Digital Planner User Guide

Learn how to use your digital planner! This page will give you guidance on everything you need to know about using a digital planner from my shop.

Getting Started

Digital planning looks and feels a bit different from paper planning, but don’t let that intimidate you! Once you try it, you’ll fall in love with fun it is, and how much easier (and less MESSY) it is to keep organized.

The digital planner itself is like a a giant interactive PDF ebook. You will need to have a PDF annotation app in order to utilize the full functionality of the planner. I recommend using Goodnotes and so I have written these guidelines specifically mentioning that app. You can use other apps such as Notability, Noteshelf, or Xodo, but the instructions may be a little different.

For orders from Etsy:

  • If you have an Etsy account, after your purchase you’ll see a View your files link which goes to the Downloads page. Here, you can download all the files associated with your order.
  • Downloads are available once your payment is confirmed. If you paid with PayPal or a credit card on Etsy, confirmation might take a few minutes.
  • You’ll also get a download notification email from Etsy separate from any transaction notification emails you receive from Etsy and/or PayPal.
  • If you checked out as a guest, you’ll find a link to download your purchase in the receipt email that was sent to you after purchase.

To access your digital files from your Etsy account:

  1. Sign in to Etsy.com and go to Your account.
  2. Go to Purchases and reviews.
  3. Next to the order, select Download Files. This goes to the Downloads page for all the files attached to your order.

Please note that you can’t download a digital purchase through the Etsy app at this time. To download a digital file, please sign in to Etsy on your mobile browser or a non-mobile computer.

Changing The Cover

To change the cover of your digital planner in Goodnotes:

  1. First, send the file to your iPad and import it into Goodnotes as a new document.
  2. Then tap the three dots in the upper-right corner and choose “Copy Page.”
  3. Next, open up the planner you want to add a cover to. Head to the very first page of the planner by tapping on the little house icon in the upper left corner. Then tap the paper icon with the plus sign on the Goodnotes toolbar to add a page. Choose “Paste Page” from the menu that opens here.
  4. Last, tap the icon with the four small boxes in the Goodnotes toolbar to open up an overview of all your pages. Use your finger to tap & hold the planner cover to select it. Then drag it to the front of your document.

Now you have successfully changed your planner cover. You can delete your old planner cover or copy and paste it in another document if you want to keep it handy.

Navigating The Planner

Your digital planner is made with thousands of hyperlinks to make navigating from page to page – which is useful, because there are a LOT of pages in there. On the sidebar you’ll see a column of icons that link to each of the main sections of your planner, followed by links to sections for each month.

House Icon – the little house links to your Planner Dashboard. From the dashboard, you can find quick links to the main planner pages for the year, quarters, months, and weeks. You’ll also find links to the extra sections of the planner.

Calendar Icon – the little calendar icon will bring you to an annual calendar type page with an overview of all the months of the year, including their weeks. Each calendar date, month, and week is linked to its respective page.

School Icon – the pencil and ruler icon brings you to your academic dashboard (if you bought a student planner), where you’ll see links for each semester overview, schedule, assignment trackers, study log, and grades. Each course has it’s own overview page where you can summarize all the important information for the course and find links to the course’s notes and study-related pages.

Lists Icon – the checked box icon brings you to your lists dashboard. Here you’ll find all kinds of fun lists to fill out, organized into groups depending on whether they are basic lists, life-type lists (like a bucket list), lists of things (to buy, to sell, to get, etc), and finally entertainment lists for books, movies, and shows.

Notebooks Icon – the open notebook icon links brings you to a colorful page where you have lots of notebook covers arranged in a grid pattern with titles such as Notebook 1, Notebook 2, etc. Each notebook links to it’s own index page which sort of looks like a blank table of contents. You can choose any of the 8 paper templates in the circles at the bottom to open up a page.

To keep adding pages to your notebook, just press the add page icon on the Goodnotes toolbar (the paper with a plus sign in it) and tap “current template.” If you want to use a different page template, go back to the notebook index and tap a different template.

To arrange pages in your notebook sections, tap on the Goodnotes toolbar icon with the four squares, tap & hold on the pages you want to move, and drag them to the correct place.

You can decorate and label your notebooks and sections however you like (by putting digital stickers over them, etc) and the links will still work.

Money Icon – the circle with the currency sign in it leads you to the money dashboard. Here you’ll find info to keep track of your accounts, annual and monthly finances, savings trackers, debt payment trackers, and other useful budgeting sheets.

Self Care Icon – the icon with the heart in a circle links to your self care dashboard, which is split into four sections representing four pillars of wellness: mental health (moon icon), fitness (heartbeat icon), physical health & hygiene (heart with a checkmark), and time-management (ribbon icon). Each link brings you to a unique template that can help you focus on your personal wellbeing and prioritize your self care.

Food Icon – the little leaf icon brings you to your meal planning dashboard, which is where you can find the link to your weekly meal planning page as well as recipe cards to help you keep track of your favorite recipes.

Yearly Pages – the planner has yearly calendar pages, a year at a glance page where you can put some small notes under each month, a yearly goals page, and a birthdays page. There’s a yearly review page and new year’s resolution template in the Self Care section, and there is an annual finances page linked from the money dashboard.

Monthly Pages – tapping on the month tabs on the left-side column brings you to each month’s page. Every day and week in the monthly calendar is linked to its own page so that you can do more extensive planning where you need to. Each month has its own monthly plan page where you can track important dates, big plans, things in progress, and things you need to get done. Each month also has it’s own general-use trackers, finance pages, and monthly review page.

Weekly Pages – each planner comes with a few different weekly overview templates. Choose the one that you like the best and don’t look back! Each week also has a weekly plan page for keeping track of your goals, priorities, and habits for that week. After the week is done, there is a weekly review page you can use to reflect on how your week went.

Daily Pages – the daily pages are cleverly designed to offer structure with a priorities list and scheduling column, while keeping most of the page a blank grid. You can use the grid to write notes, doodle, write lists, make plans, etc.

Using Your Planner

Using Links – In Goodnotes, the planner must be set to viewing mode in order for the links to become clickable. To set your planner into viewing mode, tap on the icon that looks like a pencil with a line through it, in the upper right corner of the Goodnotes toolbar. When you want to write in your planner, tap that icon again and you’ll be able to edit your pages. It might seem a little tedious at first but trust me, you’ll get used to it the more you use your planner.

Taking Notes – you can take notes in your digital planner using an Apple pencil or other compatible stylus. You can also click on the text icon in Goodnotes to type or paste text. Please note that any template lines shown in your planner are not form fields that can be typed into directly. Typed text may need to be re-sized in order to line up with the lines, if desired.

Duplicating Pages – any of the pages in your planner can be copied and pasted virtually as many times as you wish. Any links that were on an original page will still work on the copied page. Links always lead to their original target, which means for example that if I have a link that goes to page 4 and I add some pages before page 4, my links to page 4 will still be valid.

Using Digital Stickers –

To load the sticker file into GoodNotes, download the file named “Academia Stickers.goodnotes” from the Google Drive link. (If you already downloaded it, it might be a good idea to delete that file and re-download it). On a tablet device you can download it by tapping on the filename to select it, then tap the three little dots at the top of the screen, and tap on “Download.”

Then, open up GoodNotes. On the main screen, tap on the “+” icon with the dotted outline, and select “Import.” Then select the sticker file (on iPad it should be at the top of your “Recents” if you just downloaded the file. Then, GoodNotes should be able to import the stickers file successfully.

To add a sticker into your planner, use the selection tool to select the sticker you want, then tap & hold the center of the selection. A small menu pops up that allows you to select “Copy.” Select it. Then, go to the page you want to use the sticker on, tap & hold on the page, and select “Paste.” Now you can move, rotate, resize your sticker anywhere.

To re-position a sticker once it has been placed, use the selection tool to select the the sticker and then you will be able to move it around freely. To re-size it, tap & hold until a menu appears, then select “Resize.” You can delete the sticker after selecting “Resize” as well.

Printing Planner Pages – your digital planner is not designed with the intention of printing, so bear that in mind. But you can still print pages of it when you want to. The easiest way to do this is to go to the page you want to print, tap the share icon in the Goodnotes toolbar (it looks like a box with an arrow pointing up, on the left side of the screen). Tap “Print,” then you can choose to print the current page or all the pages. Since your planner may be well over a thousand pages, I don’t recommend printing all pages!

Report Issues & Get Support

If you find any errors or bugs in your planner, please report them to me. I spend a lot of time working on making my digital planners the very best, and I take errors very seriously! Please email me directly at hi@wellella.com to report any errors.