Author | Jackie

The problem with adding a new product to your current offerings is finding the time.

You may love the idea of adding a digital planner or journal to your signature program or service. But, you still have to run your business and work with your current clients. How can you possibly find the time to add a new income stream or add value to your existing one?

Starting a digital planner from scratch takes time. There is no doubt about it. They are complex, big documents with many moving parts (and endless hyperlinks!). 

It is exactly why they are popular and valuable - they aren’t digital products just anyone can make. 

A single-page printable? Yes, easily within most people’s reach with a tool like Canva. A 100-page week planner or 400-page daily planner? Well, that takes more time and skills surely?

Designing Your First Digital Planner

The key is, you don’t actually have to start from scratch. With guidance, you can focus what little time you have on the right things.

So no, it doesn’t have to take a long time. It depends on how you approach it.

Below, I’ve outlined four ways you can speed up your design time and yes, design your first digital planner in just a couple of days.

Sounds too good to be true? Let’s take a look…

Design Your Own Digital Planner | Template Examples

1 | Planning

Getting Started

A little planning goes a long way. One of the biggest hurdles to starting any project is overwhelm. Particularly, if this is a new venture for you. 

What if I handed you a step-by-step task list? Wouldn’t that be easier? 

Of course it would and that is the beauty of taking a little time at the start to plan. It helps you get started. You are over the biggest hurdle and on your way. 

Keep Going

Not only does it get you started, it keeps you going.

It is easy to flag or get distracted in the middle of a project. If you have a plan and know where you are heading, it is easier to stay on track and keep going.

And let’s be honest, checking off tasks is both satisfying and motivating!

Make Your Own Digital Planner | Planning Workbook

2 | Templates

A Jump Start

This is undoubtedly the biggest time saver on the list. My favourite thing…TEMPLATES!

I love them and so should you. So much work has been done for you, particularly when you buy a digital planner template. All the tedious hyperlinking for one thing! 

With a template, you already have a digital planner design. You just need to customise it and make it your own.

No Blank Page

It is so much easier to customise and edit an existing page than it is to start from scratch.

If your template includes additional page layout templates, it gets even easier. It is simply a matter of replacing the template layouts with the new ones, tweaking them to fit your customer needs, and your brand and style, and you’re done.

Professional Designer Finish

For a fraction of the price, you get the professional finish a graphic designer would add to your product without the price tag. And, you can learn from this too.

One of the best ways I’ve found of learning about page layout and graphic design is to look at the pros. 

They offer experience and creativity you can tap into and aspire to. The easiest and quickest way to do this is to use resources like templates that have been designed by an experienced designer. Templates really are incredible value for money.

Reuse and Recycle

You will learn a lot about your planner from customer and client feedback. This information is invaluable and should be fed back into the design process for the next version of your digital planner, notebook or journal.

Any planner you make from a template is in fact, a new template. You can take the feedback you receive and evolve your template each time you use it. As I’ve been designing planners and notebooks over the past few years this has undoubtedly been the best way to improve my design and as a result, my customers’ satisfaction.

Not Just the Planner

Let’s not forget, it isn’t only a planner template that can help you. You will need to create shop images, previews for your sales page, social media graphics…etc. You will find templates available for all of these design assets. 

Templates make the design process quicker and can help you get the planner out into the world faster too.

How to Design a Digital Planner Using Templates

3 | Software

The Right Tools for the Job

There are many ways to make a digital planner but without a doubt, using design software that was built for the job makes it much easier and quicker.

Piecing together multiple tools and apps may save money, but it doesn’t save time. And, when you work for yourself, time is money.

No workarounds. No trying to join multiple documents because of page limitations. No cumbersome hyperlinking. 

Rather have software that offers: 

• master pages
• global colours and styles
• pre-export checks
• easy management of documents running to hundreds of pages
• the ability to optimise an interactive PDF, and 
• an easy-to-manage hyperlink tool

How to Design a Digital Planner Using Affinity Publisher Software

4 | Skills

Make it Specific

Templates might speed up the process but what about learning the software? Isn’t that going to slow you down again?

You don’t need to learn the software. You need to learn how to use the software to create a digital planner using a template. That is quite different.

Professional design software is amazing, huge, and can take many years to truly master. What you may be surprised to hear is, most designers don’t master the software at all. They specialise and become a master of a specific element of the software. 

This also applies to digital planner designers. You need to know how to use specific tools and panels that cover: master pages, global colours, text styles, shape and text tools, hyperlinking, and exporting an optimised PDF. That’s it. Nothing like the full scope of the software. 

The problem is, if you do this on your own, you don’t know what you need to know! 

By focussing on just the ‘need to know’ skills, you drastically cut down your learning time and speed up your design time. 

Planning, Templates & Support

I’m sure you’ve used Google and YouTube to learn new skills. The problem is, you don’t always find exactly what you need. Or, you find Step 1 but can’t find a decent tutorial to take you on to Step 2. 

Finding and piecing together different videos and tutorials take time. Slowing the design process down.

With a combination of focussed planning, professional templates, and the right support, you will cover the skills you need and produce your first digital planner or journal literally in a few days.

Make Your Own Digital Planner with Templates & Affinity Publisher

Make a digital planner to sell in just a couple of days

Although making a digital planner to sell in a day seems like an outlandish claim, I hope you can see it is more than possible.

It is a combination of:

• Planning - knowing where you’re heading and how to get there
• Templates - take advantage of a professional design that’s ready to customise
• Software - using the right tools for the job
• Skills - knowing what you need to know, and no more

All the Support & Templates You Need

If you are ready to create your first Digital Planner in just a couple of days but would like some support and - of course - some templates, the Make Your Own Digital Planner using Affinity Publisher and Templates was made for you.

Make Your Own Digital Planner with Templates & Affinity Publisher | Course Workbook

You’ll learn:

• Why templates are your best friend.
• Powerful settings you need to know.
• How to customise layouts to completely transform a template.
• How to create multiple digital planners from just one template.
• The essentials of Affinity Publisher - specifically for digital planners - just what you need and no fluff!
• How to package a planner and digital stickers to sell, including how to make a sticker sheet.

Find out more about what’s included, the bonuses, and what’s covered in each module.

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