How to Replace Notability Planners with ClickUp
If you love visual planning but need more flexibility than static PDFs, ClickUp can recreate your favorite Notability planner templates as a powerful, interactive workspace. This guide walks you through how to translate digital paper layouts into living systems with views, tasks, and dashboards inspired by the original planners described in the Notability planner templates article.
Why Move Your Planner Workflow into ClickUp
Traditional digital notebooks feel great to use but quickly become hard to search, track, and update. A planning hub built in ClickUp lets you keep the same structure while adding automation and collaboration.
Key advantages of recreating a planner in ClickUp instead of handwriting in a note app include:
- Fast search across tasks, notes, and documents
- Reusable templates instead of static PDF pages
- Drag-and-drop schedules and roadmaps
- Status tracking and priorities instead of just checkboxes
- Collaboration, comments, and mentions for shared planning
The blog source breaks popular Notability planner templates into work, school, and life categories. You can mirror each category as a dedicated Space in ClickUp and then organize related templates as Lists and tasks.
Step 1: Build a Planner Space in ClickUp
Start by creating a central Space that will replace your planner notebook. You can then layer views and templates that mimic the layouts you previously used in Notability.
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Create a new Space and name it something like Personal Planner or Life OS.
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Within that Space, add three main folders that match the source planner categories:
- Work (for productivity templates)
- School (for academic templates)
- Life (for personal and wellness templates)
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Inside each folder, create Lists based on the specific planner use cases you want to recreate.
This structure keeps your new ClickUp planning system aligned with the way the Notability templates are grouped in the original article.
Step 2: Recreate Work Planner Templates in ClickUp
The source page highlights several work-focused layouts like project planners, monthly calendars, weekly schedules, and habit trackers. You can implement each of these as a List or a view in ClickUp.
ClickUp Project Planning List
Use a List to replace a project planning page:
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Create a List called Project Planner under the Work folder.
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Add custom fields to match handwritten sections, such as:
- Deadline (date field)
- Priority (dropdown)
- Stage (dropdown or status)
- Estimated Effort (number)
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Create task templates that represent the boxes and prompts in your original Notability planner, such as:
- Project overview
- Milestones
- Key resources
- Notes and ideas
Each new project becomes a task using that template, giving you a structured version of your previous notebook layout.
ClickUp Weekly and Monthly Planner Views
The blog article showcases dated and undated monthly and weekly layouts. In ClickUp, you translate those into powerful Calendar and List views.
To build a weekly planner view:
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Create a List named Weekly Planner under your Work folder.
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Add tasks for each major activity, then assign due dates and time estimates.
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Switch to the Calendar view and choose the weekly display. This visually replaces your weekly Notability spread.
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Use colors (tags or priorities) to mirror different sections like work, personal, or errands.
For a monthly planner, repeat the process but group tasks around major deadlines, events, and goals.
ClickUp Habit and Goal Trackers
Instead of manually coloring boxes in a digital notebook, you can track habits dynamically.
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Create a List called Habit Tracker.
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Add tasks for each habit you want to monitor.
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Use a recurring schedule and checklists or a custom numeric field (for streaks or completions per week).
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Switch to a Table or Dashboard in ClickUp to review your progress over time, replicating the overview of a grid-style planner page.
Step 3: Rebuild School Planners with ClickUp
Academic layouts in the source article include class schedules, assignment trackers, and study planners. ClickUp can pull these together into a complete digital student system.
ClickUp Class and Assignment Hub
Under the School folder, create Lists that act like sections in a student planner:
- Classes (for schedules and syllabi)
- Assignments (for homework and projects)
- Study Planner (for revision plans and exam prep)
Then configure them:
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In Classes, create a task for each course, with custom fields for meeting times, location, and instructor.
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In Assignments, use tasks for each graded item with fields for due date, course, weight, and status.
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Add a Calendar view to see deadlines similar to a monthly academic planner layout.
ClickUp Study Planning Templates
To mirror study checklists and revision pages shown in the Notability planner templates, build reusable task templates in ClickUp:
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Create a List named Study Planner.
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Add a task template called Exam Prep with sections for:
- Topics to review
- Resources and links
- Practice questions
- Progress notes
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For each exam, create a task from that template and assign dates, time estimates, and priorities.
This gives you the same structure as a handwritten exam spread but with reminders and tracking built in.
Step 4: Recreate Life and Wellness Planners in ClickUp
The original blog article also emphasizes planners for self-care, routines, and everyday life. You can build these as lightweight Lists inside a Life folder in ClickUp.
ClickUp Daily and Routine Planners
To rebuild routine and daily pages:
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Create a List called Daily Planner.
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Use tasks to represent days, or create one task per routine (morning, evening, weekend).
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Add checklists inside tasks that mirror the boxes in your Notability routine templates.
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Turn routines into recurring tasks so they appear automatically without redrawing pages.
ClickUp Wellness and Self-Care Tracking
For mood logs, self-care prompts, or reflection pages:
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Create a List such as Wellness Tracker.
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Add custom fields for mood, energy, sleep hours, or notes.
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Use one task per day or week to capture entries that would normally live on a handwritten spread.
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Build a Dashboard in ClickUp to visualize patterns over time using charts and widgets.
Step 5: Customize ClickUp Views Like Planner Layouts
Notability templates rely heavily on visual structure. To capture that feel inside ClickUp, experiment with different views:
- Calendar for dated spreads like monthly or weekly views
- Board to mimic kanban-style progress or segmented dashboards
- Table for assignment grids and habit trackers
- Doc for reflection pages, journaling, or goal breakdowns
For each List, configure multiple views and pin the ones that best match how you previously used your digital notebooks.
Step 6: Template and Automate Your New ClickUp Planner
After you rebuild your favorite layouts, turn them into templates so you never have to design a planner spread from scratch again.
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Open a completed task or List that represents a planner page you like.
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Save it as a template in ClickUp, giving it a clear name, such as Weekly Review or Monthly Reset.
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Set up automations to create new tasks from these templates on a schedule, for example each Monday or on the first of the month.
Now your digital planning system behaves like an endlessly refreshing notebook, without any manual copying or redrawing.
Next Steps: Expand Your ClickUp Planning System
Once you have your core planner structure in place, continue refining it using ideas from the original Notability planner templates guide. Gradually add more Lists, templates, and dashboards for goals, finances, or content planning.
If you need expert help designing advanced planning workflows, optimization agencies like Consultevo specialize in systematizing workspaces and processes for productivity tools.
By translating your favorite notebooks into structured Lists, views, and templates, ClickUp becomes a flexible replacement for traditional Notability planner files, giving you a complete digital planning command center.
Need Help With ClickUp?
If you want expert help building, automating, or scaling your ClickUp workspace, work with ConsultEvo — trusted ClickUp Solution Partners.
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