Honey, Put the Planner Down

That's Not What's Going to Bring You New Years Joy

Image created by author, Hillary Ramos, and Midjourney AI

“You do not need that planner.”

I giggled so hard when I saw parenting content creator and author Gwenna Laithland say this on an Instagram Reel the other day.

“Go look at the planner graveyard,” she said, referring to the piles and piles of half-used and unused planners that so many of us have lying around our homes.

We know we don’t need another planner.

We know we don’t need it, but we want it anyway. That thought of flipping it open to see fresh, clean pages is consuming. So much opportunity. So many crisp, beautiful, empty spaces to make our lists and the lists for our lists. It’s intoxicating. We can’t help it. We need the planner. Every year. We just do.

But we don’t. We don’t need it.

It has nothing to do with the planner. Planners are good (if they work for us). They can help with organization and task initiation. When they work, they work. The issue isn’t the planner. The issue is why many of us choose to repeatedly buy the planners even when we know they likely won’t work for us and will wind up collecting dust with the other planners in the planner graveyard.

So what is the problem? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why are we constantly starting the new year with a need to be and do more? Why are we always adding to the planner graveyard?