Diaries Guide
We all appreciate a visual, written reminder of the important things in our lives. Meetings, birthdays, anniversaries, project timelines and other dates that you just can’t afford to forget – all of them best stored in the one diary for your own peace of mind. Plan your days with intent and choose a diary that helps your week to flow smoothly.
Diary, Personal Planner or Wall Planner?
It’s such a personal decision, and with so much choice available, there’s a perfect solution for everyone.
Diaries
The most personal choice for daily organisation, a diary allows you to record important information in your own way, freeing up your mind for other tasks and focuses.
Available in day-to-view for detailed daily planning and week-to-view or month-to-view for a clearer overview of your commitments, there is a suitable diary for your everyone’s own personal preferences and needs.
Personal Planners
More than just a diary, planners offer multiple features for organising your busy life by keeping track of schedules, tasks, and goals in a systematic and efficient manner.
Often featuring appointment times, daily, weekly, and monthly overviews, note sections, telephone book, address book, and storage sections, a personal planner comes with a tonne of extra information and writing compartments.
Desk & Wall Planners
Designed for a quick view overview of dates, a desk planner or wall planner can make a world of difference when it comes to staff leave, project management, workflow and key dates.
Ideal for both management and team use, a desk planner or wall planner offers a quick, clear view of what’s happening and when.
Choosing the Best Diary
Types of Diaries
So many of us wear different hats at different times. We’re CEO’s, business professionals, parents, and friends – and each of these roles requires us to organise different areas of our life.
Choosing the right type of diary can make life that much easier, keeping both your personal and professional life on track.
Business Diaries
Running a business means you need to be well organised and put forward a professional front. A business diary is designed to assist you in doing just that.
Whether you prefer a full day to a page to list your busy appointments, a weekly planner for a general overview, or a monthly planner, a business diary offers a comprehensive system with a stylish cover and closure.
Executive & Management Diaries
With stylish covers, clear layouts and extra features, the executive and management diaries reflect competence and sophistication.
With this professional range, every attention has been given to detail. From textured covers to secure closures, these deluxe diaries serve a practical purpose while creating an impression that counts.
Teacher & Student Diaries
Every student needs a way to stay organised and achieve their best every day and what better way than with a diary designed specifically for student needs. Suitable for Primary through to High School students and beyond, student diaries are laid out to allow the diary to be checked and signed off by parents, and teachers, and include all public holidays and school term dates, as well as useful information for students of all ages.
Teachers require a unique diary to allow them to see not just their week, but also their term at a glance, it must be sturdy and tough, and packed with features like; yearly and monthly planners, dedicated pages for events, professional development, stage budgets, student and parent contacts, parent communication, and pupil checklist.
Fashion Diaries
Diaries are about more than just being organised. They’re also a reflection of your style, personality and uniqueness.
A fashion diary can be set up with all the bells and whistles of a professional diary, but with the cover and design of someone with a sense of fun and creativity. Bursting with colour, cool images, geometric designs and inspirational quotes, fashion diaries introduce an element of fun every time you open them.
Environmentally Friendly Diaries
When you love the look and feel of a physical diary but are concerned about the use or source of paper inside, an environmentally friendly diary gives you the best of both worlds.
These eco-conscious diaries are made from post-consumer waste without compromising on design or quality. Offering the full range of sizes and layouts, the environmentally friendly diary can fulfil all your practical diary needs while allowing you to make a clean, green choice.
Pocket Diaries
The most convenient little appointment keeper there is. A7 and pocket diaries fit easily into handbags, pockets and small cases, saving space and allowing you to keep up to date with meeting and other significant events.
Small doesn’t mean lacking in features. These compact diaries have weekly and monthly calendars and, despite their size, can feature either a full day per page or week per spread. Some of them even have a full year planner and staff leave section, proving that great things do come in small packages.
Branded & Customised Design
Sometimes you just can’t find thing you’re looking for. The diaries you’ve looked at have some of the features you want but lack others. Or, you just want something super personal like your own logo or cover design.
If this sounds like you, then rest assured that it’s entirely possible to design and print your own personalised diary – to your specifications. You get to choose the look and feel, the internal layout, and the cover style, ensuring a diary that looks and feels as personal as your own fashion.
Diary Features
Everyone has different ways of working and different needs on the job. Some people want a diary for every little detail of their working (and non-working) day, while others prefer to keep use minimal, simply tracking major dates and events.
Diaries come with a range of features that can help to narrow down your choice and ensure you get the diary that serves your needs.
Address & Telephone Index
We all have mobile phones nowadays, but it’s not always appropriate or convenient to pull out our pocket technology. An address and telephone index might seem old fashioned but it’s a great way to jot down key contact information, especially when you’re on the road or technology is glitching.
Appointment Times
Some diaries are set up with hourly time slots; ideal for appointments and meeting lengths. Great for those who light to plan each detail of their day, or for keeping an eye on availability on a busy day.
Binding & Closures
The binding of a diary affects its appearance and practical use. A spiral bind means the pages will sit flat on a desk, while a perfect bound or casebound diary has a smoother appearance.
Similarly, closures come down to appearance and personal preference. The most common closures are elastic or magnetic, while many diaries don’t have a closure at all.
An elastic closure is in the form of an elastic ribbon that wraps around the diary cover, while a magnetic closure features a magnetic flap that secures to the front of the diary. Both elastic and magnetic closures keep everything inside neatly contained, preventing the loss of loose paperwork and reducing the changes of bent pages.
Conversion Tables
Who hasn’t looked up a recipe and wondered what on earth the measurements are meant to be in the Australian metric system? While calculators and conversion pages are easily available online, having a conversion table on-hand at all times is a useful thing.
Note Sections
Some things need to be written down but aren’t suitable for the main pages of your diary. To keep important information on-hand and close to accompanying dates, a section for taking extended notes can be useful.
Great for when you’re on the road, an additional notepad or note-taking section saves you carrying around additional notebooks and reduces the chances of misplaced information.
Page View
A page view might include time of day for appointments, a full day per page for extra detail, or a week spread out across a two-page spread.
A full page per day will contribute to a heavier and wider diary but allows for more information to be recorded each day. A week or monthly spread provides a better overview but doesn’t allow as much room for the finer details.
Many diaries come with a monthly and/or yearly overview in addition to the standard layout, which is another useful addition for those who want a quick reference at their fingertips.
Public & School Holidays
Everyone is affected by public and school holidays, whether directly or indirectly. Many diaries feature a list of these dates for easy reference, and others incorporate these dates into the pages, so it jumps out on the appropriate day.
For some, remembering a public holiday that only occurs interstate is irrelevant, but for others this is critical information for their business functioning. Features such as these can be considered when choosing a diary, as they can make life that little bit easier.
Staff Leave Planner
There are so many systems for tracking staff days and hours, but for a quick overview of the month or year ahead, a staff leave planner is a handy way of keeping an eye on who’s available and when. A simple way of preventing double-ups for staff holidays, a staff leave planner is a useful addition to a diary.
Storage Pocket
Loose papers, pens, rulers and other fiddly items all have a home when your diary comes with a storage pocket. If you’re the sort of person who accumulates an array of business cards, brochures or loose items, then this simple addition to your diary can be valuable.
To-Do List
If your diary preference means clean, uncluttered pages, then a to-do list can help you maintain this while ensuring that important tasks don’t get forgotten. Useful for everything from project management to groceries, a to-do list is one of the most underrated ways to stay organised.
World times & Dial Codes
While they might seem outdated, these are still very much in use. Whether your international meeting depends on understanding international times or you’ve forgotten the dial code to call family overseas, a quick reference at your fingertips can make the difference between attending an online conference on time and accidentally waking someone up in the middle of the night.
Although this information is easily available through modern technology, it’s still useful to have it in your diary, right next to the appointment you’ve made for an international phone call or meeting.
Choosing the Best Personal Planner
A personal planner is more than just a diary; it’s an entire system for organising your life. These planners usually come with many extra features and are adaptable by rearranging sections or choosing those that are most suitable to your needs.
Desk Planner
A desk planner features everything you need to plan your life in one handy centre. Designed to lay flat on your desk for easy and regular access, a desk planner is your go-to for meetings, birthdays, financials, contacts and more.
Slimline Planner
Stay on top of your daily tasks, with Slimline Planner specifically designed to keep you focused and productive. With many of the features of a traditional Diary, a Slimline is a great option for those that like to refill and reuse their favourite diary. Offering the flexibility of a ring binder, a Slimline allows you to add in, take out, and reshuffle pages to suit your organisational style.
Desk Calendars
A desk calendar is a quick reference to any important events and reminders for the day. Designed to sit conveniently and unobtrusively on the desktop, the desk calendar is available as a flip-page that turns either right-to-left or bottom-to-top. Small enough to keep focus on key dates, it’s a handy little desk addition for those who just need to stay on top of what day it is.
Dated Wall Planners
Great for a shared space where all staff can view it, a wall planner provides an overview of the month and year ahead. Ideal for project management, staff leave and general forward planning, a wall planner means that everyone has access to the important dates.
Perpetual Year Wall Planners
These clever planners are dateless, so they can be used over and over again, year in, year out. With wipeable surfaces or tear-off pages, they are ideal for use in planning long-term projects, staff leave, or recurring meetings.
Planner Features
Cases & Closures
Given the multipurpose use of a planner, they are usually a little bulkier than a standard diary. Planners may close with a full zip, that keeps everything inside secured, even if you drop it by accident. They are also available with snap-button closures, providing an elegant appearance and easier access to contents.
Contact Pages
Some planners have A-Z tabbed contact pages, others have separate telephone and/or address pages. As with diaries, it’s useful to have written contact details, particularly if you frequently travel for work.
Finance Pages
For quick and easy reference to budgets and basic financial spending, these pages are a fantastic addition. Great for taking notes on the go, they help to keep track of projects and expenses on days when you’re flat out busy.
Page View
Unlike a diary, a planner has replaceable pages. They may be undated or created especially for the current year – either calendar or financial. Some planners come with replacement pages; others are sold separately.
Planner pages may be single days, weekly spreads, monthly spreads, or annual calendars – and you can tailor it all to your needs when you refill.
Having detachable pages means your planner doesn’t need annual replacement, just the individual sections you’ve used. With time, you’ll identify what works and doesn’t work for you, saving you having to replace sections you don’t really use or need.
Pen, Ruler, Calculator
Although these aren’t standard in every planner, it’s common for planners to come with a pen, ruler or calculator. It’s part of the convenient package that comprises a planner, making sure you have those little things on hand that make life easier.
No more rummaging for a pen, no more finding the calculator app on your phone, and a ruler that doubles as a placeholder. It’s the little things that count.
Diary Accessories
Sticky Notes
Sometimes writing it in your diary isn’t enough – you need it to stand out! Sticky notes are fantastic for temporary reminders and important memos, helping to flag and highlight those things that would otherwise get overlooked.
Sticky notes are available in a range of shapes, sizes and colours, so you can tailor memos for your needs, including tabs, flags, and notes.
Pens & Markers
The diary or planner is nothing without pens and markers. Whether colour-coded erasable markers for the wall planner, or colourful ballpoints and rollerballs for a personalised diary, pens and markers are more than just a basic need – they’re part of the creative and organisational process.
