Michelle is somewhat particular about her planner format. During the great planner shortage of 2008 we spent a couple weeks fishing around Barnes and Noble for a red Moleskine like this.
Things tied to a specific date fit nicely on the calendar. The right side works perfectly for to-dos that you might do in a few minutes, hours, or even weeks. The problem with the paper planner is that if you don't accomplish everything on the right side during a given week, you end up turning the page and having to rewrite your tasks. Michelle solved this with a paper clip and a post-it note that she floated from week to week, with occasional replacement.
If you have an iPad and can sympathize with the above scenario, you might like Planner for iPad. It's a weekly calendar and todo list on a single page.
Events and reminders you create in the app get published to the system calender so that you get the alerts and reminders you need.
Events are color-coded and you can pick from several color themes. One of the themes matches the paper color if you don't like the highlighted blocks of text.
I really enjoy how easy it is to enter a calendar event with Google Calendar and tried to replicate some of that with Planner. Just tap the empty space on one of the days of the week and type a few words and a new event is created.
There's a someday category for the todos you want to keep in mind but don't need to focus on just yet.