Why Students Don't Use Planners: Executive Function & Planning
It Took Him 7 Years to Use a Planner
The other day, I was at an Anti-Boring Learning Lab meeting when Gretchen Wegner, founder of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab, started talking about an interview she'd done for her new podcast.
She had interviewed a former student, now an adult, who told her something that immediately caught my attention:
It took him seven years to use a planner.
I found myself nodding. Because I've seen almost exactly the same thing.
I actually talk about three of these students in my professional executive function training at Connected Pathways Academy, where I teach educators, tutors, coaches, therapists, and counselors how to look beyond the tool and understand the executive function processes underneath it.
I worked with all three throughout high school. We tried planning systems. We talked about planning. We experimented with different ways of keeping track of assignments and looking ahead. They understood why planning mattered.
And through four years of high school, none of the three consistently used a planning system.
Then they went to college. All three started using one.
So when Gretchen talked about a student taking seven years to finally use a planner, I wasn't thinking, Seven years?
I was thinking, Yep. I've seen that too.
But I was also thinking about something else.
Maybe we weren't failing to find the right planner. Maybe we were sometimes asking students to plan farther into the future than they could meaningfully see.
A Planner Is a Tool. Planning Is an Executive Function Process.
We have a tendency to treat planning systems as though they're relatively simple.
Get a planner. Write down the assignment. Check the planner. Do the assignment.
And when a student doesn't consistently do those things, we start troubleshooting the tool.
Maybe they need a paper planner. Maybe they need Google Calendar. Maybe they need an app. Maybe it needs to be color coded. Maybe they need another reminder to check it.
And sometimes changing the tool absolutely helps.
But using a planning system requires much more than having the right one. Think about everything we're actually asking a student to do.
They have to recognize that something happening in the future requires their attention now. They have to hold information in mind long enough to record it. They have to estimate how long something might take. They have to anticipate competing demands. They have to prioritize. They have to initiate checking the system. They have to update the plan when something changes. And then they have to return to that external system later and actually use the information they put there.
A planner is a tool. Planning is an executive function process.
Those aren't the same thing.
How Far Into the Future Can a Student Actually See?
This is where a framework I've used for years around children's ability to anticipate the future becomes particularly interesting.
Adapted from the work of Sarah Ward and others, the framework estimates that between the ages of 12 and 16, students may effectively anticipate only about two to three days into the future. Between ages 17 and 23, that window expands to approximately two to three weeks.
Think about that for a moment.
We can hand a high school student a monthly planner and ask them to write down a project that's due three weeks from now. But writing something in a box three weeks away and actually being able to conceptualize yourself three weeks from now are two very different things.
We're asking that student to think:
Where will I be?
What else will I have going on?
How much time will this take?
When will I need to start?
What needs to happen first?
What could get in the way?
What happens if my original plan changes?
That's a much more complicated cognitive task than writing “English essay due September 28” in a planner.
And suddenly, I come back to my three students.
What Changed When They Went to College?
During high school, we were asking my students to use systems that showed them an entire week, month, semester, sometimes even an entire school year. But the window of time that was meaningful to them may have been considerably shorter.
Then they entered college.
Their environments changed. Their schedules changed. The amount of external structure changed. Their independence changed. The consequences of not knowing what was coming changed.
And something else was changing too: the distance into the future they could anticipate.
A planning tool designed to hold information weeks into the future may have started solving a problem they could now actually experience. Does that mean this developmental change is why all three of my students finally began using planning systems?
No.
There were too many other things changing at the same time to make that claim. But it does give me another important piece of information when I interpret what I saw. And it makes me look very differently at those four years when the planners didn't “stick.”
Here's the part I think is particularly important for educators, coaches, tutors, therapists, counselors, and parents.
If a student isn't developmentally ready to independently use a planning system, that doesn't mean we stop teaching planning. We still need to build the skill.
In fact, I think this changes how we approach it. Instead of putting all of our energy into finding the planner that will finally make a student plan, we can model different ways of planning.
A paper planner.
Google Calendar.
A weekly whiteboard.
A visual timeline.
A three-day view.
Breaking a long-term assignment into smaller deadlines.
Working backward from a due date.
Looking at what needs to happen today, tomorrow, and the day after that.
We can show students that there isn't one “right” way to plan. And perhaps that's especially important for students with executive function challenges.
Our job isn't necessarily to find the system they will use forever. Our job is to help them experience enough different approaches that they begin to recognize:
This works for me.
This doesn't.
I need to see it.
I need reminders.
I need fewer things on the page.
I need to look at three days at a time.
I need to work backward.
That's how we help students begin figuring out what their unique brain needs in order to be successful.
Developmental readiness doesn't mean we wait. It means we model, scaffold, practice, and expose students to tools without assuming that independent use of the tool is the only evidence that learning is happening.
So Were Those Four Years a Failure?
I don't think they were.
For four years, my students were practicing planning. We experimented with different systems. We talked about deadlines. We talked about time. We broke down assignments. We looked at competing priorities. We figured out what worked and what didn't. We practiced adjusting when a plan changed.
They were getting repeated exposure to the process of planning, even though they weren't independently maintaining the tool.
Then they went to college.
And suddenly, a planning system wasn't just something their coach, teacher, or parent thought they should use. It solved a problem they were experiencing.
And when they finally needed it, they weren't starting from zero. They had years of experiences to draw from. They had seen different tools. They had practiced different approaches. They had learned things about themselves.
Maybe those four years weren't failed attempts to get them to use a planner.
Maybe those four years were practice.
When a Student “Won't Use a Planner,” Ask a Different Question
This is why I'm careful when someone tells me:
“They just won't use a planner.”
Because that statement doesn't actually tell me very much. Instead, I want to know:
How far into the future are we asking this student to plan? How far into the future can they meaningfully anticipate? Can they see what needs to happen between now and the deadline? Can they estimate how long something will take? Can they recognize when something happening next week requires action today? Are adults currently holding much of the future for them? Does the planning system require too much working memory? Does it require too many steps? Can they adjust their plan when something changes? What planning tools have they already experienced?
And perhaps one of the most important questions:
Does the student currently have a problem that this planning system solves for them?
Those questions take us somewhere very different from:
“Which planner should we try next?”
And that's an important distinction in executive function support. We're not just looking for a tool to fix a behavior.
We're trying to understand the executive function processes underneath what we're seeing.
Sometimes the Learning Comes Before the Use
I keep coming back to Gretchen's former student. Seven years.
If our only measure of success is whether that student independently used the planner, seven years can sound like seven years of failure.
But maybe it wasn't. Maybe our job isn't simply to get a student to comply with a particular planning system.
Maybe our job is to help them understand planning, experience different ways of externalizing the future, practice anticipating what comes next, and gradually discover what kinds of tools work for their unique brain.
That doesn't mean we stop teaching planning until they're older. Quite the opposite.
We keep building the skill even when the tool isn't sticking yet. Because sometimes we're teaching a skill before a student can fully appreciate why they need it. Sometimes we're modeling a tool before the problem that tool solves has become meaningful to them. Sometimes we're giving them experiences they won't independently draw upon for another year, or two, or seven. And then, when they're developmentally ready and the need becomes real, they have something to draw from.
So instead of asking:
“Why won't this student use a planner?”
I've learned to ask:
“What is keeping this student from using a planning system right now, and what can I help them learn in the meantime?”
That right now matters. Because the student sitting in front of us today isn't necessarily the student who will be sitting in a college classroom two years from now.
Our goal isn't to force them to see farther into the future than they can. And it isn't to wait until they're ready before we teach them.
It's to meet them at the distance they can see today, continue building the skill, and give them enough experiences with different tools that when they're ready, they can choose what works for their unique brain.
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