My Favorite Digital Planning Apps (and How I Use Them)

The apps I keep coming back to for digital planning, journaling, note-taking, and keeping the little pieces of life together.

There are so many planning apps now.

Some are designed to manage projects. Some want to organize every area of your life. Others are essentially beautiful digital notebooks—and honestly, those are often the ones I enjoy using most.

Over the years, I’ve realized that I don’t want one app to manage absolutely everything.

Instead, I like having a small collection of tools that each do one thing particularly well.

Some help me plan. Some help me think. Some give me a place to collect ideas. And some simply make organizing my life feel a little more enjoyable.

Here are the digital planning apps I keep coming back to, along with how I actually use them.

Goodnotes

If you love the experience of writing in a paper planner but want the convenience of having everything on your tablet, Goodnotes is probably the first app I would try.

It’s also where I spend most of my traditional “digital planner” time.

I use Goodnotes with hyperlinked PDF planners, digital notebooks, stickers, and templates. With an Apple Pencil, it feels much closer to keeping a real planner than using a traditional calendar or productivity app.

What I especially love is the freedom.

You can write anywhere. Highlight things. Add photographs. Move handwriting around. Decorate a page with digital stickers. Duplicate pages. Import new templates. Create a perfectly organized planner—or make an absolute mess of it.

For me, that flexibility is part of the appeal.

I use Goodnotes for:

• weekly and monthly planning
• digital journaling
• handwritten notes
• goal planning
• digital stickers
• keeping reference notebooks
• creating decorative planner spreads

It’s the app I would choose when I want planning to feel creative rather than purely functional.

Notability

Notability occupies a slightly different place in my digital life.

While I tend to think of Goodnotes as my planner, Notability feels more like a working notebook.

I like it for situations where I’m actively taking notes, collecting information, or working through an idea.

There’s something nice about having an app where the page doesn’t need to become a beautiful finished planner spread. I can simply open a note and start writing.

That distinction may sound small, but separating “planning” from “thinking” can actually be helpful.

I use Notability for:

• quick handwritten notes
• brainstorming
• meeting or class notes
• annotating documents
• temporary notes that don’t need a permanent home

Sometimes the best planning tool is simply somewhere to put the thoughts that are currently taking up space in your head.

Apple Notes

Apple Notes may be the least exciting app on this list—and possibly the one I use most often.

It’s fast.

That matters.

If I suddenly remember something I need at the grocery store, hear about a book I want to read, think of an idea while making dinner, or need somewhere to paste information I’ll use later, I don’t want to navigate an elaborate organizational system.

I just want to write it down.

Apple Notes has become my digital equivalent of the scrap of paper sitting beside the phone.

Except I can actually find it later.

I use Apple Notes for:

• quick lists
• shopping lists
• links I want to remember
• temporary information
• random ideas
• notes I need to access from my phone

Not every thought needs a perfectly labeled folder.

Sometimes capturing it is enough.

Google Calendar

My digital planner might be where I think about my week, but my calendar is where I keep track of things that happen at a specific time.

Appointments. Meetings. School events. Reservations. Birthdays. Travel.

Anything that would cause a problem if I forgot it goes into the calendar.

This is one of the distinctions that has made digital planning much more useful for me:

My planner helps me decide what I want to do. My calendar tells me where I have to be.

I don’t try to make one replace the other.

I also love having calendar events available across devices, especially when plans change while I’m away from my planner.

Reminders

There are certain things that absolutely do not belong on a beautiful planner page.

“Take the laundry out of the washer in 45 minutes” is one of them.

For small, time-sensitive tasks, I use reminders.

I especially like reminders for things that need to happen later, because writing them on a to-do list means I still have to remember to look at the to-do list.

A notification removes that responsibility.

I use reminders for things like:

• household tasks
• things I need to bring somewhere
• quick errands
• recurring chores
• something I need to remember later in the day

My planner is for intention.

Reminders are for not forgetting the wet laundry.

Both are important.

Pinterest

Pinterest technically isn’t a planning app, but it plays a surprisingly large role in how I plan.

I use it as a visual holding place for ideas.

A planner page can tell me that I want to redecorate a room. Pinterest helps me figure out what I actually want that room to feel like.

The same is true for recipes, outfits, travel, gardening, creative projects, seasonal ideas, and even personal goals.

Sometimes planning begins long before something becomes a task.

It begins with collecting possibilities.

How I use these apps together

The most useful change I’ve made to my digital planning system is giving different tools different jobs.

Instead of searching for the mythical perfect app that can organize my entire life, I think of my system in layers:

Calendar → Where do I need to be?

Planner → What do I want to accomplish?

Notebook → What am I thinking about?

Notes → What do I need to remember?

Reminders → What do I need to remember at a specific moment?

Pinterest → What am I imagining?

There’s some overlap, of course.

And that’s okay.

A planning system doesn’t have to be perfectly organized to be useful.

The best planning app is the one you enjoy opening

It’s easy to spend more time building a productivity system than actually living the life you’re trying to organize.

I’ve certainly been guilty of that.

But I also think there’s something valuable about enjoying your planning tools.

If choosing a pretty digital notebook makes you want to journal, use the pretty notebook.

If decorating your weekly spread makes you sit down and think about the week ahead, decorate it.

If handwriting your plans helps you slow down enough to notice that you’ve scheduled far too much, write them by hand.

Planning doesn’t always have to be about squeezing more productivity out of the day.

Sometimes it’s simply a way to pay attention to your life.

And that may be the best reason to keep a planner in the first place.