Why I Am Not Using a Planner This Year

This is a slightly different kind of JournalReviewr update because the video is less about one specific planner and more about stepping away from planners entirely. After years of using weekly planners, daily planners, goal planners, and every structured system in between, the reviewer explains why she did not buy a planner this year — and why she has not really missed it.

The short version is planner burnout. When you have a journal, a planner, a catch-all notebook, lists, goals, projects, and separate places for everything, the system can become heavier than the life it is meant to support. In this case, the answer was not another planner. It was one simple notebook used in a loose, practical, low-pressure way.

Quick verdict

Not using a planner can work surprisingly well if your current setup feels overbuilt. The key is not abandoning paper planning completely; it is reducing the number of notebooks and rules until the habit feels usable again. A single catch-all notebook can cover daily lists, meal planning, notes from books, journaling scraps, and random reminders without demanding a perfect layout.

Why the planner stopped working

The interesting thing here is that the old planner was not bad. The reviewer had a nice Leuchtturm weekly planner, and she still describes it as a great weekly planner. The problem was not the paper, layout, or brand. The problem was motivation. Around April, she simply stopped picking it up.

That is a familiar planner problem. A weekly spread can look beautiful in January, useful in February, and like homework by spring. If every week requires rewriting tasks, migrating lists, decorating pages, and keeping several notebooks coordinated, the friction builds. Eventually the planner becomes one more thing you are behind on.

The catch-all notebook approach

The replacement was refreshingly simple: one notebook that goes everywhere and holds almost everything. In the video, the notebook is used for daily to-do lists, notes from books and YouTube videos, things to remember, a master list, meal planning, and occasional journal entries. There is no complicated key, no migration ritual, and no pressure to make every page look consistent.

That looseness is the point. A catch-all notebook gives you one trusted place to write without asking whether a thought belongs in the planner, the journal, the reading notebook, or the project book. If something matters later, it can be copied somewhere more permanent. If it is only useful today, it can stay crossed out on the page.

Why one notebook can feel better than a planner

A formal planner is excellent when you need structure. It gives you dates, weeks, sections, and a sense of order. But that structure can also make a notebook feel oddly restrictive. If you miss a week, leave pages blank, or change your routine, the planner quietly reminds you of the gap.

A blank notebook does not care. You can start on the next line. You can write a meal plan beside a reading note. You can make one daily list and then ignore the next three days if life gets busy. For someone trying to rebuild a writing habit after notebook burnout, that flexibility can be more important than a perfect calendar layout.

The Zequenz-style notebook choice

The current notebook shown is a B6 Zequenz 360-style softcover notebook. It is fairly thick, flexible, and substantial enough to hold a lot of daily writing. That makes sense for this kind of setup because the notebook is doing several jobs at once. It needs enough pages for lists, notes, reflections, and planning experiments without feeling too precious.

A smaller pocket notebook helped the reviewer rediscover the joy of writing things down, then the thicker B6 notebook became the main catch-all. That progression is useful: if planning feels dead, do not start with a huge new system. Start with a notebook you actually want to pick up.

What this setup handles well

The biggest strength is daily capture. It is good for the kind of things that need to get out of your head quickly: errands, meal ideas, video notes, reminders, thoughts, quotes, and small tasks. The reviewer marks off pages when finished, crosses out completed items, and does not worry about making the system look like a textbook bullet journal.

It is also a good antidote to over-collecting notebooks. If every category has its own book, you can end up spending more energy managing the categories than writing. One notebook reduces that decision fatigue. You open it, write the next thing, and move on.

Pros and cons

Who should try skipping a planner?

This approach is worth trying if you have a shelf full of half-used planners, if dated pages make you feel behind, or if your current system has too many moving parts. It is especially good for people who mainly need a place for lists and thinking on paper rather than precise scheduling.

If you rely on appointments, deadlines, client work, or shared calendars, you may still want a digital calendar or a simple monthly overview somewhere else. The catch-all notebook does not have to do everything. It can simply handle the messy middle: the thoughts, lists, and small daily decisions that do not need a beautiful spread.

FAQ

Final Thoughts

This video works because it gives permission to step away from planner pressure. Sometimes the best planning tool is not a better planner, a more complex layout, or a new productivity method. Sometimes it is one notebook that feels easy enough to open every day.

If your planner still helps, keep using it. If it has started to feel like a chore, this catch-all notebook approach is a gentle reset. It keeps the useful part of planning — writing things down — and drops the parts that made the habit feel heavy.