As a kid, walking through the aisles of Staples ahead of the first day of school—cart full of highlighters, notecards, binder dividers, and other supplies for my blank canvas of a year—always felt exciting. I couldn’t know what the year would bring, but I sure as heck would be prepared with the right gear. Same goes for planners in adulthood. Going into a fresh year with the right paper planner to help you take charge of your time, tasks, schedule, and goals stands to help you lead a more efficient, productive, and ultimately happy life.

“It’s very helpful to offload your mental load so your brain so you can focus on what you’re trying to do and not on remembering everything you need to do,” says Alexis Haselberger, productivity and time-management coach, of why planners are so helpful. (That said, using a planner could still help you on the remembering front, with research finding that writing out info by hand may help you remember it better.) Scroll down to explore some of the best planners you can shop, designed to boost your productivity (and your mood) as you head into 2025.

Best planners, at a glance:

Best overall:Erin Condren LifePlanner, $65Best luxury:Day Designer, $68Best personalized:Papier 2025 Monogrammed Leather Planner, $65Best spiral planner:Laurel Denise 2025 Horizontal Weekly Planner, $59Best book-bound: Rifle Paper Co. 12-Month Bookbound Planner, $42

How to choose the best planner for you

There are endless-seeming options for planners to buy, and that’s great news because not everyone wants or needs the same features. “A good planner provides space for goal setting, planning, scheduling, time management, and reflection,” says Lori Vande Krol, organization and productivity consultant. “These pieces are key to attacking overwhelm, managing your weeks and days, and reaching your goals. More specifically, you will want high-quality paper without bleed-through and a sturdy cover and binding to last the full year.” To help you pick the best option for you, she suggests you ask yourself the following:

• Do you prefer a daily or weekly layout?
• Will you take your planner around with you, or use it mainly at your desk? (This will help you determine the best physical size of planner to get.)
• Do you like a lot of space and flexibility to be creative or do you prefer a consistent and concise structure?
• Would you prefer a Monday or a Sunday start date for your weekly planning?

But also, don’t overthink it: “The best planner for you is the one you will use regularly,” Vande Krol says. With that, check out our picks for the best planners.

Shop 10 of the best planners for an organized 2025

Best overall: Erin Condren LifePlanner — $65.00

Behold, the do-it-all planner to help you stay on top of your schedule for 2025 while you stay on track toward your goals. It features thick, 80lb paper to resist ink bleeding through and a sturdy laminate cover to get you all the way to 2026. At checkout, you select a series of customizations to make your planner work best for your needs. For instance, the weekly schedule layout is available in a vertical view, an hourly format, a wider horizontal option, and a more compact vertical. You can’t go wrong, but there are many ways to go right. 

In addition to your weekly scheduling pages, you get mini-months, monthly quotes, monthly productivity pages, and extra lined pages in the back for planning, goal-setting, or productivity tracking.

Pros:

• Offers ample customization, including layout, color, and cover
• Sturdy paper
• Can add on extra pages (but for a $10 fee)

Cons: 

• One of the more expensive options
• Might be overwhelming for someone who wants a straightforward, simple planner
• Spiral bindings are easier to damage

Best luxury planner: Day Designer — $68.00

One Well+Good editor previously said she buys a new Day Designer planner each year, not only because it keeps her organized, but also because it helps her feel productive and inspired. That’s because, in addition to the daily-planning pages that let you perfect your schedule down to the hour, the Daily Planner also features daily inspirational quotes, goal-setting worksheets, and stickers for literally gold-starring yourself when achieving a goal and flagging extra-important dates like payday and birthdays. 

While this planner offers a lot of different views (daily, monthly overview, weekly overview, yearly overview), its monthly tabs make getting to the current dates simple. Plus, theres’s a bookmark to make things as frictionless as possible.

Pros: 

• Many cover designs to choose from
• Includes goal-setting, to-do prompts, and notes options in addition to calendar-planning
• Front cover has an inside pocket

Cons: 

• Gold foil tabs and details may flake throughout the year of use
• Most expensive option on the list
• Spiral binding is prone to bending

Best personalized: Papier Leather Monogrammed 2025 Planner — $65.00

If your 2025 resolution is to get your life together and make it look chic while doing it, Papier’s Monogram Planner might just be your new organizational MVP. With its timeless, elevated design, this planner feels as polished as your goals. The monogram customization option lets you add your initials for that personalized touch, transforming an everyday essential into something uniquely yours.

Inside, Papier nails the balance of form and function: weekly and monthly views make planning seamless, while additional pages for goals, notes, and to-dos ensure nothing slips through the cracks. The smooth, thick paper means no dreaded pen bleed-through (a must for the stationery obsessed), and the durable hardcover design guarantees it will look pristine through December 2025. Also available in a pocket version ($50).

Pros: 

• Customizable with different leather and foil combinations
• Hardy leather cover
• Ample space for planning, including monthly and weekly views, note pages, etc.
• Accordion pocket in the back of the book

Cons:

• Pricey
• Doesn’t have built-in tabs to help you quickly find the right date

Best spiral-bound: Laurel Denise 2025 Horizontal Weekly Planner — $58.00

A key benefit of spiral planner is that the pages lay flat, letting you write more comfortably, whereas softbound options might have you fighting to crease down a page. While there are plenty of high-quality softbound options (keep reading!), this planner from Laurel Denise stands out as a spiral winner. 

The unique horizontal layout offers a clear view of your week with plenty of space for daily to-dos, notes, and appointments. Thoughtfully crafted with high-quality, smudge-free paper and a sturdy cover, it’s durable enough to handle daily use while looking effortlessly chic. Bonus: you can choose between Monday or Sunday weekly start dates to fit your planning style.

Pros: 

• Wide horizontal pages that actually lay flat
• Ample space for note-taking and journaling
• Available in Monday or Sunday weekly starts

Cons: 

• Doesn’t have built-in tabs to help you quickly find the right date
• Pricey

Best book-bound: Rifle Paper Co. 2025 12-Month Bookbound Planner — $42.00

Rifle Paper Co.’s 2025 12-Month Planner combines timeless beauty with everyday functionality. The bookbound cover, wrapped in it a pretty English Rose print, gives it a vintage feel while ensuring durability for a full year of use. Inside, you’ll find monthly and weekly layouts, ample space for notes, and gold foil accents that make every page feel extra special. Plus, the ribbon bookmark lets you know exactly where you left off.

Pros: 

• Beautiful, gold-foiled accents
• Ample space for planning and note-taking
• Compact enough for backpacks, totes, and more

Cons: 

• Doesn’t have built-in tabs to help you quickly find the right date

Best compact planner: Hobonichi Techo 2025 Cousin Book — $65.00

The Hobonichi Techo might be on the smaller size at 8.3-by-5.8 inches, but it packs a big organizational punch. This graph-paper planner features a number of helpful views for the year: A yearly calendar; a monthly calendar; weekly calendars that vertically organize each day by hour; and dedicated daily pages broken down by hour, with designated spots for a to-do list. And despite its soft binding, this planner is designed with 180-degree lay-flat capability, so you don’t need to crease the page down or hold it with your hand. 

Pros: 

• Graph paper allows for creatively using the pages for illustrations, charts, or other ways to visually organize
• Compact size is easily portable
• High-quality paper is easy to write on smoothly

Cons: 

• Pricey

Best for fitness: Ink+Volt Fitness Planner — $27.00

While any day is a good one to start a healthy habit or create a new intention, it’s no secret that the top of the year is a popular time to check in with yourself about your fitness routine. This 3-month fitness planner from Ink+Volt aims to help you along that journey. It’s organized in a weekly layout that has space for goals, tasks, and a full-page fitness log that captures the activity, reps, and how long you worked out. After the week’s over, the planner serves up guided prompts for reflection about how things went so you can introspect, pat yourself on the back, and plot out what’s next.

Pros: 

• Has a durable softcover with lay-flat binding
• Compact and portable makes it easy to record updates on-the-go
• Ample space for journaling, workout planning, and more

Cons: 

• You’ll likely want an additional for non-fitness focused agenda items
• Journal only covers 3 months

Best for productivity: Happy Planner Classic Custom Planner — $30.00

The Happy Planner’s classic vertical layout is designed to keep your eye on the prize with its fun aesthetic and dedicated spaces for organizing your months, weeks, and days. You can drill down even further into planning your days, which the planner breaks into thirds for a morning, afternoon, and evening agenda. Each month has its own page for a priority list, notes, and a grid-lined box for adding in whatever feels particularly important. You can also customize your planner and choose matching stickers (an extra $20 for the value pack) and open the disc binding to add in any extension accessories or added pages. 

Pros: 

• The divider tabs make finding your spot easy—and they each have their own design
• Customization options like stickers and moveable tabs make it fun and interactive
• Ample space for journaling, note-taking, etc.
• Affordable

Cons: 

• Some reviews say the disc binding isn’t sturdy

Best for budgeting: Erin Condren A5 Budget Planner — $25.00

One of Well+Good’s 2025 Wellness Trends is prioritizing financial wellness, and creating a budget is one of the best ways to start. “Budgets can be liberating, and once you get the hang of following a budget, you’ll automatically develop a healthier attitude toward money,” Sabrina Rosh, CFP, director of financial planning at Ellevest, previously told Well+Good.

The Erin Condren A5 Budget Planner can help by prompting you to jot down your income, expenses, and any debt, all in pursuit of setting, tracking, and achieving your financial goals. This planner also offers dedicated pages for debt, savings, and special occasion budgets. (Hot tip: It’s also a great gift for the goal-oriented Taurus in your life.)

Pros: 

• Color-coded tabs make finding your page easy
• Durable laminate cover
• Affordable

Cons: 

• You’ll likely want an additional planner for other agenda items
• Spiral binding may be less durable

Best to-do list planner: Ban.do To Do Planner — $25.00

If you don’t think you’ll benefit from seeing your schedule in a bunch of different formats—monthly, weekly, daily, and beyond—a to-do-list focused planner might be a good fit for you. This straightforward planner from Ban.do has daily pages divided vertically down the middle with one side leaving space for you to outline your schedule and the other side dedicated to priorities and your to-do list. If you’re not one for completion nostalgia, make use of the perforated pages by tearing out each day when it’s done. Your to-do list will get literally smaller and more compact as the year moves forward.

Pros:

• Affordable
• Simple design may be more approachable for planner newbies
• Compact and easily fits in backpacks, totes, etc.

Cons: 

• Doesn’t feature dedicated weekly, monthly, or yearly pages
• Only 2 cover-design options

Best for self-care: The Everygirl x Day Designer Planner — $21.00

More concerned with how you’re doing than what you’re doing? This planner centers self-care, with daily prompts and guided journal worksheets to help you check in with yourself. It asks you to consider questions like what’s influencing your mood, what feels challenging, and what you plan to accomplish on any given day. There’s also a dotted-line portion of each day’s page so you can add in whatever visualization helps you process your feels, whether it’s a list, a chart, a drawing, or otherwise.

Pros: 

• Affordable
• Motivational prompts—doubles as a journal
• Creative spaces for visualization

Cons: 

• You’ll likely want a separate traditional planner for your to-do list

Best for goal-setting: ProAction Planner — $52.00

The brainchild of productivity consultant Vande Krol, the ProAction Planner is your companion tool for bringing short- and long-term goals to life. In addition to its weekly agenda layout, which is organized in a to-do list format, the planner offers detailed guidance for drilling down into your biggest intentions for the year. With pages for both professional and personal annual goals, the planner helps you break down each item into action-oriented milestones marked by target completion dates and status updates. At the end of the month, there are guided prompts for reflection on progress to help you review and reset.

Pros: 

• Includes both goal-setting and agenda-tracking features in one spot
• Unique 2-week layout
• High-quality paper

Cons: 

• Pricey