How to Plan When There’s Nothing to Plan

That feeling when you look around and see your planner stash but you have nothing to plan…

It’s a rough feeling. The feeling is the worst when you have a dated planner and feel like you’re wasting space!

Sometimes we spend tons of money on building our planner stash. Between testing out different planner companies and different planner sizes and buying endless amounts of sticker books, the planner stash is there and ready to be used. It can suck not having anything to put into your planner.

However, there are ways to still use your planner even if you don’t have a laundry list of things to do on any given day. Let’s talk about the different ways to plan even when there’s nothing to plan.

Planning Your Self-Care Habits

Even if you don’t have any plans and want to stay in the house all day, you can still use space in your planner to write down the self-care habits that you want to accomplish that day. For example, you can try planning out your day using a schedule to map out the different self-care habits you want to do throughout the day. If you’re looking for something less rigid, there’s nothing wrong with writing a quick to-do list of the self-care habits on your radar.

Here are both methods of planning your self-care habits in action:

Either way, on a boring or “empty” day, writing down a list of self-care habits is an easy way to use your planner even when you have “nothing to plan” for any given day.

Memory Planning

Memory planning reminds me of scrapbooking! It’s a way to capture the day, even the mundane things that happen in 24 hours. So even if you have nothing to write down in your planner for a day or so, take that space and use it to capture your memories from that day.

Now to be transparent, I actually haven’t tried this method of planning before! But I see so many creators on social media that either have a separate memory planner or will use memory planning to fill in some space in their planner. If I were to memory planning, I would think about what stood out to me that day. What do I want to capture in my planner? What do I want to remember? Even if nothing happened that day, what are some things I can write down that did happen?

Journaling

I think journaling and memory planning are closely related but not the same. Like half-siblings, journaling and memory planning share some similarities but some differences as well.

The main difference for me is that memory planning is more about writing down a memory from the day whereas journaling may dig a little deeper and talk about your feelings, emotions, and deepest thoughts from the day. So if you don’t have anything to plan on a given day, take some space in your planner to dig deeper and talk about your feelings.

This difference is why I can say I’ve journaled in my planner before but I haven’t memory planned. I don’t journal often since (1) there’s always something to plan, and (2) I share my planner a lot on social media and don’t want to share certain thoughts. But journaling, especially on the good days, is a good way for me to express my feelings

Self-Care: Quotes, Gratitude, and Affirmation

Of course this is an answer! Lol.

When you have absolutely nothing to plan, a great addition to your planner is a quote or affirmation. Whether it’s a line from your religious text, a quote from your favorite actor, or an affirmation from your favorite creator, a positive line or two in your planner is a great use of the empty space resulting from nothing to plan.

Another mood-boosting addition to your planner is gratitude! Why not take some space to write down a list of the things you’re grateful for in that moment? What I love about these three options is that you can always refer back to this space in your planner when you need a reminder, encouragement, or more.

Draw/Doodle

This option is for my artistic people out there (aka, definitely not me). When you have nothing to plan, try using that space to draw or doodle. You can draw something that reflects what you did that day (almost like memory planning) or something completely different. The possibilities are truly endless with this option because you can truly draw whatever you want. I love this option for those who can draw; it’s a great way to customize your planner without taking away space you need for planning.

Inspire Someone Else!

How do you use your planner when you’ve got nothing to plan? Be sure to comment below!