Simplifying my life, reducing my carbon footprint, saving paper, yes to all of the above! When I switched to digital planning, everything changed for the better.
I get it. You love your paper planner. It’s beautiful and allows you to be creative and you invested a bunch of money into it.
But it’s heavy, the pages rip, you have scratch-outs or whiteouts and your favorite pens bleed through and you’re already kind of bored with it.
That’s exactly how I felt with all of my paper planners over the last several years. I would get insanely excited about building it online and when I’d finally get it in my hands, I’d pull out all of my markers, pens and stickers and go to town on it.
But I’d get tired of carrying it around with me. I’d make a mistake and then had to painfully cross something out or use correction tape. And then a few weeks later, I’d realize that the layout wasn’t exactly right or I’d just get bored with it.
And then I discovered digital planning! I love that all I need is my iPad to keep my entire life organized and planned. Everything from calendars to meals to fitness to budgeting is in one place. I can access it and make quick edits to it on my iPhone when I’m out and about.
But one question I get a lot is how to move completely into digital when so much of your life is still in a paper planner. I’m going to run through my process to help you make the switch as seamlessly as possible.
Compare Your Planner To a Digital Planner
A digital planner works just like a paper planner if you use an iPad that is compatible with the Apple Pencil. You’ll even have unlimited ink color and thickness options, a few different pen tips and … my favorite feature … an eraser to quickly fix any mistakes or changes to your schedule! You can also “grab text” and move it around the page or resize written text to fit into a smaller space. You can add as many pages as you want without it getting any heavier and you can duplicate pages as well. There are just so many reasons why digital planning has made my life so much simpler!
You’ll want to find a digital planner that fits in line with your lifestyle, even if it differs from what you’ve been using. The great thing about being a digital creator is that I can create a custom planner for you without the overhead of printing a paper planner. You can view the planners I’ve created here for reference. The sky is the limit with design options!
Transfer Important Information From Your Current Planner
Once you have switched to digital planning and you have your digital planner downloaded onto your iPad, open your two planners side by side. I like to immediately write important information into my new planner before I get too excited about making it super pretty. These are things you don’t want to fall between the cracks like birthdays, anniversaries, medical provider information, passwords, trips, etc.
Set Up a System For Quick Planning
A big hurdle for many is that a digital planner doesn’t work like a calendar app. It won’t give you reminders or alerts on an upcoming appointment. I don’t use that function a lot because I open my planner daily but I understand the concern.
In my opinion, a planner is very different from a calendar app. A planner gives you space to plan things out, break down tasks, and organize many aspects of your life. A calendar app simply holds appointments and gives reminders.
But if you rely on those features, you can still use a digital planner! For all appointments and date specific events, you’ll first write them into your planner. And then you’ll also make a quick event in your calendar app if you need the alert. Yes, it may seem counterintuitive to do “double planning” but if you need the best of both worlds, this is the way to get it!
Another trick is to use the Notes app in your phone. When I need to quickly jot something down, I’ll type it into my Notes app. Then I’ll write it into my planner when I have a little more time. You can even copy the entire text and paste it right into your planner so it’s super quick!
Make Digital Copies of Everything
Since I switched to digital planning, I’ve been able to get rid of so much paper clutter. I do this by taking pictures of receipts, bills paid, notes, etc and then importing them into my digital planner. You can still file the papers away if you’re nervous to completely get rid of them but for the love, get it off your countertop! 😉
Backup Your Digital Planner
Another important step is to make sure you have a backup of your planner. I sync mine to iCloud so there is always an updated copy saved at all times. I also back it up monthly to a hard drive. Your digital planner is just a PDF with annotations so you can easily back it up onto any storage device.
If you write something down in your planner that you want a triple backup of, you can export that single page to your email so a PDF copy will “live” in your email server forever.
And that’s really it, friends! You can treat your digital planner just like your paper planner without fear.
Wondering what a digital planner looks like? Watch this video to see one in action!
To see my digital planners, click here to visit our shop!
Thanks for reading!