Our Favorite Paper Planners for Organizing Your Life

Buying a new planner gives me an endorphin rush like no other, whether it’s for a new school semester, work year, or a much-needed fresh start. A good one should help you stay on track without overwhelming you. Some folks on WIRED’s Gear team prefer paper planners over digital tools. Plus, writing things down has the added benefit of improving retention.

There’s no such thing as the best planner, but the WIRED staff has tried and tested all kinds of paper planners to bring you the best recommendations for your planner needs. Once you find something that works for you, read our guides on work-from-home gear, the best digital notebooks, and the best laptop backpacks for more.

Updated December 2024: We’ve added a brand-new section on monthly planners. We’ve also removed the Skinny Confidential Hot Minute Planner since it’s been out of stock, and the Plum Planner is now our runner-up for daily planners.

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Weekly Planners

Weekly planners are some of the most popular types of paper planners. They’re great for students, professionals, and parents who need to plan each day but also see the entire week.

No matter how many perfectly adorable planners I try and love, I’ve been repurchasing Happy Planners since 2017—though I’ve switched from a vertical layout to a large dashboard (there is also a horizontal style). These planners have room for organizing work and to-do lists with enough extras for other planning and notes without feeling overwhelmed. The divider pages are cute and sometimes include phrases and quotes, but they aren’t unbearably corny (usually).

The Happy Planner is almost infinitely customizable. Stock and themes fluctuate throughout the year, but in addition to the layouts already mentioned, you can choose between Classic, Skinny Classic, Mini, or Big sizes, and dated or undated pages. There are daily planners, ones tailored to teachers and students, among many others. You can get extension packs to add a few more months or to keep track of things like your budget and fitness goals. If you need it, the Happy Planner probably has it. —Medea Giordano

If the Happy Planner isn’t for you, you might lean more toward the Erin Condren LifePlanner (ECLP for short). WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe says it’s the Rolex of paper planners. It’s one of the most popular for weekly-spread enthusiasts, with gorgeous layouts and room for notes or doodles. It’s customizable and there are extra touches, like a storage pocket and snap-in ruler. Together, these features aren’t cheap (or lightweight), but Strampe has used an ECLP for the past three years, and it’s her favorite system of them all (and makes a great gift).

Once you find the size and cover you like, finish designing it with your desired layout—hourly, horizontal, or our favorite, vertical—choose a coil color and internal color scheme, and add your name or quote to the cover. The minimal Focused Planner can’t be personalized as much, but you can add a monogram and choose the coil. A cheaper version is available from Target, but you lose the customization options. —Medea Giordano

I still have nightmares of being in school and having no idea what or when my next class is. If that’s you, Class Tracker’s first three pages are designated for outlining your semester schedule from Monday to Sunday, 6 am to midnight.

Like most planners, there are monthly calendars, but the weekly pages shine. Each day gets a section for things to remember, tests, papers, or projects due that day, and larger spots for assignments and a daily plan. There’s a Self-Care Corner for non-school things you should focus on and a countdown box for something you’re looking forward to. The only thing I want is tabs to easily sift through months. The planner pictured here is the college version, but there are middle school and high school options. —Medea Giordano

This planner is hefty, but it’s full of pages for business owners to organize their thoughts and plans along with their weekly tasks (the PA stands for personal assistant). The first section is for filling out your mission and goals, marketing plans, and finances. Each month, you get spaces for goals, projects, and a social media content planner for the next 30 or so days. Then there are weekly overviews like the other planners here, broken down by hours with spots for that day’s goals, and weekly notes and expenses.

There are also little illustrations for tracking water intake and minutes of meditation and exercise. At the end of each week, a weekly review section gives you space for achievements or misses, sales, and subscribers, plus a brainstorming space for the following week. —Medea Giordano

There are a lot of quirky planners, but Ban.do is one of the most fun options. It’s the cool aunt of the planner world. From a page to track the books you read to an entire page dedicated to my astrological birth chart, it’s hard to resist the fun that Ban.do’s planners offer. The weekly layout has enough room for daily planning, and you’ll get fun extras like monthly meal planning and three pages of included stickers. Ban.do’s current 17-month academic planners start in August 2024 and will go all through 2025, and its newest 12-month planners ($28) are available for 2025. In both versions you’ll find a meal planner and notes pages for each month, and a fun overview section for the year at the front of the planner. There are also undated ($25) versions if you want full date flexibility. —Nena Farrell

Former WIRED reviewer Maryn McKenna prefers the Moleskine Pro Weekly Vertical, which is a notebook planner hybrid. The left page has blank lines, and the right is divided into sections for projects, status, and a classic to-do list. Weekly pages break down days by the hour, and blank check box pages let you plan elaborate arrangements of daily and category to-dos. McKenna says she feels like she has accomplished something before she even starts ticking off tasks. —Medea Giordano

Several members of our team like Blue Sky. Its affordable planners give you space to jot down tasks without cluttering up the page. They’re also a good size—much easier to tote around than some on this list. As with the Happy Planner, you can find different layouts, sizes, and formats to suit you, and there’s a collaboration with Day Designer, another favorite of ours. One thing I like about this collab with One Tree Planted is that the planner is sustainably made and recyclable. The cover is durable and has a nice texture to it, plus there’s no plastic coating (not even on the month tabs!). —Medea Giordano

Brass Monkey makes fun tchotchkes like games and office goods, and its planners are as snarky as the rest of its lineup. Each week includes dates, so you have to fill in the year and check off which day of the week it is. I like that better than having to fill out everything myself. It offers fun facts like two pop culture birthdays and an “on this day” note, and it keeps you on top of what national day you should be celebrating—like how October 8 is National Pierogi Day. You’ll either like or dislike how compact the pages are, and while the text and lines could stand to be darker, the fun and quirky extras make up for it. —Medea Giordano

Daily Planners

If your schedule is particularly busy and you need to plan each day rather than weeks as a whole, daily planners might be a better fit. They often give each day its own page, organized by hours.

If you need a detailed checklist for each day, get the Day Designer. Each page is divided into a schedule from 5 am to 9 pm to outline meetings or appointments and a to-do list, making it easier to keep track of assignments and other tasks. The top of each day page has a box for planning dinner and keeping track of bills due that day, plus your top three tasks of the day. There’s a notes area at the bottom too.

It’s big—something I prefer in a planner so I never have to cram stuff in the corners—so you might not want to lug it around, but if you can keep it at your desk, you’ll benefit from its organization. Also, it arrives in a nice box, making the entire thing feel like a fancy little ritual. —Medea Giordano

Even though I test planners all year long, Plum Planner’s customizable A5 planner is one I keep finding myself grabbing over and over after I’m done testing a new one. There are multiple layouts to choose from, but I love the Vertical Priorities layout as a person who lives for a daily to-do list and as a parent, since I added a custom priority section to the top for my son. There are two sections, so you could either add two kids, add one for meetings and one for deadlines, or any other priorities you’d want. The A5 size is easy to use and tote around wherever I want, and you can have the planner start on any month you wish—great for if you want an annual planner suddenly in March or July without needing to skip all those extra months. There are lots of fantastic add-ons too, from themed pages (monthly workout summaries! baby tracking pages!) to chic sticker sets for every theme you can think of. —Nena Farrell

Even second-graders need (or want) to remember things! WIRED reviewer Adrienne So wanted something cheap for her kids and didn’t just want a notebook they’d fill with drawings. This Daily Checklist fits the bill. There are included to-dos like brushing teeth and making the bed, with extra lines for items to be written in. There are a few other prompts for them too. It’s sturdy and has held up under aggressively rough treatment in her kids’ backpacks. —Medea Giordano

Several WIRED staffers recommend the Hobonichi Techo (Japanese for “planner”). WIRED reviewer Adrienne So says it’s the perfect size—small enough to fit in a bag and hold information but also able to lie flat on a desk. There is a monthly overview and then a page for each day, along with a quote that manages to be thought-provoking without being too trite. The cover is a distinctive black, stamped with gold foil and it comes with a wide variety of cute accessories. —Medea Giordano

Papier has incredible cover design options to match nearly any style or mood. For layouts, I like the undated Daily Productivity planner best. Each week has a box per day, lines for notes, areas for three priorities, a long to-do list, and a habit tracker. Plus, there’s a meal planner and shopping list for every week. There are also a few pages dedicated to outlining each day’s schedule. I didn’t need these pages as much during my usual week, but people with rotating weekly schedules might appreciate it.

I don’t like the layout of Papier’s yearly planners, which feature all the month calendars first, then an overview for each month with goals and to-do lists, and then the weeks. This kind of scramble doesn’t work for my brain. But Papier is the only brand I found that lets you scroll through every single page before you buy. I’m so specific about what I like and need, this should be standard. —Medea Giordano

Monthly Planners

If you’re looking for a planner that will help you look at an entire month at a glance rather than just a day or week, here are some options for you. There’s less room for detailed to-do lists, but it’s great if you’re a big-picture planner rather than a by-the-minute planner.

Not surprisingly, given the name, there’s nothing discreet about this planner. With its bright-blue cardstock cover and 11- by-14-inch profile too big to fit in any purse or small bag, this is for people who live—or plan to live—large. The companion to motivational speaker and entrepreneur Jesse Itzler’s Big A## Calendar (as seen in our Gift Ideas for People Who Work From Home), this spiral-bound “planner for highly visual people” depicts each month in its entirety across a two-page spread, with oversized 2.5- by 2.5-inch squares for each day. Motivational quotes top each page (sample: “To do exceptional things, put yourself in exceptional situations”), and the back of the planner contains a goal-tracker version of the Big A## Calendar—every day of the year at a glance.

There are five lined pages for notes, a running-pace chart should you find yourself overcome with a sudden burst of energy, and a Year in Review worksheet with boxes for keeping track of year highlights such as “favorite new music,” new things I tried,” and “career milestones.” If sudden inspiration strikes that needs to be shared, there’s a 300-square-inch dry-erase board in the back that can be propped up for impromptu meetings or demonstrations. I feel more energized just looking at it. I do wish the days of the week were on one page instead of across both, so I could keep it open folded in half on my desk (when opened, its footprint sprawls just under 2 feet wide—a significant amount of desk real estate), but as someone who takes copious handwritten notes, it’s a worthy trade-off for me for the sheer amount of writing space. —Kat Merck

These Seasonal Planners from Portland-based Studio Tigress aren’t your standard planner. These are large individual sheets covering an entire three-month season, allowing you to have it pinned on a wall or lying across your desk for easy access. The 10- by 16-inch sheets are certainly bigger than most planners and aren’t easy to travel with, but rather serve as a handy at-a-glance look for your key goals, to-do items, events, and deadlines that you write down. There’re five undated weeks for each month, so you’ll have to check your digital calendar to confirm which dates are where, but that also means there’s plenty of room for each month to write down what’s coming up and extra notes if you need. There are 25 spots on the to-do list, and I liked using it for my main seasonal goals (like apple picking in the fall, seeing the zoo holiday lights in the winter) and major to-do items (like getting my car emissions checked and purchasing train tickets). While it can’t replace a weekly or daily planner if you like daily to-do lists, I loved using these sheets to get a birds-eye view of the upcoming season. —Nena Farrell

Blue Sky’s planners are affordable and unburdened by extra junk—we recommend a weekly version above. Each day of the month has a few lines for jotting down multiple bullet points, and there’s a notes section for anything that would require more writing room. The yearly overview lets you track from an eagle-eyed perspective. It’s also the smallest monthly planner we’ve tried, with 10- by 8-inch pages. —Nena Farrell

Notebooks

Not everyone needs or wants a rigid planner. If you just need daily to-do lists or are a fan of bullet journals, consider getting a great notebook instead.

“Planners should transform according to the shape of your life,” former WIRED reviewer Pia Ceres says. For her, that means using a dotted notebook. This single notebook can be used for class schedules, daily planners, to-do lists, and angsty diaries. She says dots are the perfect medium between the limitations of lines and the void of blank paper. It’s just structured enough to let you draw the calendars and lists you need—then remake them when life inevitably upends itself again. Muji’s notebook has a durable cover to withstand book bags and coffee spills. If you have a Muji store near you, you may be able to find one for cheaper. —Medea Giordano

Former WIRED reviewer Jaina Grey opts for a plain lined notebook. After trying dozens, her favorite is the Midori MD Notebook with paper made from cotton pulp (just like money!). It comes in lined, unlined, or dot-grid. Grey says there’s just something meditative about turning over a blank page at the beginning of each week and carefully jotting down her schedule, plans, and workload. No missed days to make you feel guilty. Midori’s notebooks are designed to fit inside notebook or journal covers (which you can find all over Etsy). The pages are a subtle off-white and have a weight and texture that draws you in. The soft cotton paper of this notebook makes drawing, sketching, and plain old writing an absolute joy. —Medea Giordano

• Laurel Denise Horizontal Weekly Edition for $59: I’ve never seen a planner designed like this. It’s wider than a traditional planner, and the left side is for laying out the month—it’s undated—while the right has a spot for the month’s to-dos and a dotted area for whatever else. In the middle are five half-pages for organizing each specific week. You turn the week page and still get to see everything else you already wrote for the month.
• Levenger Circa smartPlanner Weekly Agenda for $60: This is another solid weekly planner with little frills. If you just need lines and days, this is your match. The brand also sells a leather folio for the planner, which looks very professional but is pricey.
• Artful Agenda for $40 (per year): If you wish you could add stickers to your Google Calendar, this is the tool for you. This isn’t a paper planner, but it turns your digital calendars into the paper planner experience. There are both monthly and weekly views, plus an area for lists, and tons of stickers you can add. Some stickers you need to buy on top of the annual membership, but lots are included, and the included stickers have a ton of variety.

WIRED reviewer Scott Gilbertson says he doesn’t use a planner, but each day he writes down the handful of things he’s going to do on a single 3-by-5 index card. The index card with this to-do list lives in his pocket, along with a small notebook in which he jots down notes throughout the day—often the source of the following day’s to-do list. The notebook and index cards fit inside this very cool waxed canvas notebook cover. Gilbertson says he copied this system from one of the most successful people he has known, and after nearly 20 years, it’s still better for him than any other system he’s tried. It’s cheap, lightweight, and easy to manage. —Medea Giordano

If you’re reading this guide, you probably are a pen-and-paper person, but sometimes going digital is more convenient. A good digital planner can complement your analog one instead of replacing it. Notion is a multipurpose productivity tool with tons of powerful and customizable features. WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe uses it as an endless to-do list, with tasks separated into categories like Work and Long-Term Goals, but it can be used as a team database, a budget spreadsheet, a habit tracker, and more. There are tons of templates to choose from, including planners that range from monthly at-a-glance views to granular hour-by-hour days. It even syncs across devices. The best part? It’s free. —Medea Giordano

Photograph: Getty Images

Maybe all you need is paper and a good pen and you’re good to go. But we like to get creative. Stickers are a popular accessory, and they’re a delightful slippery slope. Once you make your first “spread” (a collection of themed stickers on a planner page, similar to a scrapbook), you will never go back. Etsy is the central hub of planner stickers. You can order printed stickers or buy digital files and print and cut them yourself. You can also opt for a full kit (an entire spread’s worth of stickers) or just the individual components you like the most.