Why I Ditched Planner Apps for a Plain Grid on Paper

Calendar — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:47:24 +0000

Not a dev post today, just something I've been meaning to write about since a few people asked what I actually use to keep track of my week.

Short answer: nothing fancy. I stopped buying those $25+ planners a few years back — the ones packed with quarterly goal trackers and habit grids I never touched — and switched to plain blank monthly calendars instead. Just a grid, days across the top, empty boxes underneath. You fill in whatever you need.

The reason it's stuck for me longer than any app or planner ever did: it doesn't assume anything about how your week is structured. I've had stretches of freelance/contract work where my "weekend" was Wednesday, and every pre-printed planner just breaks down the moment your schedule doesn't match Monday-to-Friday. A blank grid doesn't care.

It's also just cheap and low-stakes. Same template works for any month of any year, so there's no sunk cost if you stop using it in March — reprint, start over, no $30 guilt sitting in a drawer.

I wrote up the fuller version of this (plus how some people I know use it — medication tracking, habit chains, meal planning, one person literally tracks watering her plants on it) here: https://holidayscalendar.net/blog/blank-monthly-calendar-free-printable-templates-for-any-month

Curious if anyone else here has gone the low-tech route for something they used to over-engineer with an app or tool.

DEV Community: Calendar

Why I Ditched Planner Apps for a Plain Grid on Paper