Planning

Top 3 Pens for Planners

July 13, 2021December 19, 2021 by Mel C

I have been using planners for the last 5 years and used many different kinds of pens. Some pens worked great, some not so much. In this post, I will talk about my top 3 pens for planners and why I like them.

The best pens to use for planners are gel pens. They don’t bleed through the page and also don’t leave indentations on the page from pen pressure. Compared to a rollerball pen, skipping ink while writing usually does not happen. Gel pens don’t require much pressure and glide on the page. If you are writing a lot, these pens will be a lot easier on your wrist, as it is a lot smoother to write with them.

Best Gel Pen Brands

So here are my top 3 pens for planners. I have been using these 3 kinds pens for the last little while and I am very happy with the way they write.

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Pentel EnerGel

The Pentel EnerGel 0.7mm Metal Tip is the pen I use the most, I even had them ordered for me at work, because I like them so much. The pen writes very smoothly and I never experienced any problems with ink flow. They are very comfortable to write with and have a cushioned latex-free grip. Pentel offers refill inks for this pen so you don’t need to buy a whole new pen once the ink runs out. The Pentel EnerGels are also available in size 0.5mm and 1.0mm

Papermate Inkjoy

The Papermate Inkjoy 0.7mm pens are one of the most popular pens in the planner community. These pens dry very quickly and reducing smearing. They are available in 0.5mm and 07mm. If you like color-coding in your planners, these pens are for you! There are 21 colors available

Pilot G-2

The Pilot G-2 pen is a retractable rolling ball gel pen. I like having this pen in my purse since it is retractable and doesn’t have a cap like the other ones. The pens are available in 4 different sizes (ultra fine, extra fine, fine, & bold point). Refill packs are available if you run out of ink.

Writing Example

Here is a quick example of what the writing looks like. All 3 pens that I am using are size 0.7mm. There is not a great big difference but you can see that the ink color is slightly different. The writing with the Pentel looks a little thicker than the other ones even though they are the same size.

Best pen color for writing

The most popular colors for writing are blue and black. For many people, the choice of color is a matter of preference. I have used both colors in my planners but ended up using blue pens for the last couple of years. I find the blue color is a better contrast, especially when writing on documents, which are printed in black most of the time.