How to Customize Your Daily Planner: 10 Unique Passion Planner Daily Ideas
We know that your life is about more than just checking items off your to-do list, so why would your planner be that way? The Passion Planner Daily is designed to meet you where you’re at, whether that’s being on top of your goals or taking a day to just be. In this article, we’ll explore a number of unique ways to customize your planner to meet your needs. When each day is a new page to start over, you can truly take your life one day at a time.
1. Use the annual calendar layout as a tracker.
Having a year-at-a-glance is a feature of many planners, and a good place to store things like birthdays, anniversaries, upcoming appointments, travel plans, or other reminders. But rather than filling it in with what you know is coming up, why not use or Daily planner’s annual calendar to track your habits? You could add in stickers, symbols, or color coding to record your daily habits like reading, movement or exercise, or sleep. Another idea might be to color code each daily box to track your moods, like a Year in Pixels. Make sure to keep a key somewhere in your planner to refer back to so you can decode your tracking later on. Lastly, you could use each box to write in 1-2 words of daily gratitude journaling. This can be one way to look back on your year and remember the things that really made an impact.
2. Change the headers.
Maybe you don’t have work tasks to do every day, or maybe you just need a day without a to-do list at all. Changing the headers in your Daily planner can free up that space to be used in all kinds of ways. You can cross them out, use correction tape, or put stickers or washi tape over the headers to relabel them as something else. If you’re trying to create new morning or evening routines, jot them down here as a reminder. You can use this space to make a list of your good-enough goals — the things that will help you manage boring self-care tasks like brushing your teeth, drinking water, or going outside for a quick stretch in the sunlight. If it’s your day off, you can also make a list of things you want to do with your free time, like going to the library, getting a latte, or taking a bike ride.
3. Split one hourly time slot into two.
Even though the Passion Planner Daily is designed for you to have one page for every day, it is totally customizable to combine them if you need to. This can be a convenient way to plan out a weekend trip or look ahead to the next two days of a work project conjointly. You could also keep track of two separate schedules in one place using this method, like work and school, or yours and your partner’s or children’s. Draw a line down the middle of the hourly tracker to divide it into two columns. You can label the top to show what each side represents, or maybe color-code them to create a visual cue as well. This can also show you the pockets of free time you have that overlap with another person, a perfect way to prioritize quality time in your important relationships.
4. Add in the weekly overview.
The free weekly overview PDF is a welcome addition to your Daily planner. It’s a great way to see your week at-a-glance or plan ahead. You can download the PDF on Passion Planner’s website and use colorful wash tape to secure it in place. There are two versions of the weekly overview: vertical or horizontal. After choosing which version you like the best, you can use your Space of Infinite Possibility for the weekly overview or paste it in the middle like a flippable tab between the two larger pages — it’s customizable to whatever your needs may be. Some creative ideas for the weekly overview might be tracking workouts, dividing up larger work or creative projects, or meal planning ahead of time. It’s also a great space for a quick gratitude practice or brief journal entries.
5. Split up the personal or work section.
Sometimes one category just isn’t enough! You contain multitudes, and why shouldn’t your planner, too? One simple way to customize your Daily is to split up the personal or work to-do list sections. You might create sub-lists, such as for separate projects at work, or add a new category altogether, such as budgeting or errands. This is a great way to keep all of your reminders straight on the days when it feels like your brain is overflowing.
6. Add in the habit tracker PDFs.
Maybe there are parts of your planner that just don’t get used very often. No shame in that game — we’re here to talk about how to make your Daily planner work for you. Try downloading the habit tracker PDF from the Passion Planner website and pasting it onto one of those unused sections on the left hand page. Now instead of empty space, you have a tool to track your progress towards different goals!
7. Continue the hourly section in your Space of Infinite Possibility.
Did you know you can use your Daily planner to plan more than just one day? While that might sound like a riddle, it’s totally possible. Another way you can use your SOIP is to extend the hourly section onto the next page. If your day starts early or ends late, you could renumber the hourly section to reflect this, or even duplicate it to have multiple days in view at once. If you’re someone who likes to plan ahead, you might even use this space to sketch out your future schedule, or plan out your ideal day. This can be helpful if you are putting together a class schedule for school or just trying to fit more time for yourself into your busy life.
8. Use the Self-Maintenance section as a progress bar.
A creative twist on an existing Daily planner feature is to divide the Self-Maintenance section into a progress bar. You can try this customization out multiple ways, such as by splitting it into sections to benchmark your progress towards a goal, like drinking a gallon of water during the day, or even splits of work and breaks like in the Pomodoro method. Another idea would be to divide it into sections based on your different Self-Maintenance goals. These could include taking your vitamins, spending time outside, or anything you want to do during the day to keep yourself well.
9. Separate the hourly section into a grid to organize your week.
For the times when you need a weekly planner, this hack can help your Daily to fit the bill. Take a ruler and draw four vertical lines down the hourly section of your planner to create a grid. Label the five columns with the days of your work week and ta-da! You’ve got a mini weekly planner right at your fingertips. This can be useful to block your schedule and create visual cues or reminders. You could also use it as a mini Week in Pixels to see how you’re spending your time. After tracking for a week, you might notice that you spent a lot more time outside than usual, or that it was an especially heavy work week, and use that information to make decisions for the future.
10. Add in another daily page to the Space of Infinite Possibility.
Do you love your Daily so much that you wish you could have more of it? Try printing out a Daily PDF from our website and pasting it into your SOIP. If you use your Daily planner like a bullet journal, this hack makes it super easy to copy over tasks that got left behind from the day before. With more space overall, you could also add different categories to your lists other than just work or personal. If you prefer having two days together to organize your weekend, then you could make a list of chores you need to accomplish, fun things you want to do, or things to pick up at the farmer’s market.
Author Bio
Madeline Hodgman is a clinical social worker living in the Midwest with her husband and pets. In her free time, you can find her doing yoga, baking, reading, or exploring the national parks.