We make planners for the way you think. We are committed to carrying our customers beyond the purchase with resources, ideas and inspiration on how to use the planners, and accessories that will help you get things done and reduce life's overwhelm.
March 2025
"Mastering the Art of Planning: How Teachers Can Seamlessly Combine Personal and Work Life in One Planner"
The Question:
I stumbled upon your Instagram account and I'm obsessed with your different planners!! Truth be told, I'm a disorganized mess who currently has THREE different planners (not counting my to-do list in my notes app and my calendar on my phone) and I still can't figure out a system that works for me.
Would someone be able to help guide me on which planner to choose from? I'm a teacher and typically have a work planner and a personal planner, but I'm wondering if one of your options would allow me to consolidate and use one planner for both work and personal.
The Solution:
If you want to set up your teaching job and your personal life to share the same space, I recommend our Horizontal Weekly Planner. This planner layout allows you to separate work and personal on the two short pages (separated by the coil). Nancy's example is a great visual of this!
Monthly Section: Holds overview of teaching units + appointments.
Weekly Section (right short pages): Lesson plan, broad view (ie: "introduce butterfly unit" or "math unit 3 lesson 4"). I suggest holding the details of these lesson plans on a digital solution (Google Pages, etc).
Weekly Section (left short pages): Personal schedule + tasks
This Week Column: Reminders about things that need to get done this week for both work and personal life.
Notes Section: Space for all of the "can't forgets" that pop into your mind throughout the day.
To-Do This Month Column: A running list of tasks that you can pull from each day.
As for your to-do list that you keep on your phone, I often do something similar (we all need an on-the-go solution!), but I always give it a home in my planner as soon as I'm able and then delete it from my digital list. Whatever digital list I use (notes app, Slacking myself a message, etc) acts as a que and when it has been assigned a day and a time to be completed, it gets deleted. It's a temporary spot.
Don't forget: Start small and establish some consistent habits. I like to take 10 minutes on Sundays to get my life in order. My kids, my work, and my personal life. I take a look at my Google Calendar and then make sure my paper calendar matches for that week. I put pressing to-do's on specific days in my planner or on the Weekly Tasks Column. Once you have progress with starting small, you can add more.