Daily planner template

Planning out your day doesn’t just mean jotting down your upcoming to-dos. A truly organized daily schedule should include your daily tasks, plus task priority, status, due date, and more. 

Not sure how to get organized? Enter digital daily planners. 

What is a daily planner?

A daily planner is exactly what it sounds like: a way to keep track of all the tasks you have to do—big or small—each day. Day planners let you see your daily tasks at a high level, making it easy to plan out and prioritize your schedule and keep tasks from falling through the cracks. With daily planners, you always know what’s on your plate for the day, from team meetings to quick to-dos to high-effort tasks. One point for organization.

What is a daily planner template?

As you might have guessed, a daily planner template (also known as a daily schedule template) is a templatized way to create and organize your daily tasks. Digital daily planner templates are editable and reusable, making it easy to organize your work, including what needs to get done and when. With a digital daily planner template, you can start every day quickly while also making sure you don’t miss a beat—or worse, forget a to-do.

Benefits of using a digital daily planner template

You’ve probably used a physical daily planner before—after all, who can resist the feel of a crisp blank page or the look of a professionally bound calendar? But let’s be honest, while physical planners might be aesthetically pleasing, they’re not always functional. Physical planners have major limitations, like lack of space. They also aren’t customizable and don’t allow you to attach context to your tasks, two essential pieces to staying organized. 

That’s where digital daily planner templates come in. Since virtual templates are customizable, you can organize them to match how you work best. Want a minimalist view of your overall daily calendar? Easy. Do you prefer to break out your tasks into an hourly schedule? No problem.

When you create a digital daily planner template in a project management tool (instead of using a printable daily planner template), you can:

• Keep track of all your tasks in one place

• Track the priority of each task 

• Easily arrange (and re-arrange) your to-do list by task priority 

• Connect your daily tasks to larger goals

• Increase productivity and reduce procrastination

• Streamline time management

• Collaborate with team members

• Keep track of your completed tasks 

• Track your progress 

• Watch as new tasks are added in real-time 

How to create your digital daily planner template

First things first: before you sit down for your daily planning session, make sure your template allows you to customize your schedule in a way that works for you. Look for the ability to tag your tasks with task status, effort, priority, or category—all things that will make it easier for you to plan out your day once you start adding to your task list.

What to include in your daily planner template

Okay, we’ve covered the basics. Now that you know what a daily planner template is and why you should use one, let’s take a look at what you should include in your template. 

How you structure your template is up to you and how you work best. To build a basic template, start by adding your to-dos for the day, like meetings, follow-ups, and action items. Then, take your work schedule to the next level by tagging your tasks with the information you need to keep organized. Task tags you can use include: 

• Priority

• Due date 

• Category 

• Effort 

• Status 

How to arrange your daily planner template

Once you’ve added and tagged your daily tasks, take your scheduling one step further by sorting your tasks with custom fields. Maybe you’re the type of person who likes to knock out small tasks in the morning and save high-effort to-dos for midday. Or maybe you prefer to view tasks by importance, so you can make sure you’re prioritizing important work. Arranging your daily agenda according to your working style helps keep you focused and productive. After all, shouldn’t your tech work the way you do? 

Here are a few ways you can arrange your daily planner template: 

• Task type or category

• Time block

• Task priority

Tips for using your virtual daily planner template

Printable daily planners, worksheets, and sticky note to-do lists are a thing of the past. Digital daily planners allow you to customize your workflow and access your schedule from anywhere. And, unlike with physical planners, there’s no risk of misplacing a virtual one. 

Here are a few tips and tricks for organizing your work using your digital daily planner:

• Be clear and specific 

• Make your tasks actionable and deadline-driven

• Dynamically sort your work

• Use a list template view to see your upcoming tasks at a high-level

• Set recurring tasks to automate your workflow 

• Color-code tasks and tag tasks for clarity 

• Integrate your favorite apps for streamlined work 

• Organize your tasks into sections 

• Visualize your daily schedule in a grid, such as a Kanban Board

• Keep everything in one place by attaching docs or images to your tasks 

• Add team members for visibility 

Integrated features

• Custom fields. Custom fields are the best way to tag, sort, and filter work. Create unique custom fields for any information you need to track—from priority and status to email or phone number. Use custom fields to sort and schedule your to-dos so you know what to work on first. Plus, share custom fields across tasks and projects to ensure consistency across your organization.

• Start dates. Sometimes you don’t just need to track when a to-do is due—you also need to know when you should start working on it. Start times and dates give your team members a clear sense of how long each task should take to complete. Use start dates to set, track, and manage work to align your team's objectives and prevent dependencies from falling through the cracks.

• My Tasks. My Tasks is a personalized view that shows you every task that’s assigned to you, regardless of which project or team it lives in. By visualizing all of your to-dos in one place, you can sort and prioritize work and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. With My Tasks, you can toggle between list, board, and calendar views to work the way you want.

• Automation. Automate manual work so your team spends less time on the busy work and more time on the tasks you hired them for. Rules in Asana function on a basis of triggers and actions—essentially “when X happens, do Y.” Use Rules to automatically assign work, adjust due dates, set custom fields, notify stakeholders, and more. From ad hoc automations to entire workflows, Rules gives your team time back for skilled and strategic work.

Recommended apps

• Google Workplace. Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Google Workplace file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach any My Drive file with just a few clicks.

• Gmail. With the Asana for Gmail integration, you can create Asana tasks directly from your Gmail inbox. Any tasks you create from Gmail will automatically include the context from your email, so you never miss a beat. Need to refer to an Asana task while composing an email? Instead of opening Asana, use the Asana for Gmail add-on to simply search for that task directly from your Gmail inbox.

• Zoom. Asana and Zoom are partnering up to help teams have more purposeful and focused meetings. The Zoom + Asana integration makes it easy to prepare for meetings, hold actionable conversations, and access information once the call is over. Meetings begin in Asana, where shared meeting agendas provide visibility and context about what will be discussed. During the meeting, team members can quickly create tasks within Zoom, so details and action items don’t get lost. And once the meeting is over, the Zoom + Asana integration pulls meeting transcripts and recordings into Asana, so all collaborators and stakeholders can review the meeting as needed.

• Clockwise. With the Clockwise + Asana integration, you can add Asana tasks as time blocks in your Google Calendar. The Clockwise + Asana integration allows you to specify the duration of tasks, when they happen, and whether Clockwise can automatically reschedule them. Add tasks to your calendar and make time to get work done.

FAQs