Best Planners for Working Moms

If you are a planner by nature, you are probably anticipating the time of year when you can order a new one. It’s always so exciting to open a new planner and think about the upcoming year and what you want to accomplish. New planner is like a new beginning. You are starting with a clean slate. As working mom, you think about what your goals for work and life and how to balance it all. Some of your dreams and desires are awake again and you start thinking how you will accomplish them this time. And planners are the exact tool that will help you make your dreams a reality. You need to find which planner will work best for you as a working mom,

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How do you choose a planner?

There are so many options when it comes to planners! Which is great, because we are all different and have unique needs. But it makes it really hard to choose THE ONE in the see of planners. You are likely asking yourself: ‘How do I choose a planner’?

The very first thing you have to consider when choosing a planner is what specific problem are you trying to solve. Are you looking to better manage your time with time blocking? Do you plan on using your planner to set goals and a plan of action to accomplish them? Or maybe your main purpose is to organize your daily schedule as a busy working mom.

Knowing what you are looking for before you start your search will definitely help you narrow down your options.

What are planners good for?

Planners have a variety of great applications. They are a great tool to help you get organized with your time in all areas of your life. They can help you prepare for a successful day, week, month, and year.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail

BENJAMIN FRAnklin

Here are some things that planners can do for you.

Organize your tasks to be more productive

Planners can definitely help you get organized with your long list of tasks. You can plan tasks for a specific day on your calendar while taking into consideration your work and home schedule. This will help you spread out your to-do list so you don’t feel overwhelmed.

You will also be able to batch similar tasks together to save you time and energy. For example, if you are going grocery shopping, you might as well stop by the gas station on the way, Or if you are meal planning for next week, it makes sense to write down your grocery list at the same time. It will help you be more efficient and productive.

As working moms, there are a lot of balls to juggle on any given day. There are work deadlines to meet, appointments to remember, after school activities schedules to keep in mind, and million other things to be aware to make sure days run as smoothly as possible. Having a planner to write down all those important things will help you stay on top of them.

Helping you balance your life

One of the biggest struggles of working moms if finding a balance between our home responsibilities, work responsibilities, and personal desires. You might find yourself experiencing mom quilt because you don’t feel like you spend enough quality time with your kids. Or you might simply be tired because your plate of responsibilities just keeps growing.

Planners will help you find balance by spreading the tasks in each are of your life that makes most sense to you based on your personal preference and family dynamics. They will also help you find a way to better schedule certain activities so you can have more time to do the things you love.

If you are in a situation where you might feel lost and confused because you are not sure where to get started to help you balance it all, check out the Life Balance Workbook. It will help you determine which are of your life you should address first.

RELATED: 10 Life areas to Set Goals to Balance Your Life 

Clear your mind

One of the most overwhelming things for working moms is the constant to-do list in our head of things we have to do every day. It is sometimes hard to concentrate on a task at hand because you are constantly interrupted with thoughts about random, but important, things you have to remember to do:

• Remember to stop by the grocery store to pick up milk on the way from work
• Don’t forget to buy a birthday present for your niece
• Today is the last day to sign up the kids for soccer
• I have to email my client to request a change to our meeting date because I forgot I have a dentist appointment that day

The list never ends. And writing those things down in our planner will help us clear our minds. Because once you write it down, your brain knows you have a physical reminder of that tasks and it longer has to remind you about it.

RELATED: Time Management Strategies for Working Moms

Better time management

We cannot talk about planners without mentioning how they can help you manage your time in a more effective way. We all have 24 hours in a day, and how we manage that time is up to us. Planners allow you to actually see your schedule. They make it very clear how many hours you can dedicate to specific types of activities.

RELATED: Time Management Do's and Don'ts 

It is sometimes hard to accomplish things when you simply say ‘I will do it next week’. When exactly will you do it? What day will work best to get it done? You will likely forget all the things you have planned for next week. And if you don’t consider all the things you have going on next week – it might be extremely challenging to get it done.

Planners will help you get organized with your time by helping you structure your days in a way that is most efficient and effective.

Best Planners for Working Moms

With all the options of planners available to you, here is a categorized list of the best planners for working moms.

BEST LIFE PLANNERS

Life planners are designed to help you organize your life. You will find a place for goal setting and organizing your days to accomplish those goals and stay productive.

Erin Condren Layers Daily Life Planner

Best planner if you are looking for something that gives you options for your week – you can select vertical, horizontal, or hourly spread.
You will also find monthly and yearly goal planning pages to keep you focused. Erin Condren planners are known for being sturdy, beautiful, and of course all the stickers!

Living Well Planner

Living Well planners are designed by a working mom herself to help you set a time management system that works for you and your busy lifestyle. It offers you the ability to set your monthly, yearly, and long term goals as well as weekly spreads to keep you organized. In addition you will find pages to plan your budget and projects.

Live Rich Planner

Live Rich Planner was created by The Budget Mom to help you organize all aspects of your life and anticipate important events. Each week includes a page for personal finance, personal planning,, weekly schedule, and meal planning.

BEST WEEKLY PLANNERS

Weekly Planners are best if your main purpose of the planner is to plan one week at a time. These planners offer you a view of each week so you can easily see how your schedule looks like for the entire week.

Simplified Weekly Planner by Emily Ley

As the name indicated, the planners are designed to simplify your life. They are beautifully designed and offer you monthly view, simplicity tips, and plenty of space to take notes, write your to-do list, and create a meal plan for the week.

Purple Trail Weekly/Daily Planner

The great feature of this planner is that you have a lot of options to choose from to make it personal. Based on your preferences and needs you can choose how you best capture tasks and activities for the upcoming weeks. You can view your weeks horizontally or vertically and you can also choose if you schedule is divided by hours, 15-minute increments, or divided into 3 sections.

Weekly and Monthly Planner by Frasukis

This weekly planner is a best seller on Amazon. It is designed with simplicity in mind and offers monthly and weekly view, and just a few extra pages to capture important contact information and quick references. If you are looking for a planner with nothing extra – this one is for you. You can also find it in Target, Walmart, and Office Depot.

BEST DAILY PLANNERS

Daily planners are for working moms who want to have a detailed plan for each week. If your days are busy and you need to capture appointments or want to use your planners for block scheduling – your best option might be a daily planner.

Daily Planner Duo

This Erin Condren’s planner offers you one page per each day. Daily spread includes hourly breakdown, to-do list, and space for taking notes. You also get monthly views and a space to capture your monthly goals.

Panda Daily Planner

This planner has been uniquely designed based on positive psychology and neuroscience to help you take control of your life and stop feeling overwhelmed. Each day has four sections: morning review, schedule and tasks, priorities, and end-of-day review.

Blue Sky Daily Planner

Blue Sky Planners offer one page per day that include hourly schedule, top three tasks for the day, to-do list, notes, quote of the day, and space to write down what you are grateful for that day.

BEST CUSTOMIZABLE PLANNERS

If you are a working mom who is very particular about what she wants and does not want her planner to include you should look into those options to fully customize your planner. You get to pick and choose different options and features and end up with a planner that meets all your needs.

Personal Planner

Personal Planner definitely lives up to its name. Their website takes you through a very easy to navigate process of designing your own planner. There are so many options to choose from! You can design how your weekly spread looks like, what information you want to track (for example: workouts, meal planning, work project), and add there are plenty of extra pages you can add to the back.

Personalized Planners by Agendio

Agendio takes you through a step-by-step process of designing the planner that works for you. They believe that in order for you to have the best planer you should be the one who decides how it will look like and what pages and inserts it will include.

Personalized Planners by Plum Paper

Plum Paper offers a lot of different planers, but this particular type offers you full customization. You get to choose a size of a planner, vertical or horizontal layout, monthly or daily pages, grid type, and other pages that you can add to your planner.

BEST GOAL PLANNERS

Goal planners are best for working moms who want to concentrate or setting goals and creating a plan of action to go after them.

Goal Planner by Christy Wright

This goal planner was created by Ramsey personality Christy Wright who is leading the Business Boutique. It allows you to set and track goals three areas of your life: personal, professional, and spiritual.

Passion Planner

Passion Planner is know for its unique feature – passion roadmap. It offers you a step-by-step directions on how to map our your goals. The planner allows you to block schedule specific tasks on your weekly view to ensure that you are working towards your goals.

BEST DIGITAL PLANNERS

Organized to Save Digital Planner

This digital planner was created by Lindsay from Organized to Save. It is beautifully designed, includes monthly and weekly pages, and allows you to time block. It also offers three color options and you get 54 stickers to personalize. And Lindsay is is offering you a coupon code: ORGANIZEDPLANNER (valid until 1/31/2021).

Ultimate Digital Planner

Another great digital planner option is the Ultimate Digital Planner by Plannerscollective. This planner offers you a lot of extra pages in addition to the monthly, weekly, and daily spreads. You can add meal planner, sleep tracker, a bucket list, and many many more.

Digital Life Planner

The Digital Life Planner by Breezy Organization is a Life Planner. This planner included daily, weekly, and monthly spreads as well as pages for goal planning and vision board.

BEST PRODUCTIVITY PLANNERS

And last but definitely not least are planners that help you stay productive.

Purple Trail Mom Planner

This planner is specifically designed for moms to help organize all the different tasks and responsibilities. It includes monthly and weekly spreads as well as checklists and to-do pages. One of the great features is that it is fully customizable.

Clever Fox Planner

This weekly planner is simple and elegant. Besides the weekly and monthly spreads it also has goal panning pages, vision board, self discovery worksheet, and monthly reviews.

Productivity Planner by Jordan Page

This planner is specifically geared towards time blocking. However, it’s not your typical time blocking because instead of hourly breakdown, it divides your day into sections that you determine yourself. Jordan Paige is a productivity guru, so if you are interested in time blocking, definitely check this planner out!

Which one will you choose for next year?