Living without a solid planner is the fastest way to go bananas in today’s complex life. Whether it’s managing work commitments, studying, maintaining a work-life balance, or staying on top of client interactions, a planner app is an invaluable tool.

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You need a planner app to access your daily schedule, prioritize tasks, create to-do lists, and keep track of important notes seamlessly across multiple devices. If you prefer the traditional approach, here is a list of the most fabulous paper planners.

Digital planners can be pricey. That’s why we’ve researched the best free digital planners available for you, and we’ve divided them into eleven different categories.

A list of the best free digital planners

1. Asana
2. Structured
3. TimeTune
4. Fantastical
5. Trello
6. Notion
7. Planner Pro
8. TickTick
9. iStudiez
10. Lunatask
11. Bordio

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. Asana is also one of the best productivity apps for iPhone.

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

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Read: Time tracking in Asana – all you need to know

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

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, and this proves why is one of the best productivity apps for Windows.

Trello is a tool that allows you to manage remote employees due to 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

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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 good software to increase productivity on your iPad, iPhone, 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

Read also: The guide to Notion time tracking

Planner Pro

Planner Pro is a daily organizer that syncs with 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:

• Planner Pro syncs with Google Calendar
• 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 (Read also: Todoist time tracking). 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

Bordio: best digital free planner to improve productivity

Do you ever feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything you need to get done? Of course, many people struggle with time management and organization. But there’s a solution that can help make your life easier and more productive. Enter Bordio – the digital planning tool that can help you organize your schedule effectively and manage your time more efficiently.

With its colorful, customizable interface and flexible features, Bordio is an excellent choice for anyone looking to improve their productivity and time management skills.

The platform allows you to organize all your tasks in one place and set due dates and notifications so you never miss an important deadline. Bordio’s adaptability and practicality make it a popular choice for busy individuals and teams alike who want to stay on their schedules and achieve their goals.

Whether managing a large-scale project, planning your daily tasks, or trying to stay on top of recurring events, Bordio has the tools you need to make it happen. So why not try it and see how it can help you streamline your life and get more done in less time? 

Highlights:

• The waiting list for tasks that are not currently urgent or important but may become so in the future

• Color coding to differentiate between different projects or categories

• Task duration estimation to better understand time allocation and management

• Project creation feature to break down tasks into smaller, manageable pieces, assign due dates and priorities, and track progress across the entire project

• Recurring event organization feature to set up and manage events that occur on a regular basis, such as daily, weekly, or monthly.

Lowlights:

• On the mobile app, it is not possible to show the plans several days in advance but just day by day
• It’s missing a time tracking feature
• As of today, Bordio does not work for teams and organizations
• You can’t share tasks with other people.

Prices:

• Free

Today we saw eleven different types of free digital planners. Each one has its own peculiarity, and we hope you’ll find the right one for you,  

FAQ

You might be interested in:

• Everything you need to know about all different types of planners
• How to stay on top of things: 15 tips that will change your life
• How to use a planner: the complete guide
• Rapid Planning Method (RPM) by Tony Robbins
• Ways to improve work-life balance

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