One of my favourite thing about planners, especially ring-bound planners, is how customisable they are. You can add and remove things to fit your planning style and system.
Pen and paper is of course the bare minimum to get started and picking out the best inserts for your planner is an important first step. But once you have your inserts in order, how do you take your planner to the next level?
For me, the answer is planner accessories. Whilst I think it’s important to minimise clutter, there are accessories that complement and elevate my planning system. The trick is to be thoughtful about what you’re adding to your planner and how you’re going to use them.
In this post, I list down my top four planner accessories that add a little personality to my planner but still keep it functional and professional.
#1 Sticky notes
Sticky notes are a must-have in my planner. They are a lifesaver on days where I feel overwhelmed and just need a blank space to brain dump tasks, cross them off as I go and get back on track with my planning system. They are also handy for breaking down big tasks into smaller chunks so they become much more manageable and doable.
These plain white sticky notes from Amazon are my current go-to sticky notes. They are inexpensive and you can even use them with printable sticky notes templates.
If you’re looking for something more visually-pleasing, check out these pastel ones from Scribblet (UK). If you’re in the US, JetPens carry similar products.
#2 Highlighters
Personally, I’m not much of a colour-coder. I find that adding colours in my planner makes it visually overwhelming. With that being said, I still find other uses for highlighters. For example, I use them to highlight appointments, deliveries and any urgent or time-sensitive tasks. Highlighters are also great for sectioning your inserts to create structure. This is what I’ve done with the Weekly Planner No. 5.
My go-to highlighters are the Tombow Dual Brush Pen. They have an extensive range of colours (my favourites are N75 and 942) and they don’t bleed through paper (not even on lightweight 70gsm paper). Another crowd favourite is the Zebra Mildliner Pastel Highlighter.
#3 Page flags
If you follow minimal planner content on Instagram, you would agree that page flags are EVERYWHERE. Whilst I loved how they look, I initially thought they wouldn’t be very useful for me.
That is, until I purchased some neutral-coloured page flags from Royal Planner and now, they are a must-have in my planner. They make it easy for me to flip to pages that I use on a daily basis such as grocery list, weekly meal plan and cleaning schedule. I also use them to mark the current monthly and weekly inserts.
Besides Royal Planner (UK), you can also find page flags from Plan x Stowe on Etsy (UK) or Top Paper Co (US).
#4 Paper clips
Paper clips are one of those things you don’t think you’d need until you actually need them. I got a pack of black teardrop paper clips to use for various purposes such as clipping a planner card, bookmarking pages or grouping pages together so I don’t have to keep flipping through them.
You can find similar style paper clips at Squizzleberry on Etsy (UK).
I hope this post has given you some ideas on how you can elevate your planner and planning system. Whatever you decide to add to your planner, just know that it’s okay to remove things that don’t work for you – every planner and planning system is unique after all!