Improve Your Productivity in 2015 The Old Fashioned Way

Everyone knows I'm a tech geek, but there is one way I still revert back to the old fashioned ways of pen and paper: planning.

Since the new year is right around the corner, I wanted to share my favorite planners and workbooks for laser focus and maximum productivity. Every planner out there isn't right for everyone, so maybe this hit list will help you find your match made in planning heaven and help you improve your productivity!

The Top Three Hit List of Planners

Whitney English's Day Designer

The Day Designer

Whitney English's Day Designer is my favorite planner; it brings in all the necessary needs in a planner. It has the traditional month, and daily agendas, plus daily places to write out your top three to-do's, your gratitude list, what's cooking for dinner, and more, plus you snag an inspirational quote daily as you speed through the year.

Design Love Planner

Another beautifully designed planner to get you through the year is the Design Love Planner from Marissa Cristina. Unlike other planners, the Design Love Planner has two sets of weekly planner sheets - one for scheduling and another for to-do lists. Another awesome feature is the monthly goals and budget sections (yes, budgeting - yay!) I love that the Design Love Planner has a new inspirational print to tear out each month, and pockets on the inside covers for stashing little bits.

Passion Planner

Passion Planner

A newer kid on the block, the Passion Planner just wrapped up another pretty amazing Kickstarter campaign. This time around, Angelia is looking at shipping over 50,000 planners in January - talk about a success! And there's a good reason why: the Passion Planner is everything you need in one.

An appointment calendar, goal setting guide, journal, sketchbook, gratitude log, and personal/work to-do lists, it's really all inside one notebook. In my opinion, the best thing about the Passion Planner is all that blank yummy space to write in (dozens of pages!)

Of course, there are other fabulous planners to checkout...

I dig these planners, too, and they are worthwhile to checkout if you haven't found your ace in the hole yet:

• Erin Condren's Life Planner
• iBloom Life & Business Planner
• MT Everyday Planner (It's printable!)
• Create Your Shining Year Workbook, Planner, & Calendar
• Flourish Planner: Cultivate Your Creativity

Not the planner type? Improve your productivity, anyways!

Some people just don't do well with planners but adore workbooks and worksheets that help them stay on track. I can be one of those people sometimes, so here are some of my favorite resources for just that purpose:

• Making Things Happen PowerSheets
• EpicDay Daily Task Pad for Creatives
• David Seah's Emergent Task Planner

Want to know what I'm using this year?

I'm sticking with my ToDoist, Google Calendar, and a bullet journal. Despite loving all of the planners above, I need more blank space and freedom to do my own thing. The bullet journal method has been amazing for me this year, and I'm sticking with it.

I'm kicking off the year by archiving my old bullet journal and starting a fresh Leuchtturm1917 Large Hard Cover Notebook (with dot ruling). The notebook I used this year was a similar cheapie from Target, but it didn't have nice pockets, pagination, table of contents pages, or thick paper that won't bleed. I'm looking forward to switching over!

I'm also going to try to incorporate David Seah's methods from the ETP sheets, because I adore their quick-hit reality check on time management.

Do you have a favorite planner? Did you snag one of the ones I mentioned? Shout it out and let me know in the comments below!