The 10 Best Free Digital Planners in 2023
Living without a solid planner is the fastest way to go bananas in today’s complex life.
We are juggling between a plethora of to-dos, appointments, and events. To bring forward our work, study, raise a happy family, and run a satisfying social life, we need to organize everything.
You need a planner app if you want to access your daily schedule, school tasks, grocery list, or client’s notes from any device. If you like paper planners, we’ve listed some of the most fabulous paper planners in this article.
Digital planners can be very pricey. That’s why we’ve researched the best free digital planners available for you, and we’ve divided them into ten different categories.
Asana
Asana is a flexible project management tool designed to enhance team collaboration. It has tons of integration options too.
We picked Asana as the best free planner for teams because of its excellent user interface, which makes collaboration easy for any type of team size.
Highlights:
- Outstanding Gantt charts
- Overview of workload assigned to each teammate
- Tasks can be updated by multiple people
- Attach a file and mark it up with comments
Lowlights:
- It doesn’t include a built-in time-tracking feature
- It has a steep learning curve if used for complex projects
- Clunky offline mode
- Cluttered e-mail notifications
Prices:
- Free Basic plan
- Premium account for $10,99
- Business account $24,99
Tip: Track time in Asana via Timeular’s integration
Structured
Structured is an exclusive Mac and iOS app that merges to-do lists with your calendars. The app works as a daily planner that you can use to organize your private and work life.
The app can set customized reminders, plan recurring tasks and visualize your day into a timeline.
We picked Structured as the best free planner for Mac as the creator, Leonard Mehlig, is highly skilled in developing Mac and iOS apps.
Highlights:
- Daily timeline visualization
- Great look and feel
- Customizable notification
- You can use the app across your Mac, iPad, and iPhone
- Color coding for different activities
Lowlights:
- To integrate calendars, you need a paid subscription
- Lack a time tracking integration
- There is no monthly overview
Prices:
- Free version
- Pro monthly $ 1.49
- Pro yearly $7.99
- Pro lifetime $29.99
TimeTune
TimeTune is a time-blocking and daily planner application. The app is suited both for personal and professional tasks.
TimeTune works accordingly to the timeboxing time management technique. The app also shows you statistics about the activities you accomplished, so you can have a weekly overview of your time.
Highlights:
- You can set custom reminders and choose different sounds and vibrations
- Easy-to-understand insights and stats
- It is based on the time boxing technique
- Appreciated by folks with ADHD
Lowlights:
- The interface can be clunky sometimes
- It doesn’t allow collaborative work (one seat only per account)
- No option to check off items in the daily planner
Prices:
- Free
- Pro ads-free $9.99
Did you know the average worker spends 51% of every workday on low to no value tasks?
Keep your team focused on the right things with easy to use time tracking.
Fantastical
As the name says, Fantastical is an awesome productivity app in the iOS landscape.
With beautiful and smooth navigation, we picked this app as the best one for iPhone for several reasons. First, it won the Apple Design award in 2016, and four years later, in 2020, it won the Mac App of the Year Award. Moreover, the app works seamlessly across Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple watch.
Highlights:
- Award-winning design
- Excellent user interface
- Interest calendars (create and customize different calendars for each aspect of your life)
- Daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly overview
Lowlights:
- Some key features are locked behind subscription
Prices:
- Free version
- Individual Pro €3.67 (as of today, around $3.60)
- Family Pro €5.83 (as of today, around $5.72)
- Read also: The best time tracking tools for iPhone
Trello
The famous software review platform G2 classified Trello as the number 1 planner for Windows, as an alternative to Microsoft Planner (available just with the paid package of Office 365).
Trello is one of the best tools to manage remote employees and a remarkable collaboration and productivity tool. Users appreciate its minimal and simple UI, which is relatively straightforward. The downside is its lack of reporting and time-tracking functionality.
Highlights:
- Ease of use
- Attractive design
- File sharing feature
- Plenty of features in the freemium version
Lowlights:
- Limited when it comes to managing complex projects with dependencies
- Limited insights
- Missing time tracking feature
Prices:
- Free version
- Standard $5 monthly
- Premium 100$ monthly up to 100 seats
- Customized enterprise plan
Find everything about digital Kanban boards.
Notion
Notion is an incredible project and knowledge management tool. Moreover, it is a creative place where you can note your thoughts, collaborate with your team or simply make a grocery list.
Notion works seamlessly across all platforms. It’s available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.
Highlights:
- Its flexibility. Notion is known as a hybrid between Google Docs, Dropbox, Excel, and Todoist
- Available across all platforms
- Large template collection
- Notion Academy
Lowlights:
- It may take some time to learn how to use the tool at its best
- It can be slow sometimes
- Hard to comment on a table view
- If used for complex projects, it may be a bit clunky
Prices:
- Free Basic plan
- Premium account for $10,99
- Business account $24,99
Planner Pro
Planner Pro is a daily organizer that syncs your Google Calendar, tasks, and notes. The software adapts to any kind of user’s needs: from more organized to creative people.
We picked Planner Pro as the best app for iPad because of its powerful sketching and note-taking functionality.
Highlights:
- Sketch directly in notes
- Organize and prioritize tasks
- Various calendars are all synchronized in one place
- If tasks are not completed, they are dragged to the next day
Lowlights:
- Can’t use the Apple Pencil with it
- It may have some bugs as users report the app shuts down unexpectedly
Prices:
- Free
- Pro version $29.99
TickTick
There are plenty of to-do list apps out there. Two of the most famous ones are TickTick and Todoist. In the end, for us, TickTick won for freelancers.
Freelancers often have to follow multiple clients but need a clean and quick overview of tasks. A simple list may not be enough, and a calendar is handy. Plus, time tracking for freelancers is also crucial as some may bill by the hours.
TickTick marks all the boxes offering calendars, a Pomodoro timer, and a clean, intuitive UI.
Highlights:
- Integrated pomodoro timer
- Calendar view
- Reminders can be set to show the day before the task
- Add pictures and files to your tasks
- Timeline view
Lowlights:
- Lack of integration capabilities
- Lacks two-way sync with your calendars
Prices:
- Free
- Monthly Pro $2.79
- Yearly Pro $27.99
Read also: The best time tracking apps for freelancers
iStudiez
If you’re a student, you’ll need to organize your exams, study sessions, and classes well. As the best planner app for students, we picked iStudiez. The software and its features are tailor-made for students.
In iStudiez, you can enter your class schedule, including the professor’s name, contact info, and office hours. You can also color code your classes and use icons to make them visually exciting and easy to scan.
Highlights:
- GPA tracker
- Customized over students
- Colo cording different classes
- You can enter your grades
- Sync data across other devices
Lowlights:
- For some users, the paid version is too expensive for students
- Issues with multilingual settings
- Can’t group different semesters together
Prices:
Free
Pro version in-app purchase $2.99
Pro version desktop $9.99
Read also: How to be more efficient. Achieve more in less time
Lunatask: best digital free planners for ADHD brains
All-in-one encrypted to-do and productivity app built with ADHD brains in mind. After some digging and research, we discovered this hidden gem.
Lunatask has a simple and friendly interface and different time and project management built-in feature such as Kanban boards, Eisenhower Matrix, and Pomodoro.
Highlights:
- End-to-end encryption: no one has access to your data except you
- Habit tracker
- Note-taking feature
- Ready-made workflows for grouping tasks
- Multiple integrations
- Rich documentation on how to get started
Lowlights:
- Still a work in progress, as Mike, the creator, said here
- Not possible yet to embed images and attach files
- No keyboard shortcuts are available
- Missing a time-tracking feature
Prices:
- Free
- Pro $6.99 a month
Today we saw ten different types of free digital planners. Each one has its own peculiarity, and we hope you’ll find the right one for you,
FAQs
What is the best productivity planner?
This really depends on your needs. Pick a planner that adapts well to your lifestyle and your habits. Consider ease of use, budget, and integrations available. This article lists the best productivity planners, digital and on paper.
How to choose the best productivity planner?
Following there are some key features to consider when choosing a planner.
- Easy to use: How tech-savvy are you?
- Budget: What is your budget? Would you rather pay once or monthly?
- Collaborative workspace: Do you need to share the space with other people?
- Integrations: Which other apps are you using that you need to integrate with the tool?
- Frequency: How often do you want to use the planner? Is it something you’ll use daily, monthly, or yearly?
What is the best planner if you have ADHD?
Lunatask looks like a fantastic free digital planner for folks with ADHD.
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