10 Best Daily Planner Apps for iOS in 2024
We’re all living in an era of juggling multiple responsibilities, from professional tasks to personal commitments. To not get overburdened with those and maintain a healthy balance, we seek effective time management tools we can rely on.
Studies conducted throughout the recent decades show that time management techniques do work: for instance, a 2021 meta-analysis discovers that time management enhances human wellbeing even more so than productivity.
One of the simplest time management techniques is digitized daily planning. Planning in general is reported to give people a greater sense of control over their lives, improved relationships, and other benefits, while digital tools can make the process even smoother and less time-consuming.
The market of planners is oversaturated so it might be hard to quickly get a grip of it. Existing solutions differ in the number of supported systems (iOS only, the whole Apple ecosystem, or other platforms as well), complexity of features, approach to design, available integrations, and other aspects. To find the best daily planning app, you need to understand your needs (or try out several options to figure out these needs). For instance, some programs heavily rely on AI, but you might think that you don’t need AI suggestions to plan smarter—in which case, your best choice would be something on the minimalistic side.
10 top daily planner apps for iPhone
We’re going to delve into the world of daily planner apps for iOS so that you can find your vital tool for a more organized and efficient life.
1. Arcush
Price: free (pro version at $1.99 per month)
Devices: iPhone
Widgets: yes
Customization: colors, task archival
Arcush is a minimalistic daily planner designed to help you effortlessly manage your schedule. It’s based on the time-blocking technique and allows you to schedule work tasks and personal events on a neat timeline. You can sync the app with a calendar you’re using and make certain time blocks visible in shared calendars (for instance, when you want to block off time for focused work with no distractions).
The Arcush app also functions as a to-do list: you can add any number of plans to Inbox and schedule them later. But it comes with a twist: if you don’t schedule them in a specified period of time, they’ll get automatically moved to the archive. It’s done this way so that you maintain planning clarity at all times and set priorities, but it’s also possible to retrieve an archived task at any moment.
Arcush is a good solution for simple daily planning: it provides you with essential features and doesn’t distract you with flashy elements or an abundance of productivity hacks and tactics.
2. Structured
Price: free (Pro version at $3.99 per month)
Devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac
Widgets: yes
Customization: colors, alerts
Structured is a daily planner that lets you visualize your day on a timeline. Its unique feature is a range of icons that you can choose to assign to any given task on your schedule—this way, you’ll have a visually pleasing timeline where you can quickly grasp the scope of your activities. The app also highlights the current task and lets you use the focus mode, which displays the task on the entire screen and doesn’t let you perform any other action on the app.
Recently, Structured added an AI-powered assistant to its functionality: it can create a whole schedule based on your input. The app also lets you import the tasks from the Reminders app and create subtasks. Structured is available on all Apple devices, making it easy to manage your schedule whenever you are.
Structured is a good option if you’re looking for an app to use across multiple devices and you like the visualizing approach with various task icons.
3. Things 3
Price: $11.99 for iPhone
Devices: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac
Widgets: yes
Customization: appearance, widgets
Things 3 is a daily planner focused around task management. It allows you to add and group various calendar events, but it doesn’t feature a calendar or time blocking like most other apps on this list. The major functionality of Things 3 is the possibility to create flexible lists of tasks with multiple headings, notes, and fast multi-select editing.
The default daily view in Things 3 will include your tasks for the day and separately for the evening, while in the Upcoming section, you can view the things scheduled for the future day by day. The app also lets you add any number of to-dos without scheduling them right away.
You should go for the Things 3 app if you’re looking for a unified space for tasks and notes with the possibility to create multi-layered lists.
4. Tiimo
Price: free (premium version at $2.99 per month)
Devices: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch
Widgets: yes
Customization: visual elements and sounds
Tiimo is a visual daily planner designed specifically for neurodiverse users. It helps create a visual timeline, features different types of reminders, and provides an AI-powered checklist to break big tasks into smaller ones. Each activity can be opened in a focus mode that visualizes it with a relevant image, a progress bar, and a possibility to stop and continue at any moment.
To make daily planning easier, the Tiimo app offers pre-made templates categorized by different areas of your life (work, self-care, household, etc.). You can add tags and checklists to any tasks, as well as create recurring ones.
Tiimo is a perfect choice for people seeking balanced planning when grappling with ADHD, dyslexia, or autism.
5. Routine
Price: free (paid versions with advanced functionality for freelancers and businesses)
Devices: iPhone, Mac, web
Widgets: yes
Customization: theme, time format
Routine is a planner app that combines time blocking with to-do lists. It stands out by its integration capabilities: you can sync a lot of task management or work messaging tools with Routine to have all your commitments in one place. It also allows you to save any message or article you read on mobile directly to the app’s inbox.
Apart from personal tasks, you can create shared spaces—for instance, for meeting notes. There, you can tag other people and organize work with tags and action items. If you want to reschedule any of your tasks, the Routine app offers a quick option to postpone it. Tasks can also include location and extended notes with headings and lists.
Routine can be a great daily planning tool if you need integrations with task managers and emails, and when you want to sync your activities across your phone and desktop.
6. Sorted
Price: free (pro version at $14.99)
Devices: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac
Widgets: yes
Customization: widgets, task duration presets
Sorted is a daily planner that promotes the approach of hyper-scheduling. The major strength of this app is that it can automatically create a daily schedule based on a list of unscheduled tasks and their duration. This way, you’ll have a realistic plan for the day and visualize your to-dos along with free time slots.
The app allows for flexible adjustments, letting you select multiple tasks at a single swap or shift the time of multiple tasks at once. Plus, Sorted offers a combination of organizational elements, such as folders, lists, and tags, allowing you to merge and reorganize your plans the way you want to.
If instead of a time-blocked calendar, you need a neat daily timeline created out of your to-dos, Sorted can be a perfect choice.
7. TickTick
Price: free (Premium version at $33.99 per year)
Devices: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, web
Widgets: yes
Customization: appearance, swipe actions, task tags and filters
TickTick is a simple app for organizing your to-dos. There are different calendar views you can use to get a grasp of your plans, as well as various list templates for adding tasks and notes. The app also lets you share plans with others or assign tasks to invited people, as well as discuss them in the comments.
TickTick goes beyond daily planning functionality and also offers productivity techniques such as a pomodoro timer with white noise in the background. It also gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to sorting out your tasks: there are different priority levels to assign, tags, filters, and customizable sorting orders.
The TickTick app can suit you well if you’re looking for a collaborative tool to create your own and shared lists of tasks.
8. Sunsama
Price: $20 per month (14-day free trial)
Devices: iPhone, web
Widgets: yes
Customization: color, calendar privacy, auto-scheduling
Compared to other daily planner apps, Sunsama is rather pricey. This solution stands out thanks to a range of integrations that allow users to put tasks and messages from tools like Jira, Slack, Gmail, and GitHub right into their calendars. All the changes are automatically synced between the tools.
At its core, Sunsama is a flexible time-blocking app that gives a unified view of the day and provides you with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. Apart from the calendar view, you can view a list of the set goals or a list of issues categorized by type and integration (for example, bug issues imported from Jira).
Since Sunsama’s iPhone app is considered a companion to the web version, it can be a solid choice for desktop-first users overwhelmed with a number of work tools and seeking a clean interface to incorporate them all.
9. Timepage
Price: $2.49 per month (Moleskine Studio bundle at $24.99 per year)
Devices: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac
Widgets: yes
Customization: color theme, layout, travel modes
Timepage is a daily planner that lets you sync all calendars in one place and visualize your day. Apart from basic calendar functionality, it has some unique features—for instance, integrated weather forecast and travel time estimates to get to the scheduled events. Its major advantage is the unique design of a calendar and daily view, which you can customize by choosing among the curated color themes.
Unlike many other daily planner apps, Timepage by Moleskine doesn’t combine a calendar with a to-do list. However, the developer offers a bundle with its other apps, including Actions, which can serve you as a space for creating do-dos and various other lists.
Even though the Timepage app has comparatively limited functionality and requires a paid membership, it might be a solid choice if you’re looking for a simple calendar solution and value a beautiful and clean design.
10. TimeBloc
Price: free (premium version at $19.99)
Devices: iPhone
Widgets: yes
Customization: appearance, colored tags
As the name suggests, TimeBloc is a time-blocking app that helps users organize their schedules. It breaks the daily timeline into blocks so that it’s easy to grasp what’s needed to do and what time is left for spontaneous tasks or leisure. Any event added to the app can be personalized with icons.
Also, TimeBloc allows you to incorporate repeating routines into your schedule—for instance, a set of morning routine tasks or a typical work routine. This will save you planning time, and if plans change, any tasks can be easily removed or rescheduled. The premium version of the app includes unlimited routines and statistics.
If you’re looking for a simple time-blocking solution and don’t want to combine a calendar with to-do lists and goals, TimeBloc can be a nice option.
Find a daily planner app to meet your needs
Even though the basic functionality of daily planners is pretty unoriginal and repeats itself from one app to another, advanced features, design aspects, and customization options are what make each app unique. Choose an iOS daily planner considering your preferences in style (do you like minimalistic design, or would you rather enjoy a colorful program with a variety of icons?), devices you use (does the app include desktop, web, and watch versions?), and functionality you require (do you want to have multi-layered task lists or integrations with certain task management tools?).
Since most of the apps we’ve described are available for free or provide a free trial, you can test out several of them to see if their capabilities fit your schedule. We hope this list will help you find the best planning tool and plan the heck out of your days :)
