Why leave paper at all
Pearl planned all of high school in a paper notebook, and it worked — until the day it stayed at home. A forgotten planner meant a forgotten calendar too, because everything lived in that one book.
With college about to start, the goal was simple: one planner that's always on the phone, nothing extra to carry across campus, and room for what a college schedule adds — deadlines, timelines, notes from classes, and a few habits to keep.
Pearl had already tried Notion and never stuck with it. xTiles felt easier to start with, and the weekly planner was already in daily use. What follows is how to turn that into a setup that lasts beyond the first few weeks.
Keep what worked on paper
Switching doesn't mean starting over. The habits that made a paper planner work translate directly:
- A week at a glance. The weekly view in xTiles lays out Monday to Sunday the way a paper spread does, with tasks under each day.
- Color-coded priority. Pearl's red, yellow and green circles become task priorities — high, medium, low — that you can see at a glance.
- Details tucked away. A long task with lots of detail, like what to wear to each dress-up event, can hold a nested note, so the day stays short and the details are one click away.
- Boxes for recurring categories. Homework, upcoming events and projects each get their own tile on the page, just like the boxes drawn in a notebook.
Build the week once, then save it as a template
This is the step that changes everything. All through the school year, Pearl rebuilt the weekly layout by hand: copying the homework box, the events box and the rest into each new week. It works, but it's exactly the kind of chore that makes people drift back to paper.
Set up one week the way you like it
Add the tiles you want every week: homework, upcoming events, projects, a small notes area.
Save the layout as a template
Save your planner layout as a template. The next time you create a new week, the template applies and those tiles are already in place.
Make a second template for a different season
A semester week and a summer week don't need the same boxes. Keep one template for each and switch when the season changes.
Add a habit tracker to the week
Habits are easier to keep when you see them next to the week's tasks. Add a habit tracker tile to your weekly layout with a row for each habit — reading, the gym, less scrolling — and a checkbox for each day. Put it in the template and it shows up every week without you rebuilding it.
Get deadlines into the planner, not just the course site
College adds a new source of deadlines: the learning platform. Pearl's school uses Canvas, and assignments and modules live there, separate from the planner.
Any deadline you add as a task with a date shows up on that day in your planner. To avoid typing them in one by one, you can connect Claude to xTiles. If your Claude also connects to your school's learning platform, ask it to pull this week's deadlines into xTiles as dated tasks. Pearl plans to try exactly that once classes start. Here's how the one-connection approach works.
Paper or digital: what you gain, what you keep
- You gain: the planner on your phone, a layout you never redraw, deadlines that can arrive on their own, and nothing to forget at home.
- You keep: a week at a glance, your own color system, and boxes laid out the way you think.