How to Set Up Your Monthly Planner with Free Printables

An overview of your monthly to-do list can go a long way. It can help you get organised, set your goals straight for the month and give you a glimpse of your life. Earlier, when I used to depend on my mind to remember things, I used to end up forgetting a lot. And by a lot, I mean even the most relevant things. When I started college I came across Pinterest (I know, quite late in the game) and that introduced me to planning.

Over the years I have been figuring out the best planner for myself. Experimenting with pre-made planners, bullet journaling, making digitally from scratch. Now, when I joined the blogging world it has become difficult to keep track of all the things to do. I have come across a new planner I feel will help me get more organised in balancing my student and blogging life.

In this particular article, I will discuss a new type of planner I found, planners that I have used earlier, the stationary I use and a free gift I give to my readers. I will also talk about setting up your monthly planner in a colour coded fashion while keeping it minimalistic. Let u dive into it, shall we?

I also have made a free printable for all my champs who subscribe to my list along with many other freebies! So don’t forget to hit the subscribe button <3

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Starting out with Planning

Having had my fair share of planners over the years, I am still trying to figure out what works for me and what does not. But I feel I am getting better at the game. I have been figuring out the ‘correct’ way to plan and it had been down the drain for a long time. You see, I am extra with everything I do.

When I first started this process of planning I focussed too much on making it ‘Pretty‘ rather than the process itself. This became quite exhausting after a while. While I got pretty looking planners, I ended up not using them because I had looked at them too much. Oh yeah…I get bored easily too. The only two things I have not been bored of till now is aerospace and now blogging. No wonder I have kept at it.

Getting back to the topic, the second kind of the planner I tried was the ‘minimalistic’ kind. When I landed at this kind of a planner, I thought, “THIS IS IT! I will surely get on track now”. Fun Fact: This is not what many people tell you but most of these minimalistic planners are minimum in the products they use and NOT the design itself. The designs people usually do in these are intricate, pretty and oh-soo time-consuming.

Why did I indulge in that you ask? I could have not gone for the shiniest thing I saw, but that was not me, so I got into making the ‘minimalistic’ planners. This happened for a year and I finally gave in and strived for simplicity rather than the decorations.

After all the struggle, I feel I have landed at the almost perfect planner for me. I came across Japan MUJI A5 Weekly Schedule Note and Japan MUJI A5 Monthly Schedule Note a while back and am in love with these planners. I was looking for simple, non-bulky, minimalistic (in the real sense) sort of planners and this fits right through. Here is a picture of the planner I am using:

Planners I love and currently use:

So the planners I am currently using are two-way planners; one is weekly and the other is a monthly layout. I have recently started my journey has a blogger and initially thought that “I could do without a planner, this is not college after all”. Well, just so you know, I was absolutely WRONG.

Writing a post, marketing, publicising, planning for guest posts, collaborations; it was all too overwhelming for me to keep track of. So I decided to give these new planners a chance. Initially, I had used one planner for everything. Now, I have started to keep my tasks organised by keeping two planners. And it by far is working best for me. These are the planners I am using:

Japan MUJI A5 Weekly Schedule Note

• The Japan MUJI A5 Weekly Schedule Note is a weekly scheduler that gives a one look glimpse at your entire week. With a brown cover, the pages of the planner are beige in colour.
• The planner is fully customisable and has 32 sheets in total. The sheets are thick and pens and highlighters don’t seep to the other side.

What I love best about this planner?

I can collectively put all my weekly work in just one page without the hustle of going through daily and monthly pages in the same planner. This scheduler is specifically made for just one task, that is to plan your week and does a great job at that.

How I use this planner?

I use the weekly planner to plan my everyday events. Related to the blog I write about what posts I will be working on a particular day, the changes I have to make to the website, what emails to write for the day, making campaigns for my subscribers, designing printables; you get the picture. I have colour coded all this in blue.I also write about my college spread in this planner. I will be starting grad school soon, I will then shift to a new planner, but for now, I use this planner to schedule a few subjects I have undertaken and work on my own time. I have colour coded that in pink.

Japan MUJI A5 Monthly Schedule Note

• The Japan MUJI A5 Monthly Schedule Note is a monthly scheduler which gives an overview of the entire month. With a glimpse of the month it becomes extremely easy to plan ahead and keep on track with your life.
• The planner is fully customisable and has 32 sheets in total. The cover is brown in colour and the papers are beige making it soothing to the eyes

  What I love best about this planner?

  Firstly, the price is amazing. 32 sheets essentially mean over two years of planning in a single book. How great is that to keep track of your life? I feel this planner is going to be perfect for my blogging journey. I can keep a track of all my work in one place, and would not have to go crazy to review my previous plans if I need them later. The sheets are thick and pens and highlighters don’t seep to the other side.

• How I use this planner?

  • I use the monthly planner as an aid to the weekly one. I do not write the same things on both of them. This is my ‘at a glimpse’ kind of a planner.
  • I have colour coded this planner as well with blue for my posts that I put up and pink dedicated to guest posts.

• This planner has a blank column on the left-hand side as well. I have used this section to list out my goals for the month and the collaborations I will work on. Unlike the weekly planner, I use this just for blogging and have got another one for college work.

Planners I once used:

These are some of the planners I had used earlier. Please ignore the badly taken pictures, it was a dark time when I sucked even more than I do now at taking them

• I used a planner I bought from Debenhams a long time back. Although it was a little bulky, it had everything I needed. It was professional, has a daily, monthly and weekly spread and was simple.

• This decorative diary was a gift from my friends and I love it to bits. I decided to make it into a bullet journal and spent more than a day making all the pages. Sadly, I never got to use it due to a delay in my grad plan (see about me if you want to read more)

Stationary I used:

These are some of the stationary I used for my planner

• Highlighters: MUJI Twin-Tip Highlighter Pen 4-colors Pack is the one I had used for my planner. These highlighters are fun to use and have a cute little window to see what you are highlighting. They also have a dual tip with a felt tip on the other end making them quite versatile.
• Pens: uni-ball Vision Elite Rollerball Pens is what I used for the planner. The paper was thick and the colours don’t blot.
• DIY Bookmarks: I also used some of the 10 DIY bookmarks I had made in my previous tutorial. Do check it out as it will be a great addition to your planner

My free gift to you – subscribe to get it 🙂 :

Having tried my hand at MANY types of planners over the years I think I have made a template which I feel can be perfect for my champs (you). I have designed these weekly, daily and monthly spreads to help you out with your process of planning. Other than getting the Japan MUJI A5 Monthly Schedule Note and Japan MUJI A5 Weekly Schedule Note you can download these free printables too:

Monthly:

This monthly spread was designed to be as customisable as possible. I have created a section on the left-hand side so that you can write or scribble anything you want to.

Weekly:

I designed the weekly spread so that you have enough space to write your simple tasks and have a quick overview of the week in one go.

Daily:

For the daily spread, I have divided into four categories:

• Goals of the week: You can use it weekly or for daily tasks and write in your goals
• To-do: You can make your to-do list for the day and track your goals
• Tracker: You can create a food tracker, water tracker, fitness tracker, anything at all really in this section
• Random Thoughts: All your random thoughts and aspirations may go into this section

And there you go. This is how I set up my monthly planner and it has helped me get more organised when it comes to blogging. More so than I was when I attended college. Do subscribe to my list to get these beautiful free prinatbles and an additional free CV and cover letter template along with a timeline for applying for internships.

Do subscribe to be a part of my champs join me on my adventure and get some great goodies every Sunday and Thursday! You also get to be a part of my facebook group dedicated to bringing all my champs together and helping to slowly grow and support each other.

Please do comment below and let me know how you like the post, I reply to every one. Do share this post so as to help your friends as well. If you have any doubts or want to do a collaboration go to the start here page.

Have a great day!

I am also accepting guest writers for my segment called ‘Through the eyes of a student’. Click this picture to know more: