Make Your LifePlanner Work for You

*This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you click on a link and make a purchase. You can visit my disclosure policy and privacy policy for more details.
  

Happy New Year to YOU!

 

With a new year comes three-hundred and sixty-five days of brand-new possibilities! Planners are swirling in full swing with all things 2025 right now. The one thing that’s even more important than choosing your planner for this year, which you likely already have by now, is how you’re going to actually put it to use!

 

How many times have you purchased a planner and it’s sat on your desk for months? If you cringed after that question, don’t feel bad – so did I! I’ve been there and I’m sure many of you have as well.

 

It’s no secret how much I adore Erin Condren products, I’ve shared so many pieces here and will continue to because I love them so much and use them every day! My Erin Condren LifePlanner is my absolute favorite planner, and you can see it up above, along with my desk calendar and snap-in dashboard.

 

My sweet friend Jill over at Doused in Pink requested a video/post about how to maximize using her LifePlanner! I am so past overdue (I’m so sorry!), but hoping she loves this one and so do you! I’m excited to share some of my favorite Erin Condren LifePlanner tips, so let’s get started!

 

P.S. Once I get my YouTube-self together, I’ll try to get a video out of my planner and how I’ve used it so far this year. I have some fun full-page stickers on the way that I think you’ll love and I’ve included some of those down in this post too.

 

Personalize Each Space

 

If you’re like me, it may be difficult to look at a space in your planner that’s designated for something in particular and not actually use it for that reason. However, it’s absolutely okay to ditch any of the titles that just don’t fit your lifestyle!

 

You’ve spent your money on your planner, so it needs to work for you, not the other way around. 🙂  It’s often as simple as using washi tape over the title of the section that you want to change, or you could use stickers as well. Then, you can title it however you see fit and you’ll have a space that you’ll actually use.

 

There are both designated spaces and what I call empty spaces in the LifePlanner. Let’s look at a few ways that you can personalize both!

 

Near the beginning of your LifePlanner, you’ll find twelve, unlabeled, empty boxes that give you full creative range!

 

Here are some of my favorite ways to customize these boxes:

 

• Monthly goals
• List of projects and their respective to-do’s
• Gift lists for family and friends throughout the year
• Focus points for personal growth you want to focus on
• Track your habits (you could use more than one box for the same habit(s) if you want to do daily tracking)
• Designated tasks for each day, week, quarter and/or year
• Gratitude journaling throughout the year
• Memory boxes for things you want to remember along with a photo
• Sticky note central – a hub for all the moving parts of your life!

 

The monthly Erin Condren LifePlanner dashboards are the same for each month, minus colors changing, and the only labels are the month and year. This space gives you a lot of freedom! I will share with you how I’ve used this dashboard in the past below, but you can also gain some inspiration online from Instagram. You can click here for how others are using their monthly layout!

 

I’m taking it WAY back with this layout, this was close to when I first started this blog! While goals have changed, I still setup this layout pretty much the same and just wanted to reminisce with you all here on this one!

 

I love to use the dotted area for a mini-monthly calendars and habit trackers. I’ve always used the edge of the ruler that comes with the planner to make the boxes nice and neat (sometimes I mess up though and it looks like a five-year-old did it!), but the new Erin Condren rulers actually come with a calendar section you can stencil – yay!

 

I like to use the top right-hand section for my top three goals for the month. The section directly below it I label Make Life Marvelous and then jot down some key goals I have for that month, or things I want to keep in mind as I work through different tasks. My left-hand box usually consists of projects I want to tackle here at home, special errands that need to be done (like my inspection for my wedding rings to keep the warranty this month), and any appointments coming up during the month.

 

Don’t Skip Empty Notebook Pages

 

The most often skipped pages are…*drumroll please* notes pages!

 

The possibilities are endless for these notes pages, but I included a fun little graphic below with some ideas! I like to think of these pages as stationary spaces (pun intended!) for things that you want to track monthly or even throughout the year.

 

One of the ways I like to use the notes section is to have a running list of big blog goals! These goals are ones that I don’t need look at on the daily, but ones that I do want to focus on at a later time or remember things I’m working towards completing.

 

This year I decided to finally make a purchase from HanCanPlan over on Etsy, and yes, I’m way behind if you’re a member of the planning community! She has some really neat full-page stickers for notes pages, and I am very excited to get mine in the mail soon!

 

Above is an example of one of the items I purchased (30 Day Challenge) from Hannah! If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been doing yoga daily this month. It’s my goal! I’m already planning February’s challenge too, so I thought this would be the perfect addition my LifePlanner.

 

Upgrades to Your Planner

 

These are absolutely optional since you don’t need them at all to plan your best year yet, but for some people (hello, me!), it’s all about the aesthetic!

 

There are SO many fun ways to upgrade your planner and make it truly your own!

 

Interchangeable Covers – Erin Condren has the most beautiful covers and the best part is that you can swap them out as you wish! This is especially helpful for new seasons/holidays. I keep all my extras inside a binder so I know right where to find them!

 

Snap-In Dashboards – These are probably my favorite accessory to my LifePlanner! There are several skinny dashboards as well as full-page ones that are so handy to jot things down without the commitment on writing in ink on your planner. You can just wipe things away as you like, it’s the best!

 

Magnetic Page Markers + Tabs – While I don’t typically use these, they are super handy if you like having bookmarked pages to keep your place. Especially, if you know you’re going to be flipping back and forth between far away sections!

 

Washi Tape – This adds a decorative touch to your planner pages, but can also be functional be sectioning off certain spaces.

 

Stickers – I love stickers! There are some beautiful stickers in your LifePlanner towards the end that match the theme. Some of my favorite stickers are from Bloom Daily Planners and Cultivate What Matters too!

 

Sticky Notes – Fun fact: I have way too many sticky notes in my house! But my memory is so bad that I actually got a bunch of them from my best friend Stephanie for our wedding nearly 10 years ago, haha! I use them for so many reminders and just little things I don’t want to forget, but I also use them in my planner for functional sections in notes pages. Also, if I know my goals are going to be shifting through the next few months on something specific, I make boxes on a notes page and then I get a sticky note that will fit in the box and I can easily move those around, or scrap one sticky note and place another down!

 

That’s a wrap on how to make your LifePlanner work for you, sweet friends! I hope you learned some new ways to plan today and take advantage of all the little nooks and crannies that exist. While you know I’m obsessed with my Erin Condren planners, you absolutely can take these ideas and use them for your own preferred planners and journals, too!

 

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments and if there’s anything else you’d like me to cover in another post!