
Inspiration
5 Dot Grid Planner Ideas
Apr 30This week we’ve launched our very first dotted tear away pad… introducing the Good Ideas Dotted Desk Pad, so to celebrate we thought we’d use it to create five dot grid planner ideas!
We personally feel that dotted or bulleted paper doesn’t get the airtime it truly deserves. Not only does it give you the freedom to get creative with your lists and plans, but it’s also excellent for scribbling in your own unique way. Want to create a neat table? Maybe you want to make your own calendar? It’s such a versatile style of paper, so we wanted to share some different ways to use our new desk pad that you could also use for any bullet journal. Read on for our dot grid planner ideas…

1. The Daily Schedule
The first of our dot grid planner ideas is this super-easy way to keep yourself on track throughout the day! Use the dots to draw a table for the morning and afternoon split into rows depending on the hours you will be working. Making it pretty with some coloured pens, pencils, or doodles is optional but fun! You can then use the desk pad to plan your time hour by hour, including essential tasks you’ve got to complete for the day, appointments, meetings and any goals you want to achieve.

2. The Priorities Planner
To stop you from feeling overwhelmed, use the dotted paper to draw out different boxes for today’s priorities, other to-dos, what can be left for tomorrow and notes to self. Keeping just three or four items in the priorities box will help the day feel manageable and make you more productive. The desk pad will also act as a helpful reminder that it’s OK to leave less urgent or important things until tomorrow. Drawing boxes on a dot grid is one of our favourite ways to use the dots! Here’s some ideas:

3. Healthy Habits Ideal Day
One of our favourite dot grid planner ideas is habit tracking. It’s hard to stick to a healthy routine, especially with how busy our days can become. This is an excellent way to track your self-care daily, weekly or monthly. Use the dot grid to carve out your chunks of time, for example, morning, afternoon and evening, and plan the habits you’d like to achieve in this time. As with all of these ideas, it doesn’t need to be fancy, but even a coloured pencil can really jazz up your spread!

4. Mind Maps
A mind map is a classic way to get down lots of ideas or thoughts on paper at once. Perhaps the most basic of all the layout spreads, this can be a quick way to either summarise your day or capture ideas along the way!
To use a mind map for summarising your day, set up some main headings at the start of the day. We chose; health, fun, work and self-care to create a few key points we want to achieve each day. As with all these ideas, you can take as long or as little as you like to make it pretty!

5. The Reflections Tool
The last of our dot grid planner ideas is this clever reflections tool. When everything gets really busy, it’s vital to take a moment to pause and reflect on how far you’ve come and what you’ve achieved in the day, week or month. Sometimes it’s harder to start with a blank page, so draw some simple circles to divide up your headings. For example, things you are grateful for, proud of, things that have bought you joy and things you want to work on. This will allow you the chance to pause, look back and then start afresh with a positive mindset.

So, there you go, our five dot grid planner ideas. Dotted paper really is so versatile, you really can use it however you like! Let us know what you think in the comments below and your favourite ways to use dotted paper!
P.S. Want to give it a try? Shop our Good Ideas Dotted Desk Pad here!

Hi! Do you have any ideas for study notes? I just got a dotted notebook (is that what it’s called?) and have no idea how to use it…your ideas are so cute and aesthetic!