College Life
The 10 Absolute Best College Planners to Succeed – The Ultimate 2023 Guide
Whether you need your day planned out or just need something to remind you when your midterm is, this is our list of 10 college planners that will help ease college stress.
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The Best Planner for College Students in 2023
Planners are essential for college success. Whether you are a more focused planner or just need something to remind you when your midterm is, a college planner will help ease the overwhelming feeling of having too much to do.
Before you buy one, take a minute to think about what you are looking for in a planner. Do you want a detailed path to achieve your goals, a better way to stay productive, or do you just need a calendar that is not on your phone? Below are several options that may resonate with you and put some perspective on your future endeavors.
Table of Contents:
1. Erin Condren Academic Planner
Most Popular Student Planner
Length: One year
Undated
Size: 7” x 9”
Best Feature: Many extras
Extras: Changeable covers, inspirational quotes, stickers, and a lot more.
If you know anything about planners, you’ve probably already heard of the popular Erin Condren planner. This planner packs everything into one, without being overwhelming.
They also each have a specific purpose, like this academic planner that has a focus on college projects and exam dates, and pages to track their progress or to study.
This planner is designed for students, as it has a section for your class schedule, and includes extra notes pages after every month.
With various sticker sheets and inspirational quotes throughout, this academic planner will help you keep track of everything you need to succeed in school.
Erin Condren planners are very layered with many different styles and purposes. Their Life Planner may be better if you need one to focus more on goals than school.
I recommend getting that one if you are not too focused on tracking your academic work, but still need a college planner to track everything at once. Check it out here.
2. Bloom Daily Planner
Length: One Year
Date: January 2023-December 2023
Size: 5.5” x 8.25”
Best Feature: Vision board
Extras: Magnetic bookmark, a sheet of stickers, monthly tabs and pockets, a Life Planner
Bloom produces daily planners of all varieties, suited to your specific liking and purpose. Some of their planners are more basic, such as the ones for simple trackers and other ones like this one that tracks so much more. There are whole sections devoted to goal setting, purposes and values.
There is a goal tracker and a habit tracker for those that need a little more guidance, and a money spending tracker as well.
And throughout the planner, there are goal reminders every few weeks so that you can stay on top of your personal promises (think of the New Year’s resolutions that you’ve already forgotten about!)
With the many varieties of planners available, there are other basic planners that are just for tracking dates, and even ones without dates.
They have academic calendars for the school year, which are great for teachers.
Personally, I love the inclusion of a vision board to help you really set your goal for the year and create an additional use for a planner.
Their goal tracker is great as well, as the reminders help you stay on track. Bloom has made this a planner you cannot go without! Check it out here.
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3. Blue Sky Planners
Length: One Year
Date: July 2022 – June 2023
Size: 5” x 8” or 8.5” x 11”
Best Feature: Space for notes
Extras: Can match style with other items like desk or wall calendar
Blue Sky Planners are great if you want a simple college planner with a lot of space. Even their smallest size is enough to list assignments and personal goals.
Simple monthly and weekly tracking is easy with this planner, and it has extra space for every week and a dedicated page for notes.
Their monthly calendar section is also spacious, which is sometimes hard to find in some planners. This planner is great if you just need reminders of college classes, or if you want to show your books off with a little personality, as they have a wide range of covers.
This is also a great planner for those that have their own stationery set. There are many pages to get creative in this one!
Blue Sky does have a more organized one with various habits and goal tracking as well, but this one is only six months.
If you have a short-term project that requires a lot of work to track, I definitely recommend it! Check it out here.
4. Katie Daisy On-the-Go Planner
Length: 17 months
Date: Aug 2022 – Dec 2023
Size: 5” x 7”
Best Feature: Size
Extras: Every page is decorated and still spacious
Katie Daisy’s planners are always beautifully laid out. This small planner is very simple and is eco-friendly. They are printed on recycled paper, and the business plants trees to offset their carbon footprint with each purchase.
It is no surprise that each page is decorated with wildflowers, butterflies, and other aspects of nature, as well as many inspirational quotes.
There is a pocket inside to store loose papers, and an elastic band outside to keep everything in place.
This planner is somewhat basic with its monthly and weekly spread, but it has to be since it is in a smaller size. Still, there is plenty of room to plan out personal or college events.
This planner is for the simple college student, who does not need rigorous planning and wants something to spark their creativity instead.
I have purchased this planner various times, especially for my busiest semesters, and it was great to carry around for reminders. Check it out here.
5. Clever Fox Planner
Length: One year
Date: Undated
Size: 5” x 8”
Best Feature: Vision board
Extras: Awareness and self-discovery questions, focus and mind map, 50+ dot grid pages
If you are more goal-oriented than reminder-focused, Clever Fox may be the planner for you. This undated planner is great for those with huge goals and an inability to start.
Whether there is a process to get started on your goal or you have no idea how to start, Clever Fox is determined to boost productivity and focus.
They promise this by including heavy tracking and accountability goals with many steps.
They include a questionnaire to get you to understand your goals and get realistic about achieving them.
There is also a focus and mind map page to narrow down your goals and estimate the effort and process in achieving them.
Clever Fox claims their planners are less for people that have many appointments and more for those that are more focused on achieving short and long-term goals.
It does still have monthly and weekly tracking as a regular planner, so there is overlap.
The focus with Clever Fox is to achieve goals, so if that resonates with you, this is your best option!
The vision board is my favorite part of this planner, because it channels the long-term idea of a board into something that can be achieved in a year. Check it out here.
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6. Passion Planner
Most Challenging
Length: One year
Date: August 2022 to July 2023
Size: A5, B5 & A4
Best Feature: So much tracking!
Extras: Check-ins, passion roadmap, goal tracking, weekly focus
If you liked the goal tracking with Clever Fox, you might enjoy the overworking Passion Planner. With this one, you can track everything right down to the hour.
There are various pages dedicated to passion planning through short- and long-term goals and breaking them down into steps, a yearly overview to list an important event for each month, a daily layout that tracks goals and personal events of the day, and monthly self-check-ins to update your progress.
Their passion roadmap is a great way to brainstorm your true goals, and their huge section of dotted grid pages can also be used for anything from doodles to more goals.
There is even a mood tracker and a “Not To Do” list, for those that have to be reminded to stop a bad habit.
This may seem overly complicated for a college planner, but it is ideal for people who need to be extra-organized, or who need detailed plans and goals to get motivated. Check it out here.
7. Moleskine
Length: 12 months
Date: Jan 2023 – Dec 2023
(18 month available)
Size: 5” x 8.25”
Best Feature: Thick pages
Extras: Various tracking pages, pocket, variety with others
Or if that seems too overwhelming, Moleskine is a much better option. They are a popular planner and notebook choice for college students, for there is not too much to worry about.
They have a standard calendar layout, monthly to daily, and some extra pages that include daily diary, sketching pages, and project planning.
Their best feature is their paper thickness because many planners are sometimes too thin to really mark up.
The great thing about Moleskine is that they have layout variations. They have horizontal layouts that help you see your schedule in a better format and various sizes for your convenience.
This planner is best for tracking simple events and minimal life planning, but perfect for academic planning. Aesthetically speaking, it is the best overall. You can purchase it here.
8. Smart Planner Pro
Length: 13 months
Date: Undated,
Size: 8.6” x 5.7”
Best Feature: Grade Tracker
Extras: Goal Habit Tracker & Weekly Review Scoring
Ideal for the college student who fell behind and needs to start organizing. Smart Planner is pretty simple with loads of extras like mini note sections, monthly affirmations corner, and three bookmarks that sound excessive, but are pretty useful.
They have thick paper for heavy writing and planning, so bring out those gel pens!
This is mostly an academic planner and should be used as such. If you have extracurricular activities, this can definitely still be useful.
It’s undated, so it can be started at any point when some organization is mostly needed. Check it out here.
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9. Rocketbook Panda Planner
For the Hybrid Organizer
Length: Reusable & Undated
Size: 6 x 8”
Best Feature: Reusability
Extras: Cloud usage, multi-organization pages, can be used for years
This Panda Planner collaboration with Rocketbook may be the best thing for those who depend on technology, but like the physical planner.
This planner lets you write on the pages like any planner, whether weekly or monthly, for a goal tracker or regular notes. And when you’re ready, just scan, upload, and erase and start new.
They include their own towel and pen to make sure that the content is eligible and can be properly wiped clean to start new.
This includes a year review page and three months to plan at one time, but it can technically be used for years.
I think this is a great choice for those who need to plan ahead, but don’t want to overwhelm themselves with having to keep up with a physical planner.
Their app is helpful and there are many ways to share your work to your preferred cloud service.
This is definitely for the simple planner, unless you want to plan out a short-term goal, in which the original Panda Planner may be better. That one is an undated 90-day planner, so choose wisely! Check it out here.
10. GoodNotes Digital Planner App(Bonus)
For Those Who Love Modern Technology
Length: Any
Date: Any
Size: Depends on the device
Best Feature: Sync between devices and searching within notes
Extras: Presentation mode, multi-window use
If you are like me and like the new and modern way of things, this GoodNotes digital planner may be the one you purchase from this list. Besides its digital content, it is a planner that can continuously have pages and trackers added to it from various places.
There are many personalized pages you can buy on Etsy, for example, and the Passion Planner above has its own section for digital planner pages. Some examples of extra pages are calorie trackers, coloring pages, finance trackers, and even trackers in other languages.
The limiting factors are its compatibility with Apple devices only, and the need to constantly purchase some pages, though there are plenty of free ones. If that does not bother you, GoodNotes also lets you search your handwriting, annotate PDFs, and take your notes anywhere.
It also highlights its sharing capability, to show that it is not completely limited to its app. If you are less of a physical planner person, this is the best multi-productive alternative for you! You can purchase it here
Final Thoughts
There are so many different variations of planners that it can be hard to choose the right one for your goals, whether these are to succeed in college or simply to fulfill your New Year’s resolutions.
Hopefully, this list will help you decide which planner works best for you and your lifestyle. You will never feel unprepared with one of these planners in your life!
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