What is a Digital Planner?

What is a digital planner?

Digital planners are becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to traditional paper-based planners. However, there’s often confusion over terminology and the ways in which digital planners can be used.  In this article I’ll explain exactly what a digital planner is, and how it’s designed to work.

Firstly, let’s discuss traditional planners. Standard paper-based planners have become extremely popular over the last 10 years or so – they’re basically diaries with a few (or many!) extra bells and whistles, giving users a space to record almost every aspect of their life (and business if they have one) in writing. A number of online influencers have jumped on the bandwagon and published their own exclusive planner designs – often at eye-watering prices!  I’ve designed a number of paper-based planners myself – I fully appreciate that they won’t disappear and that many people will always prefer the traditional format.  This is my dated 2023 year planner:

Many of these planners run to several hundred pages and may be printed in any of a range of formats (perfect bound, hardcover, spiral bound, coil bound etc) – they’re often available in PDF (printable) format too, so that users can print out pages as required, and keep them in a binder.  The traditional planner industry is still booming – but there’s a new kid on the block….

Benefits of digital planning

The most obvious benefit is environmental.  We’re all aware that paper is made from trees, and loss of forests is a major contributor to the current climate crisis.  Printing uses energy (not necessarily green energy) and shipping heavy planners (those 500-page tomes!) undoubtedly has a high carbon footprint.

Secondly, a digital planner is instantly available once purchased – all the user has to do is click a download link.  No waiting for it to arrive by mail, making it the easy choice no matter where you are in the world.

A digital planner takes up no physical space – no heavy books to clutter up your desk or lug around in your bag. The only space required is a few megabytes of storage.

You don’t need lots of pens – with a digital planner and a suitable app you get a multitude of “pens” to write with – in an infinite number of colours!

So to summarise, a digital planner is:

• Eco-friendly
• Instantly available
• Space-saving
• Completely flexible

How does a digital planner work – and how do you use it?

A digital planner is a PDF file – nothing more, nothing less.  However, it’s a fairly complex PDF, designed to have the exact look and feel of a traditional paper-based planner.

You might be wondering how on earth this works?  Well, it’s all down to clever hyperlinking. A digital planner has a number of tabs – these may be across the top, the bottom, the sides (or even all of these locations).  When the user clicks or taps on a tab, they’re taken immediately to a new location (page) of the planner, depending on where that tab is linked. No manual scrolling required (although you can do this if you want to)

The entire planner is designed to look like a paper-based planner –  as per the example below (my Watercolour Swirls planner)

Using a digital planner

Using a digital planner in the way it’s intended requires an iPad or tablet and an app – specifically a PDF annotation app.  Suitable apps include Goodnotes, Noteshelf, Notability, Xodo and others.  You could also use the planner on a mobile phone, but the screen size is a limitation – also, if you have a Mac computer, most of the apps are compatible, but I’ll explain why a tablet or iPad is by far the best way.

A major factor in the use of digital planners is the ability to write in them, just as you would in a paper-based planer. For this, you need a compatible stylus or Apple pencil. I personally use an iPad with a Hahakee stylus, available on Amazon for considerably less than the Apple pencil!

You’ll have a choice of a variety of pen types / thicknesses, and unlimited colours (add your own too); erasers to rub out just as you would on paper; use a text box to type via keyboard instead of writing; add images; duplicate or delete pages as required; add a variety of stickers, either from within the app or externally.  Digital stickers have become a big thing now –  as you’d expect, because stickers for paper-based planners are incredibly popular.

PDF annotation apps

Suitable apps mostly cost less than £10 – at the time of writing, Goodnotes (only for iOS) is free to download with the full version at $7.99;  Noteshelf is $9.99 for iOS / $5.18 for Android; Notability appears to have recently moved to a subscription model at $14.99 per year.  I only have experience of Goodnotes – I’ve not yet tried other apps but Noteshelf seems to be almost as popular.

NB: The type of digital planner I’ve described in this post cannot be used with Microsoft OneNote, or applications such as Evernote.

Stickers to use in paper-based planners are incredibly popular – so as you might expect, digital stickers are now a big thing too. Many digital planners (including mine) come bundled with a set of matching digital stickers

Summary of what’s required to use a digital planner:

• iPad or tablet
• Compatible stylus
• PDF annotation app

Here’s a video I made a few months ago to demonstrate the use of a digital notebook –  there’s also a section (at around 10:39) where I demonstrate one of my digital planners.

I mention digital stickers in the video and that I hadn’t yet designed any myself – well I have now!

How popular are digital planners?

Etsy is a widely known online store for creative and handmade designers – there are lots of digital planners on sale there; Etsy searches for “digital planner” are currently at around 35,000 per month; whereas a google search for “digital planner” returns 362 million results!

See below for details of one of my own digital planner designs.

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