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There is nothing more exciting than getting a new planner. A lot of planners have new designs and features which you can learn to use.
However, something that can stump a lot of new planner users are planner stickers. There is a chance that their purpose might not be obvious, and what if you think they might be useless?
However, we think that taking full advantage of planner stickers can massively contribute to your productivity and can also motivate you to use your planner as often as possible.
For a general synopsis on planner stickers, these are a tool which are used in planners to make them both more aesthetically pleasing, but also functional.
There are plenty of different types of planner stickers which you can find which do a variety of different things like track habits, reminders, goals, events, bills, reminders, and a variety of other types of stickers.
Planner stickers are great if you want to make a certain task more visible and will make it so you are less likely to forget what task you need to do.
When you think of stickers there is a chance you might just associate these with your childhood.
Back then these were almost exclusively for aesthetic function, however for planner stickers, this can be the case, but these are also designed to have a lot more value than this in most cases.
These are here to help give you more value when it comes to planning your time in your planner.
They are there to help you with planning out your days, weeks, and months, and this is done to help you complete tasks and remember what you need to.
This can make you more organized and less stressed, and can also just contribute to more success.
They can help with instant identification of certain tasks you will want to complete.
If you write right onto your planner, there is a good chance that certain things can blend into the background and this can make forgetting details easy.
Because of this, planner stickers work to provide you with a pop of something different which draws attention where it could be forgotten.
There is also a chance that some stickers are just there for visual appeal as well.
Because of the wide variety of types of different planner stickers, this guide has been designed to talk you through each type and work out which ones you want to use and where.
So, if you plan to use planner stickers, keep reading!
Different Types Of Planner Stickers
As we have mentioned in the introduction, there is a wide variety of planner sticker types. This gives you a wide variety to choose from, but this also means that it can be tricky to know where to start.
When reading through the types of stickers listed below, keep in mind where you might use these in your own planner so you can work out which will be the best option for you!
Functional Stickers
A functional sticker tends to be exactly what it is advertised as. These will help you organize your life and your personal time so you will be able to identify what different tasks need to be done.
This could be an appointment, a meeting, a bill which you need to pay, children’s events, and really anything you need it to be.
Sure these look attractive to your planner, but they serve much more purpose than this and can massively improve your attention to details if you know how to use them effectively.
Event Stickers
As the name suggests, event stickers are planner stickers which are designed specifically for events, and can even have a design which is specific to a certain event.
You can get event stickers which are designed for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, meetings, and much more.
The most common type of event sticker that you will find is a colored strip which you have the option to write on top of.
There is sometimes a box which will be located on the left side of the sticker which can be used for writing the time or the date.
Habit Trackers
Another common type of planner sticker which is popular with avid planners who may use their planners for more purposes than more casual planners are habit trackers.
These habit stickers tend to be broken down so that you can use them every day that makes using them a habit in itself.
They tend to have blank boxes or circles so that you can track a specific habit.
They will sometimes give you a section to fill out the habit which you want to track and this makes it so you can know what you are tracking.
Because these habit tracking stickers tend to be left uncategorized you have the freedom to use them to track whatever you want.
Sidebar Stickers
Sidebar stickers are actually a wide category and type of planner stickers and they can be used to describe some of the other aforementioned types of planner stickers like habit trackers.
But, a sidebar sticker could come in the form of a checklist sticker which is used to keep track of certain tasks as well.
You can even find that a lot of planners might come with a section on the side of your monthly or weekly spread which can be used for note taking, but this is also a perfect spot for you to use your sidebar stickers.
This can add more color to these sections and makes them a lot more grabbing.
Date Covers
This type of planner sticker can just include the numbers for the dates, but you can also find some which have the days of the week as well.
It is not always necessary to use these, but if you want to use them they can make it so customizing your planner is easy (If you want to find a completely custom planner, see our guide to custom planner companies here).
They can add a lovely new look to a weekly or monthly spread in a planner.
The main use of these planner stickers is that they can be used to change the format of a planner so a Sunday to Saturday style could be shifted to Monday to Sunday.
Budget Stickers
If a big part of your planning is budgeting, then using budget stickers could be a great idea. These are used to help you keep track of your expenses, whether these are fixed or variable.
These stickers can be used to help you get closer to a saving or a financial foal. You can use these stickers to show when a certain bill is due.
These stickers are usually designed to give you a space to show when a specific bill is due as well as how valuable this bill is.
Then you will just put this sticker on the date when this bill is due. You might also have a checkbox you can use to make it easy to mark when the bill is due.
If you are doing this for a recurring expense, different color coded stickers can help show when a specific bill is due.
Checkboxes Or Dots
These are quite simple and you can even find these included in a lot of planner sets.
These are usually included so that you can add a checkbox and fill them in wherever you want to and wherever might be useful for you.
Flag Stickers
Using a flag sticker, which will usually come in the shape of an arrow, can be used to point out where a specific date is, and this is great for helping you bring attention to a specific date which could be important.
Washi Strips
Washi tape has been growing in popularity throughout the years, and this is partially due to how versatile how it is.
For example, one of the most common uses of washi paper was to decorate the edges of a weekly or a monthly spread.
However, if the washi is just plain without much of a pattern you can use it at your discretion for headers and customizable labels.
You can usually write quite clearly on washi tape, so this makes it incredibly easy to work with. Washi tape also comes in a variety of thickness options and with this comes even more options for customization.
A thicker washi tape will usually be used at the top or the bottom of a page to enhance the appearance of a spread.
However, more decorative washi tape will usually just be used to enhance certain designs.
Decorative Stickers
As we mentioned in the introduction, there are some stickers which you just use for visual flair.
These can be used to make certain page designs more cohesive, but generally these do not serve much of a practical purpose, and there is nothing wrong with that!
However, the more attractive your planner looks, the more proud you might be of it, and this will encourage you to use it more often, so this can aid your productivity in its own way!
Monthly Planner Stickers
You can get kits which are used to track a whole month and these can be great if you want things to be a little more themed in your planner. For example, using hearts in February, or seasonal theming.
With these monthly planning stickers, these can often come with a variety of different types of stickers that we have already listed and can be pretty good value.
However, some good advice when it comes to buying planner stickers is to be careful when it comes to buying sets.
It might seem like great value when a cheap set advertises how many stickers you get, but make sure those stickers are useful to you and that the manufacturer is not just trying to sell you leftover stock!
Why Do We Use Planner Stickers?
We love using planner stickers because not only will they enhance the appearance of your planner, but they are perfect for making it easier to remember any important events or tasks which are super easy to forget.
As we mentioned, if you just write all your notes in your planner using a pen, it can be very easy to gloss over certain notes because everything can start to blend together.
If you end up using planner stickers instead, you make entire systems and have different codes for different stickers to make it easy to keep track of different elements of your life.
The possibilities are endless if you consider just how much you can do with a sticker system.
For example, a lot of people use planner stickers to keep track of meal planning, school events, commitments like sports and clubs, and even their spending habits.
This makes it easier to keep track of things that can often slip through the cracks.
As well as this, adding extra color to your planner makes it look better and makes you want to keep using your planner every day!
Just buying a planner is one thing, but people can often get overwhelmed and end up stopping using it because there is just too much to keep track of.
That is why utilizing tools like planner stickers is useful to help make it all a bit more manageable
What You Can Do Using Planner Stickers?
You can use planner stickers to make to-do lists, keep tracks of habits, appointments and events, but you can also use them as a liberating creative outlet as well.
You can even layer your stickers to get a more unique layout.
A lot of people end up treating their planners like a scrapbook which can be useful as it is a great way to keep track of the less easy to control elements of life.
You can use stickers to include pictures and decorations in your planner to help treat it like a diary for keeping track of events.
You can even use stickers as a way of annotating certain sections of the planner and eliminate the need for more peripheral books.
What do I do with all these stickers?
If you’re like me, once you start using stickers in your journal or planner and see how useful they can be, you end up with a lot of stickers lying around. These can be ones that are leftover from some months, or ones you are planning to use in a future layout. Either way, you will need to find somewhere to store them so they do not get damaged before you get to use them.
It’s a good idea to organize and store your stickers, and there are many ways to do that including albums, storage drawers, stadium storage or shelves. Check out our article on organizing your bullet journal stickers for more information.
Summary
Hopefully this guide has made it clear how many different types of planner stickers that are available and how they can be useful to you.
The possibilities are pretty endless when it comes to planner stickers and these can be used in a variety of different ways.
You do not have to use planner stickers, but those who love them swear by them.
If the descriptions of planner stickers which were described here sounded attractive to you, we recommend getting a set you like the look of so you can try them out in your planner.