How To Set Up Your Planner For 2023 So You’ll Actually Use It

It is a fact often quoted that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. But what does that mean in the real world and how can you set up your planner or diary in 2023 to best achieve this? Grab your beautiful new 2023 diary and a cup of tea and settle down to prep your planner for making the coming year the best it can possibly be.

Fill in the non-negotiables

It pays to spend a little time sitting down with your new diary and planning out your year, filling it in with everything that you already know. What goes into your planner or diary generally falls under three categories:

• A dated or timed appointment, sometimes with a set location, such as picking the kids up at 3 pm on Tuesday.
• Things you need to do, either time specific or not.
• Things to remember, either for practical or sentimental reasons.

The first thing you want to do when opening a crisp new planner (such as our luxury lay flat weekly planners) is to fill in all of the non-negotiable items, which usually fall under the first category. These can include, but are not limited to:

• Birthdays, anniversaries, weddings
• School or work events
• Medical appointments
• Holidays - both personal and public
• Social events for family and friends
• Professional appointments & meetings

The best place for these sorts of events is in the month to view pages, which you can then reference when it comes to filling in your week or day pages. If you already know the specifics of a definitely happening event you can put it straight into that day. If you’re uncertain of anything: remember the trusty pencil, and that it can be erased much neater than an ugly crossed out biro.

Know how you will use your planner

The diary, or planner, in its current form has been around since 1812, when John Letts first combined a calendar with space to write down your appointments into a commercially available product. Now planners and diaries come in multiple forms, from minimal to luxury designs, and are an essential part of coping with the many demands of the modern world. But it can be overwhelming knowing what to include and when and how to turn your book of dates into a system that will help you both hit all of your targets and never forget a birthday again. Don’t worry, we’ve got a handy guide to help you out. How you set up your planner in 2023 will largely depend on two things - the structure of your day-to-day life, and how your mind works best. If you're someone who makes lists only to instantly forget them, then a system that relies on to-do lists won't work for you. Equally important - remember that we all have the same amount of hours in the day, and no amount of willpower can change that. Planners are there to simply use the hours we have resourcefully, and to make sure nothing falls through the cracks (or on an easily lost, hastily written post-it note!). Think about what will work best for you (not an idealised version of you, we all have enough pressure in our lives, without adding planner dread to it!) and your work/life routine. Do you need a schedule for your days and weeks or do you work best from a list of items that you get to, whenever you are free? If you’re not sure then try out different styles for a week each to see which works best for you.

Goal setting & habit tracking

Next comes the more exciting aspect of setting up a planner so you’ll actually use it: turning your vision of the future into reality. Start by thinking about what you want to achieve this year. Some of us create vision boards, some ask the universe for what we want, and some of us make actual plans in our planners. Next break them down into how they will be achieved. Some will be by actively doing something one time, some will be achieved incrementally by regular or daily habits. Find a way that works for you to mark or track these in your planner. Habit trackers have grown in popularity recently, but equally satisfying can be marking when you achieve something from your goals in your monthly view pages. Alternatively having a page dedicated to a particular goal can be useful and inspiring in times when you find your motivation waning.

How to use your planner in real life

Repeat after me: no one will know (or care!) if I don’t use my planner every day. If you suffer from the guilt of unused pages, maybe look into getting an undated diary, that you can pick up and use whenever you need it. But a planner is not only useful if used every moment of every day, there are times in everyone's lives when nothing is going on, or conversely, when you are just too busy to even check your to-do list.

For the other days, here’s how to make the most of your planner:

Each Sunday (or Monday morning if the idea of looking over the next week at the weekend is just too horrid a thought) do a mini version of your monthly check-in. Has anything been cancelled? Anything new to add to this week? What to-dos do you have? Write in the dates and times pulled from your monthly pages and pencil in any additions or alterations. Next fill in any to-dos that are needed for that particular week, either in list form next to your days, or assigned to a certain day. Last of all, look at your goals and personal to-do list and try to find time among your commitments for time to do these. For some people set on achieving a specific goal this could take the form of a tick list for the week, with a box to be ticked each day that they meet that goal, such as reading 10 pages of a book.

Take it a day at a time:

If you find yourself regularly becoming overwhelmed with everything that you need or want to achieve, try to remember the rule of three - where each day has three focuses, which should be done before anything else, and which, if achieved, means that you can call the day a success. There are so many ways to hack your productivity (eat the frog, the pomodoro technique & bullet journalling, to name a few) and planner set up, to optimise how you get things done, but at the end of the day what works best for you is only discoverable by trial and error. While social media and the internet can be a fantastic place for getting ideas, remember that what works for others may not also work for you, and the real way to get things done is to do the actual task, not have a beautifully created plan that never begins.

Review, Review, Review

At the start of each month, look over the previous month and think about what went well (believe us, celebrate the good, it is good for your mental wellbeing) and what you could improve on this month. It is this adaptability that will combat the inflexible, black-and-white thinking that usually comes with working towards goals. It is also why 30-day challenges are popular and far more manageable than new year's resolutions that typically focus on massive shifts to your lifestyle. On the first day of the month, make a list of what you want or need to achieve over the coming 30 days, and make sure it includes personal goals as much as professional, and fun things as much as obligations. Edit what worked the month before and combine these with the new goals to set out a plan for how you will tackle the weeks ahead. Put it somewhere you will see it regularly, or filter it down to spread across your week and day pages, so that each day you know what you are doing and won't have to worry that you are not working in the right direction, towards your goals.

Tips to take away

• If your planner is for organising more than one aspect of your life, such as if you have kids, you could try separating the spaces into sections for different people or topics. Just like some diaries have sections for am and pm, you could have your days separated for mummy, daddy and toby, for example. This can also be helpful for those of us whose professional life bleeds into the personal, by having your days and lists set apart for each aspect of your life, it can help you focus on each at the right time and switch off when the working day is done (hopefully).
• Think of your planner as not just for forward-thinking, but also as a time capsule for your year to look back on. If something awesome happens, make a note of it! Those are the quick scribbles that you will look back on in years to come. Some people also use their planner as a sort of scrapbook of their lives, putting in ticket stubs, photos from days out, or pictures their children have drawn for them, simply for memory keeping and as a place to store things that would otherwise end up in a box under the bed.
• Planning can also be useful for keeping your health and well-being in check. As you are most likely the only person to look in it, many also use it as a creative outlet. Decorating each week and doodling in your planner can be incredibly therapeutic, plus there’s tons of inspiring ideas and themes to try out on sites such as Pinterest and Instagram, not to mention tutorials and planner flick through on Youtube. There’s even a growing number of people who have taken up calligraphy in their planners, something which requires little more than a brush pen and a few tutorial videos. Not artistically minded? Writing down a paragraph, a sentence or even one good memory for each day can do wonders for your mood over time and helps you create a record of the year without the pressure that comes with keeping a long-form journal. Equally useful can be tracking symptoms of health conditions or healthy habits like sleep, dietary needs or anxiety, either for self-reference or to show to your doctor.

There’s nothing more exciting than getting a new diary or planner, and all the hope that comes with it. But actively using it to achieve all that you want is another matter entirely. By combining the tips in this article with a beautiful planner that you love and want to pick up and use each day, there is nothing stopping you from turning your 2023 goals and dreams into reality. All of the planners and diaries sold by Katie Leamon are designed with usability in mind - they lay flat so that they are easy to write in; are made with ink-proof paper that can take the fussiest of pens and contain ample note pages for your own ideas and scribbles - meaning that as well as being a nice to look at, they will also be a delight to use, whichever way you choose to design your year. Know how you will use your planner Fill in the non-negotiables Goal setting & habit tracking Review, review, review How to use your planner in real life Tips to take away