A key to academic success and thriving in life, is being able to plan. Whether you are planning an upcoming school assignment, organising a weekend away, or devising a plan to reach more distant goals, some kind of planning tool is essential (especially for those of us with executive function challenges). This blog post will help you discover the best student planner for you!
If you are always immersed in tech, then it would seem a no-brainer to choose a digital student planning tool. If you love journalling and making handwritten study notes in a notebook, then a paper planner could be for you.
Before you make that choice, consider your personal preferences and how you intend to use your planner. The following questions may help with these considerations, and prompt you to think more about other issues that may impact your choice of what would be the best student planner for you.
For parents reading this, asking your teen the following questions will help them make the right choice. I know it’s frustrating when you have a great tool that would probably help your teen improve how they plan their homework assignments and exam revision. But the planner your teen chooses has to be the right one for them and their needs.
What’s your planning style and preferences?
- What will you be using your planner for – purely for school / college stuff, or for personal goals too?
- Where will you use it – just at home at your desk or will you also take it to school?
- If you take it with you, how likely are you to lose or forget a physical planner or notebook?
- How much time will you spend planning each day / week?
- Do you prefer writing by hand or typing? (If you write by hand, does it help you remember tasks better?)
- When a task is done, do you prefer to physically cross it out, fill a checkbox digitally, or have it vanish? (Which gives you the biggest dopamine hit?)
- Do you like labelling with carefully colour-coded highlighters or stickers?
- Do you like your planner to be beautifully decorated and visually appealing, or do you prefer a minimalist style?
- Do you also like to use your planner for journalling about your goals and reflections?
- Are your goals more habit-based (e.g. exercise 30 minutes daily) or more project-based (e.g. write an article for the school magazine)?
- How do you currently track school/college homework assignments, exams and deadlines? Do you prefer a visual style of tracker?
- Do you like to see an overview of your term or semester, or do you prefer to just plan week-to-week?
Is a digital planner best for you?
- Do you already spend a lot of time on digital devices? If so, would you prefer to avoid further screen use or consolidate it?
- Do you find using screens affects your focus or motivation? How so?
- Do you regularly need to edit items in your planner, such as adjusting or moving personal or academic activities / tasks?
- Do you have lots of repeated tasks or regular deadlines?
- Would a habit tracker help with tracking and motivation?
- Would reminders and notifications help you stay on track?
- How portable do you need your planner to be? Do you often plan on the go, or mostly at home / in one place?
- Do you have reliable access to your devices and the internet?
- How comfortable are you with digital calendars and digital planning tools like Notion?
- Would you like your planner to sync across devices (phone, laptop, tablet)?
- Does your school / college rely heavily on digital learning management systems (like Google Classroom) and/or homework and revision apps?
- Would it help to digitally link class notes, files, or syllabi directly to your planner?
Decision time: paper or digital?
If you answered mostly YES to the second set of questions, then a digital system could be the best student planner for you. It could offer a number of advantages over a paper planner, especially if it’s possible to integrate your planner with your school/college digital homework and learning systems. If you already live a highly digital life and prefer not to handwrite whenever possible, then a digital planner will probably be more suitable. So too, if you want to travel light and avoid adding a bulky planner to your school bag.
However there are disadvantages to digital planners, especially if you are a person who enjoys the process of handwriting, creative illustration and journalling. Yes, there are digital journalling apps like 3 Good Things (a gratitude app) or Day One (which offers one free journal or multiples for a paid upgrade). They are great for journalling on the go or when time is short, but for those who love writing and reflection, the experience just can’t match up to handwriting in a beautifully designed and textured physical planner.
If you have a nagging sense that you could do with a digital detox and need a better sleep hygiene routine, then choosing a non-digital planning tool might actually benefit your wellbeing as well as your self-organisation!
What is the best student planner if you have ADHD?
Many ADHD coaches say that a paper planner is the best student planner for neurodiverse young people. By providing monthly and termly overviews, as well as weekly planning pages, paper planners can help you visualise time better and build future awareness. This really helps ADHDers, who live very much in the present, with immediate concerns and rewards outweighing focus on future goals. By looking ahead to future deadlines, you can then backwards plan to fit in all your commitments, allocating them to a particular time. By contrast, if you use a planner on your phone you are effectively limited to a daily view due to screen size. Computer screens or tablets mitigate this issue somewhat and, if only tech will do for you, using something like Google Tasks together with Google Calendar can offer a useful alternative.
Another key benefit of using a traditional, paper planner, is that writing things down actually helps to commit them to your long term memory. This is because the writing process activates the sensory areas of your brain as well as the language areas. Research shows that those who handwrite information have better memory recall than those who type (although you could write with a pen on a tablet for the best of both worlds!) So if you want to remember what deadlines are coming up and what homework is due, then a written planner offers an advantage.
If you don’t choose a paper planner, remember that choosing an electronic planner leaves you open to additional distractions. This is a particular problem for students with ADHD who already experience attention problems. You may very well have the best of intentions to use your planner – but then get distracted from the task by your favourite social media app!
A final consideration: the cost!
When choosing an academic planner it’s important to consider your budget. Are you looking for something free or a low-cost no-frills functional planner? Perhaps you have money for a nice notebook planner or digital app requiring a one-off payment? For digital apps you can often get a free trial before deciding whether the app works for you. Other apps offer a simpler free version; then you can upgrade when you can afford it. If you’re very lucky it could even be that you have funds for a recurring monthly subscription fee for an all-singing, all-dancing digital tool. Remember though, there is something out there for every pocket!
Would a student planner make a great gift?
I would definitely recommend that all students invest in some sort of student planner! You could always ask for one as a gift from a relative who would like to help you reach your potential at school or college.
Parents, if you have a teenage son or daughter, then an academic planner can make a great present – when you identify the best student planner for YOUR teen. Whether your teen would love a beautifully designed planning book, perhaps in their favourite colour, or the latest streamlined tech version, there are key benefits for using a planner to improve how they manage their schoolwork.
If you would like to know more about how your child can use their planner to build success at school, I’ve love you to connect with me here. Alternatively, if you are worried that your teen needs more than a new planner to get back on track, arrange a free consultation so that we can discuss how coaching can help.
