always begin with a notepad, a journal, or even a scrap of paper. Whatever I write doesn’t always make sense, but I engage more with it, and from there, I’m able to refine what I’m thinking, either on paper or on the computer.

There are fewer distractions when you plan your life on paper. It is a blank (or scribbled in) page, and you and nothing else to make your attention drift away. When you use a calendar app or digital tools such as Trello or Notion, it is too easy to get distracted by other notifications and apps on your devices. And that can draw attention away from the most crucial part: planning, goal-setting, making an action plan. 

Why You Need To Plan Your Life Using A Digital Planner

Digital stationery is easily editable compared to paper stationery. As wonderful as bullet journaling is as a creative outlet and a fun method of journaling and planning, it can be time-consuming, and mistakes made on paper are difficult to fix. With a digital planner, you can delete entire paragraphs, sections, or pages. You can duplicate them and start over. You can copy and paste whole templates, whether on a productivity or note-taking app. You can customize your digital planner and don’t need to worry about making mistakes. 

You’re able to sync your planning app across many devices. Be it desktop, tablet, or mobile. Recently, I decided to switch to Google Calendar for some of my daily planning. I can view my daily tasks on my computer, on the calendar app on my phone, and on my tablet pc. It is the same for Notion. This feature is incredibly user-friendly and makes your digital planner portable and easy for planning anywhere you are. It is also environmentally friendly since less paper use means less paper waste.

You will probably save a lot more money with a digital planner. When you use paper stationery, you often end up spending a lot of money on journals, pens, markers, stickers, and more. Depending on where you buy, the price can be high or low. I know many high-end stationery brands charge between $30-$50 for a journal on its own. I love journaling, but I could never justify spending so much money on a journal. With a digital journal or planner, it is often a one-time cost of $40, but what you get is a collection of dated and undated journal files so you can use them for a much longer amount of time. Similarly, apps such as Notion, Trello, and more have free personal plans and only upgrade and become costly if you use them for teams or businesses. So planning digitally is more effective if you’re on a budget when it comes to stationery. 

When journaling and planning about your life, your personal preference is the most important thing when choosing what planner you will use. It can depend on the time, resources, and motivation you have when using a planner every day. I enjoy using paper stationery and digital stationery when planning my life because it gives me a creative outlet and lets me be environmentally friendly and organised. As you’ve seen in this post there are a lot of factors to consider, and there are pros and cons to both digital and paper planners. I hope I’ve been able to shed a light on them in this post and encourage you to take up planning your life in more detail, whether on paper or digitally. 

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