Does your life feel chaotic most of the time? Does it often seem like you can’t get ahead and always have a never-ending list of things to do? Are new tasks, commitments, and responsibilities popping up continuously, filling up your day so that you never have free time for what you want? Then you need a planner. And it just happens that I know the best planner to organize your life!

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Why You Need a Planner to Organize Your Life

First, let’s talk about why you need a planner to organize your life. Using a planner helps in so many ways. We all could use one, actually, even if we don’t feel overwhelmed.

I’ve always been a list maker. I absolutely love lists. They keep me organized, but they only go so far. Eventually, you have so many that the lists themselves can be overwhelming. To be honest, I still use them but it’s significantly less.

You can still find about 10 around my desk, home, and planner at any given time, so that gives you an idea of how many I had before! A planner helps me organize what I used to just write down in endless amounts of lists.

Being organized helps ensure your time is protected from things you don’t want to spend your time on.

I can see where I have free time or opportunities to make changes, and where I don’t. If something that isn’t important comes up, it’s much easier now to say no when I can see how it will affect my day or week.

I’m not giving up things I’ve prioritized as easily once I’ve written them down in my planner. They feel more important, even though they always were. Somehow, scheduling them has given them weight.

Using a planner is how I make family time a top priority. It is scheduled and not as easily run over by everything else in life that pops up.

A planner also helps me to visually see where my time is going.

I can make adjustments to use my time more aligned with my priorities. Just like keeping a food diary helps you see where your calories are going and how you’re wasting them, I can see where I’m not spending my time well. I can see how much free time I really have that’s getting eaten up unnecessarily.

I can also see what those things are that creep in and invade my time. Over time, it’s helped me to keep a better eye on those things that I’ve identified as time thieves. Prior to using a planner, I wasn’t able to identify some of those trends.

Using a planner gives us an outlet to get all of the chaos out of my head.

The creator of the Living Well Planner calls them “tornados” and I find that a pretty accurate term. Getting all of the thoughts of what I have to do, where I have to be, and who I have to be available for out onto paper and organized is very relieving. I’m far less overwhelmed by stopping the prospect of everything I have to do from swirling around endlessly in my mind. It frees me up to worry think about other things.

The Planner I Use: The Living Well Planner

I use an amazing planner created by Ruth Soukup of Living Well Spending Less called the Living Well Planner.

There are so many things to love about this planner, not the least of which is just how beautiful they are. I mean, look at that.

Beautiful, right? Floral was a new design last year, but I’ve stuck with the gorgeous colorful stripes year after year. In fact, I just purchased my new planner for next year in stripes!

This will be my third year using this planner. I’ve tried other various planners from the store, but never really committed to them. They were either too small or didn’t have space for things I wanted to include. In short, they were sort of useless.

So I never really got on the “use a planner to organize your life” bandwagon. But since using the Living Well Planner, I’m totally on that wagon. I think part of the problem is that I just didn’t really love them enough to feel that it was worth my time. Instead, I felt like it was silly to need to plan out my days. Like, aren’t I supposed to be able to just handle that?

Enter the Living Well Planner…

Why I Love and Recommend the Living Well Planner

I first found this planner because I followed Ruth’s work as a blogger and entrepreneur. You may not know who she is, but she’s kind of a phenom in the blogosphere. As a follower, I naturally stumbled upon this planner. And it is amazing.

Every week, I write in everything I must do. All of the chores, errands, tasks, and commitments. Then, this is the important part, I write in everything I want to do! I reclaim my time for myself. I even schedule in unscheduled free-time (yes, I know that sounds crazy but it’s true). And I stick to it all as closely as possible.

I used to write down what I needed to do, but not what I wanted to do. And it was never organized in any capacity; just lists and notes to myself everywhere.

So here’s why I love it.

First, you can see the pages before you buy it. There is a complete 3D walkthrough of the planner on the Living Well Planner site. You can literally flip through the pages of the planner to see if it’s right for you. It’s incredibly cool. I highly recommend checking it out.

Second, it has plenty of space for all of my appointments and obligations. I use it to organize not just my personal and family life, but my business and work life as well. There is more than enough space for everything. Which is great, because I often have a lot to say. Even to myself.

Third, it’s not just a calendar planner. There are pages each month for budgeting, goal planning, project planning, and notes. Each month is separated by a page with an inspirational quote on it and starts with a monthly goal sheet. It’s incredibly easy to stay organized and there is a lot of repetition in this planner that you can use if you find helpful, or skip if you don’t.

Fourth, Ruth is all about follow through and helping you achieve goals. She has a Facebook community just for Living Well Planner users. It’s incredibly active and everyone in it is so encouraging and inspiring. She also will send you advice and actionable steps on how to crush your goals.

Finally, and I know I already touched on this, but seriously, it’s just so pretty. It has a beautiful design, unlike all of those tiny, plain black or brown planners you can buy in the store. I actually think I like using it even more because it’s pleasing to look at!

Get the Living Well Planner to Organize Your Life!

Before I started using a planner, I was not on board with the “use a planner to organize your life!” mentality. It always felt like life shouldn’t be so planned out. Like, if I have to use a planner just to get through life, I’m doing something wrong. I now realize it’s just a tool. A great tool!

It helps me organize my time so that I can live the life I want. It helps me keep my priorities from getting crowded out by the constant noise in life. You know as well as I do, life is really noisy these days. It takes no time at all for an empty, open day to suddenly be overflowing with to-do’s, must-do’s, and commitments to others.

So I organize my life with this planner.

I say no when I don’t want to push something that isn’t necessary but is important to me. You can too. Without a planner, those important things could easily get pushed aside until “later,” which sometimes never comes.

Reclaim your time, your priorities…your life. Start using the Living Well Planner to organize your life and take back complete control of it. I think you’ll love it!

Do you currently use a planner to organize your life? Let me know in the comments!