Our New Student Planners are Here!

My freshman year of college, I took a class with a professor who required students to use a planner. They gave us all a Franklin Covey planner as part of our book fees, and we were graded on how well we took notes, wrote down homework assignments and used our monthly calendars. I remember the grumbles and moans from all the students as the teacher wrote "How to Use a Planner" on the board. It seemed pretty self-explanatory, right? You have a calendar and you write important things on it. Easy peasy. Our professor, however, said that if we were going to use our planners effectively, we would have to follow three simple tips.

Tip #1: Look at your planner every single day.

It seems like such a simple rule, but it was surprising how many days I would forget to look at in and then as a result, I would forget an assignment. So I followed this tip and looked at my planner every morning while I ate breakfast.

Tip #2: Write in your planner every single day.

Even if there isn't an assignment to keep track of or any notes to jot down, the simple act of writing in your planner every day taught you to make it a part of your routine. I remember some days I would just write what I did that day or jot down a to do list.

Tip #3: Make your planner your own.

One day, our teacher walked in the room with a stack of newspapers. She had saved the comics section from about 6 months worth of Sunday papers. She told us to find a comic that made us laugh, cut it out and put it in our planner. Some kids just shoved it in a pocket, while others (like myself) glued it to a sheet of paper and put it at the front of our planner. The next day, she asked us all to bring in a picture of our family or friends and put that somewhere in our planner. By the end of the semester, our planners weren't just boring agendas anymore. They were personal to us. They were a part of our daily routine and by the end, many of us (not all...we are talking about college kids here) enjoyed looking at and using our planners every day. 16 years later, I am still using my planner the same way :)

Learning to use a planner in school made me a better student. I was more organized and on task when it came to my school work and extra curricular activities, and I truly believe that I got better grades because of that. So if you are a student, or the parent of a student, I challenge you to try using your planner every single day this school year. Look at it, write in it and above all else, PERONALIZE it!

The best way to motivate yourself (or your child) to use a planner is to make it your own! We took our boring old University Edition Franklin Covey planners and made them our own with fun pages, comics, stickers and more. I can't say the guys in our class got quite as excited as the ladies, but they still found a way to personalize their pages.

So with both types of students in mind, we have designed two different Student Planners that are fun, flexible and easy to use!

Our first Student Planner option is my personal favorite :) The Yellow & Gray Design is bright and fun and it makes me smile every time I look at it. This design comes in LARGE 8.5 x 11 and SMALL 5.5 x 8.5.

Both of our Student Planners come with two different weekly layouts to choose from. The first is a more basic, lined, horizontal weekly layout with plenty of space for writing assignments and other tasks. The second option is a more detailed weekly layout with 7 subject boxes to help you better track homework and assignments throughout the week.

Our Student Planner also comes with 2-page month-at-a-glance calendar pages and two fabulous dockets!! Dockets are an excellent way to look at your day or week at-a-glance with plenty of space for various lists, agendas and more. You can use these pages with (or in place of) your other weekly and monthly pages.

Although a traditional spiral bound planner is convenient, it doesn't offer a lot of flexibility for adding your own pages. Between handouts from school and schedules from extra curricular activities...students have a lot to keep track of. And if you have a planner system that allows you to add pages of your own, you can include great extras like the ones included in our Student Planner! It comes with a variety of Notes and ToDo lists, a Class Schedule page, Assignments and Projects checklists and a detailed Project Planner for your bigger assignments and presentations. We've also added a contacts page and a standard cover.



I realize that our Yellow & Gray planner may be a little too fancy (and too girlie) for some, so we have also created an equally fun and simplistic version of our Student Planner! This set is easy to print, uses minimal ink and is perfect for guys and girls! You can easily customize it with stickers, washi tape or other embellishments, or leave it classic and clean!

Our Simplistic Student Planner also comes in LARGE 8.5 x 11 and SMALL 5.5 x 8.5 and includes all the same great pages.

For those of you that have never printed your own planner pages before, let me assure you that although it a process and will require some "project time," the flexibility and customization it offers is worth the work!!

There are a variety of different planners out there from Filofax to Franklin Covey, but if you are looking for an inexpensive, easy way to put together your Student Planner, I highly recommend looking into the Arc and Martha Stewart Discbound systems from Staples. I talk a lot about these planners on our blog and it's because I absolutely love them!

This week, I told my 11-year-old neighbor, Patrina, that I would help her put together her student planner for the coming school year. Because our sets come with fun cover pages (or we can design a custom one for you), we decided to go with the Customizable Poly Arc Notebook so that our cute little cover could show through the front.

We also bought a set of the plastic tab dividers so that it's easier for her to find what she is looking for. I used my inexpensive DYMO label maker and came up with 5 categories that I thought worked well for the Student Planner.

Calendars

Under the "calendars" tab, I included a year's worth of monthly pages. Patrina plans to use these to keep track of birthdays, special events, holidays and other school programs. She is also a cheerleader so she is going to use it to jot down her games and performances.

Homework

Under the "homework" tab we have included 3 months worth of weekly pages. Carrying a whole school year can get quite bulky, so we went with 3 months to get started. Patrina chose the weekly layout with subjects to help her keep track of her homework assignments under each class category.

To Do Lists

This section is great for using simple To Do lists and our Daily or Weekly Docket pages.

Important

We both had a tough time coming up with the perfect tab word for this section, but we wanted a place to house her class schedule, contacts pages, project planners and other important paperwork. So we simply labeled it "important."

Notes

Every planner needs a good old "Notes" section and the student planner comes with super cute note paper that you can use anywhere in your planner.

Patrina is already home filling out all of the dates in her planner and she just told me she can't wait to start the school year! She may be the only one that excited right now :)

I know all of these pictures showcased the Yellow & Gray planner, but the Simplistic set has all of the same great pages and can be set up the exact same way in your planner! Our file now provides detailed print instructions to help you set everything up from start to finish. But of course, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us in our Printables shop!

And stay tuned...

We will be back next week with a fun Back-to-School post that will offer some helpful tips for getting you and your kids ready for a fresh new year! And stay tuned for another FABULOUS giveaway and a bunch of new FREEBIES!!!