Teaching tweens and teens how to manage their time and get organized can be a challenge. Are you having a hard time keeping them busy, or are you frustrated that they are just wasting their time?
I have a free printable daily planner to help teens and tweens organize their day’s activities so that they can be productive.
If you’d like a weekly planner for summertime instead, check out this article.
I also have a cute winter theme daily printable planner available.
Why your teens need a planner
I originally created this planner to help get teens through 2020. Thankfully kids are now back in school, but I am still concerned about tweens and teens not only wasting time and being bored, but I’m worried about this already anxiety-filled generation’s mental health.
So I created this daily planner to help teens and tweens organize their life and make a plan! I want to help them be productive, have a purpose, and enjoy life. It’s not just for getting school work done. It’s also for making sure they make time every day to have some fun and connect with people.
How to use the teen planner
The planner is divided into sections to help teens organize their thoughts before planning their day.
I’m going to switch my tone here, mom. This planner is for teens and tweens – so I’m going to explain it to them.
First of all, write the day or date at the top of your planner.
Top Three
This section is for your top three goals of the day. The things that you really want to make sure you get done today. Some days you wake up and know right away which are the most important things you need to do. If that’s the case, go ahead and fill them in. Maybe you have an assignment from school that’s due today, or maybe you promised a friend you’d play Xbox Live today. If you already have some ideas, go ahead and write them in.
But other days you don’t really know what you want to do. That’s okay – start with the other sections and come back to this one.
Every day
The everyday section is just that – the stuff you need to do every day. I filled in part of it for you. Check them off when you’re done.
- Exercise – Everyone needs daily exercise to feel good. PE and after school sports keep some kids active, but you may not have that daily, or it may not be enough. If you don’t move your body, you’re going to feel bad. So walk the dog, ride your bike, jump on the trampoline, play catch with your sibling, or do a Youtube yoga lesson like this one: Yoga with Adriene for teens or find a different kind of exercise online. If you want, write in the space what you did.
- Reading – Read every day. It’s good for you. You and your family can decide how many minutes to have for a goal. Our family is doing 30 minutes. Write it in.
- Check school online/Email – Most schools now have online learning management systems like Schoology, Schoolloop, or Google Classroom. You need to get in the habit of checking each day to make sure you’re not forgetting anything. Get in the habit of checking your email each day, too. School or other activities might be using it to communicate – or maybe Grandma is using it. So check it. Part of being a teen is learning to handle your own responsibilities. So practice handling them!
- Chores – If your family already has a daily system for doing chores, great! Do that. If not, it’s time to step in and help. Maybe you could help your mom and dad sort and fold laundry, vacuum, unload the dishwasher….use this space to write what you’re supposed to do. Then do it and check it off. It feels good to check it off!
- I left you two more spaces in case there is something else you need to be doing every day. Maybe you have an instrument to practice. Or maybe you want to write in a chore you do every day, like making your bed. Or leave it blank.
Should do’s
This section is for you to brainstorm everything you can think of that you should do today. When you set up your planner tomorrow, you can start by moving whatever didn’t get checked off today to tomorrow’s list.
For Fun
Life isn’t all responsibility and working hard. You need to have fun! Every day! Maybe it’s not exciting fun, but there needs to be some pleasant time in which you’re doing something you enjoy.
If you want, you might want to start the first day by grabbing a blank piece of paper or making a Google Doc and brainstorming all the things you’d like to do for fun. Let me help a bit to get you started:
- Hobbies you already have – art, crafts, singing, building, cooking, etc.
- Activities you love to do – video games, TikTok, watching movies, etc.
- Friends – Hopefully your life naturally provides you with social time, such as lunchtime at school, doing clubs and sports together, or just hanging out. But do you need to plan for some friend time? Do you want to have a friend over, or meet at Starbucks, or go for a bike ride together? Or maybe you liked some of the “Quarantine lifestyle” that you got used to…maybe you’d like to Facetime a friend while you’re both drawing. Or get on Xbox Live. Or play together on a Minecraft server, or play together in Roblox or another online game. If you have more ideas for me, please comment below!
- Family – Some of your family lives with you. Anything in particular you’d want to do with them? Board games? Puzzles? Binge-watch something? Write it on your list. And you probably have more family that doesn’t live with you – maybe grandparents? Cousins? Think about what you can do to connect with them. Facetiming, phone calls, emails…this is an especially hard time for our elderly family members. Some of them still feel nervous to go out, and some of them are isolated at senior living facilities. Think about what you could do to make their lives more pleasant and connect with them. We play Words With Friends on our phones with our grandparents – maybe you could do something like that.
- Need more ideas for activities? Read my article about what to do if you’re bored.
All right, now that you’ve brainstormed fun things, write some on your daily planner. Pick 1-3 things that you want to do today. Maybe add some more to your Should Do section.
Today
So once you have an idea of what you want to do today, you’re ready to fill in the schedule. Write in anything that is connected to a certain time, first. Don’t forget meals!
Then sketch out when to do what. It’s not set in stone, it’s just a guideline to help you out so things don’t get forgotten.
End of the day
I made three sections for you to reflect at the end of the day.
Best part of today
It’s healthy to try to think positive even when life is weird. So what was the best thing that happened today? Write it down.
I’m grateful for
Think of something. Some days this is easy, some days it’s hard. It could be something small, like a text from a friend that made you smile, a funny show or video that you saw, or the yummy dinner your mom made for you.
Tomorrow I should
What did you not get done today that you wish you did? Or did you have a fun idea that you don’t want to forget? Write it down.
Would you prefer a planner with a cute theme?
Click here to see my free winter theme printable planner.
You’re done!
All right! That’s it! I hope you find this teen planner helpful. If you have more ideas, I’d love to hear them! You can email me or comment below. Please share!
Summer Weekly Planner for Tweens and Teens
Bored? Things for tweens to do while stuck inside
Books for readers who love Harry Potter
Hi, the email verification doesn’t seem to be working to access the planner.
Can you explain the problem for me, please?
Hi Chuck – I just checked again, and everything seems to be working. Once you click the link and sign up, you will receive an email with links to the PDFs enclosed. Please check your email – perhaps it went into the spam folder? The email has the subject line, “Open to get your daily planner for teens.”
Every time I try to access the planner it keeps taking me to the sign-up page. Can I please just access the daily planner to print it? So frustrating!!
Hi Rebekah- Thanks so much for letting me know! I’m glad you are interested in the planner, and how frustrating that the access isn’t working! I will look into it and see if I can fix the link. In the meantime, I emailed the link to you.
I just wanted to check back in and let you know that I checked the links and it seems to be working ok. After you sign up, the planner comes to you in an email. The link is within the email, both for the tween planner as well as the family planner. I hope this helps!
This is a very good and stunning look planner, I want to print it on A4 paper. Can i
Yes, I think printing it out should work fine.
This is so handy right now. I’ll definitely be sharing with my fellow moms. Thanks for sharing.
I’m so glad to help! Thanks for sharing!
This is great information, thank you for sharing. My daughter isn’t a tween, far from it. But I’ll be sharing this list with some friends that need ideas for their tweens and teens.
This is so handy right now with all our young adults home!
I think it’s a great idea to make tweens and teens responsible for their time. Give them things that they need to achieve each day and then let them figure it out themselves!
Loved how you included socializing online in the list like calling grandma and facetiming Becky
Right, we parents have to remember that so much of the young generation’s socializing is done virtually!
This is such an awesome idea. I know we are struggling with this.. I will have to print this out for my kids.
Thank you! Enjoy the planning printable!
This is a brilliant way to teach children to plan and have the routine. Yes, keeping them entertained and busy had been challenging so I really appreciate this. Thank you for sharing these printables. Will get started on this tomorrow.
What a great resource to keep older kids busy until the schools can get some online classrooms going.
Thank you – I think we need this resource! And it should still be helpful for kids who have online classes because teens will still need help managing their time.
I have had my daughter using a planner since the beginning of the year. It has helped a lot.
My kids are still little and we use a schedule. I’m sure the older kids do too! I love the end of the day part.
This is so great! My daughter is only 8 so it’s been easy to entertain her at home but I imagine it’s a lot harder for teenagers, who rely on friends and being out. I’m going to share this with friends who have older kids, I think they will really appreciate it!
Thank you so much! Please share with parents of teens and tweens!