19 December 2017

Creating Personal Planners Using Evernote

An Evernote Workshop (9)

Are you busy making plans for 2018? Have you bought a personal planner to keep track of everything you want to achieve? Maybe you’re going to print one from an online template.

Or will you create a planner using Evernote?

Today, I’m going to share some easy ideas for making attractive Evernote personal planners. Interested? I hope so! I’m going to start with a monthly planner.


Creating a basic template for a monthly planner

  1. Create a new notebook just for your planners
  2. Create a new note within this notebook
  3. Select the table icon from the toolbar bar
  4. Click on ‘options’ from the drop-down menu
  5. Enter the number of rows and columns you’d like your planner to have. I chose 12 rows and 7 columns (one for each day of the week).
  6. Click ‘ok’

You should now have a grid which will be the basis of your planner.


Merging the top row of cells

You now need to merge the top row of cells so that you have somewhere to add the planner title (month of the year).

  1. Highlight the first row of cells by clicking on the rectangle to the left of the first cell
  2. Click on the arrow in the first cell to reveal a drop-down menu
  3. Select the ‘Merge Cells’ option

***Save a copy of this template before moving onto the next step.


Adding the month and days of the week to the planner

  1. Choose a font and adjust its size to suit yourself
  2. Type the month, days of the week, and dates in the appropriate cells

Perhaps a handwriting font is appropriate for a personal planner. How about a fun font? A more traditional one? Something different? You could search for some new fonts and install them on your computer. They will then be available to use for the desktop and web versions of Evernote. However, fancy fonts will revert back to the default font for mobile versions.


Adding some colour to the planner

Changing the colour of the cells

This is the fun part!

  1. Click on a cell to reveal the arrow
  2. Click on the arrow to reveal the drop-down menu
  3. Choose a colour
READ  Funny How Things Change

You could use just one colour or go wild and use many!

Adding a planner template to a coloured background note

Once you have created a planner template, you could add it to an Evernote note with a coloured background. See my coloured backgrounds post for more details.

  1. Choose a coloured note template
  2. Add it to your Evernote coloured backgrounds templates notebook
  3. Copy this note to your personal planner notebook
  4. Copy and paste your planner into the coloured note


Adding Icons

  1. Click on a cell
  2. Select the paperclip icon in the toolbar
  3. Upload an icon stored on your computer

Icons add colour and interest to a planner. I have a file of icons downloaded from various websites. My favourite site is Flaticon. If you create an account, you can edit the icons, changing their colour and style.


Making a template for each month of the year

***Remember the blank template you saved? You can now make a second copy of it and use it to make a planner for February. You could make all your monthly planners match. Or you could make each one a different colour.


Video instructions

Here’s a simple video containing the instructions for making a basic one colour Evernote monthly planner:


If you’d like a ready-made template

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of making your own, Evernote has a number of planner templates which you can customise to suit yourself.


Update:

You might also like the post and video: How to Customise a Basic Evernote Planner


Icons Attribution

Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com 

Icon made by Smashicons from www.flaticon.com

Icon made by Nikita Golubev from www.flaticon.com

Icon made by Gregor Cresnar from www.flaticon.com

Icon made by Pixel perfect from www.flaticon.com


I have other ideas for creating, decorating and using weekly, daily and other planners. I might write some more posts in this series!

So what do you think? Are you tempted to create a planner using Evernote?

And if my instructions are confusing, please tell me and I’ll try again!

Sue Elvis

I'm an Australian blogger, podcaster, and Youtuber. I write and speak about unschooling, parenting and family life. I'm also the author of the unschooling books 'Curious Unschoolers', 'Radical Unschool Love' and ‘The Unschool Challenge’. You'll find them on Amazon!

5 Comments

  1. I think I’ll need to give it a go before I fully understand it. But it sounds perfectly simple.
    My main problem would be that I wouldn’t look at it. Would you access yours on the computer or print it out?
    xo Jazzy Jack

    • Jack,

      I have just uploaded a very short video with instructions to make a basic monthly planner. If you watch it, I’m sure you will see how perfectly simple the process is!

      The planners could be printed out, but I’d access mine on my computer or my phone. It might be handy to have a copy of my planner in my pocket!

  2. I’m looking everywhere on your site for an email address but can’t find one…I would like to message you privately ?

Please add your thoughts!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Previous Story

Why It’s Important to Allow Kids to Follow Their Interests and Passions

Next Story

How to Customise a Basic Evernote Planner

Go toTop