It’s the New Year. Have you done any planning? I sometimes feel like I have done more drifting than planning. But planning will give a sense of direction. Think of it as a road trip with some destinations in mind.

I’m not talking about the high-flung promises you might make to lose weight or get more organized. I’m talking about deciding what direction you want to go in, and setting up some plans to move in that direction.

No? You haven’t done that? You should. It’s not too late.

I find that even if I don’t know my life’s purpose (see ‘Why I Hate Life Purpose’), I still have to have some idea of what I want to accomplish, or I will accomplish nothing. So for the past few years I sit down in late December or early January and formulate my plans. I use a series of questions to help me figure it out.

Note: it works best to write out the answers and review them periodically to make sure you are fine with your present track.

The Questions To Ask Yourself When Planning The New Year

• What have I started that isn’t complete? Do I want to complete it? This is good to assess the things you have committed to do. The second question gives you an out if you decide it no longer serves your purpose.
• Do I owe anyone anything (borrowed or promised items)? This is for things you might have committed to other people. Yes, borrowing implies a commitment to return the borrowed item.
• What went well in the past year? Looking back on what we have done well allows us to use that as a springboard for new plans.
• What could have gone better? Could I have done anything to make it better? By reviewing the things that were not so stellar successes, we can learn lessons for the future. But if what happened was completely beyond your control, cut yourself some slack. Things happen sometimes that have nothing to do with us, despite our best efforts.
• What was beyond my control last year? Let it go. You couldn’t do anything about it.
• How is my activity level? Do I need to stop or start things? Assess how much you have going on. Do you have too much? Consider cutting back. Too little? Find something you would like to do.
• Am I taking care of myself in a healthy way? We only get one body in this lifetime, and many diseases can be lessened or avoided by proper care of that body. If you are not taking care of yourself, make plans to do so. Make the doctor’s appointments. Eat sensibly. Aim for health rather than weight.
• What do I most want to experience next year? Nobody sets out to have negative experiences. But recognizing that we want to have a certain type of experience can help us gravitate toward them. For example, if you decide you want to experience less stress at work, this might lead to changes in dealing with the people at your current job.
• What do I most want to feel next year? Again, no one sets out to have negative feelings. But if you decide you want to feel peace in the next year, you might add meditation or tai chi to your activities.
• What do I want to let go of next year? There are always things we can let go of. Deciding to let go of a past experience or a physical item that brings back bad memories can set you free.
• What places do I want to visit? Deciding that you want to visit certain places means that you put them in your mental radar.
• What books do I want to read? Even if you don’t know the specific titles, thinking about what you might want to read heightens your awareness for when you do find it.
• What movies/plays do I want to see? If there is something that you really would like to see, write it down.
• Where do I want to go financially next year? If you have certain financial goals, write them down, and make a plan to get there. This does not include things beyond your control like “win the lottery”.
• Where do I want to be physically next year? This question can be taken on two levels. It can mean your body, but also where you reside.
• Where do I want to be with my career next year? Too many people coast in their careers. Answering this question can be as simple as listing things you want to learn, or as complex as switching fields.
• What do I want to create next year? All of us create things, even if you consider yourself a non-creative type. Figure out what you want to create? Do you want to paint? Write? Sing? Try a new food?
• Where do I want to be spiritually next year? Along with the physical and mental planes, we must also examine the spiritual one.
• Are there any big dreams I want to start making reality? Sometimes we have big dreams. You know, the “I would love it if I … but that will never happen” kind of dreams. These are big and scary, but not usually unattainable (unless they involve the lottery). Write down ones that you can take a few steps toward making a reality.

These are the basic questions you can ask yourself to start planning a great new year.

]]> http://gqkzq9xu.lauraearnest.com.dream.website/episode-74/ Wed, 25 Jan 2023 05:00:18 +0000 http://gqkzq9xu.lauraearnest.com.dream.website/?p=17379 I rarely have time to prep for the new year in December. The holiday season is a busy one for me, and it doesn’t allow for the retrospection that I find I want to give the start of a new year. I know that January 1 is only a date, but I like taking the slow weeks after the new year to consider the year ahead. I like to reflect and plan the new year in the slow weeks of January.]]>

I rarely have time to prep for the new year in December. The holiday season is a busy one for me, and it doesn’t allow for the retrospection that I find I want to give the start of a new year. I know that January 1 is only a date, but I like taking the slow weeks after the new year to consider the year ahead. I like to reflect and plan the new year in the slow weeks of January. My steps include:

• Review the old year
• Seeing what worked – and what didn’t
• Reviewing my systems
• Reviewing my tools
• A look at my targets and goals
• Evaluate how my life reflects my priorities
• Make a dream/vision board
• Start a new planner
• Tidy my spaces
• Make a 100 things to do list

Links from show:

• Making a Dream Board with Canva

Support me at Patreon: You can find all the episodes over at Patreon.

I was listening to a friend assess the earlier part of the year the other day, and I felt obliged to stop her.

You see, her conversation was peppered with “I should”.

I don’t like the word SHOULD, because it implies a sense of doing something you’re not doing, or that you feel obligated to do.

Some examples:

• I should clean the gutters.
• I should take a course in y.
• I should catch up on the backlog of magazines.
• I should visit my family.
• I should clean out my closets.
• I should exercise more.
• I should eat better.

The problem with SHOULD is that it expresses an obligation. The obligation may be true, that someone expects something, or the obligation may be imaginary, in the case where we hold ourselves to something. Obligations are great, but they are better if they are a WANT.

Wants express a desire to accomplish, rather than an obligation.

Questions to Ask When You Find Yourself with “Should”

It is better to get to the root of the shoulds as soon as possible, and either convert them to wants, or discard them.

Who Says?

Who says I should clean the gutters? Is it someone that has a stake in it (like a gutter cleaning company)? Is it someone who is trying to pass off work on you because they don’t want to do it? Is it an expectation you are putting on yourself?

Figuring out who is directing the should will provide some clarity.

Is It Meaningful to You?

Is the activity meaningful to you? Is it meaningful to take a course in a new skill? Are you truly interested?

Activities that have no personal meaning are probably going to be difficult to translate into a want.

Is It Right For You?

One of my friends was pressured to go to pharmacy school because his grandfather was a pharmacist. My friend wanted to do computer programming, but took the basic courses for pharmacy. But his heart wasn’t in it, and he ended up leaving university.

I have been pressured in the past few months to take up a programming language that will doom me professionally. I was told I “should” learn this skill so that I can be more employable. However, it’s not right for me, and I know from experience that if you have the skill, people will expect you to use it.

Thinking about whether a particular task is right for who you are and where you are going can be a good indicator of whose expectation this is.

Is There Another Way?

If you should clean out the gutters, does that mean you need to do it yourself? Or would it be better to state that you will get the gutters cleaned. Sometimes a should is merely an indication of a mis-phrasing. You might not be the best person for the job.

If we examine where the shoulds come from, we can either discard them, or change them in such a way that they become desires. And once they are phrased as desires, we are more likely to make them happen.

]]> http://gqkzq9xu.lauraearnest.com.dream.website/weekly-review-and-plan/ Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 http://gqkzq9xu.lauraearnest.com.dream.website/?p=16124 In writing, there are two types of people: planners and pantsers. Planners outline everything and have a plan, and pantsers fly by the seat of their pants. Both produce novels; however the pantsers end up having to go back and straighten out all of the little plot issues and character problems after the fact. It's like planning after you've already done the work.

Personal life is also much like this: there are planners and there are pantsers. The difference with life and time, though, is that you can't go back and change what happened in a week if it exploded in your face. I have long thought that planning is the way to make sure that I'm not wasting precious time having to rework and retry things after the fact. Today we will look at both my work and personal weekly review and plan, along with the whys of everything I do.]]>

It’s impossible to map out a route to your destination if you don’t know where you’re starting from. –Suze Orman

In writing, there are two types of people: planners and pantsers. Planners outline everything and have a plan, and pantsers fly by the seat of their pants. Both produce novels; however the pantsers end up having to go back and straighten out all of the little plot issues and character problems after the fact. It’s like planning after you’ve already done the work.

Personal life is also much like this: there are planners and there are pantsers. The difference with life and time, though, is that you can’t go back and change what happened in a week if it exploded in your face. I have long thought that planning is the way to make sure that I’m not wasting precious time having to rework and retry things after the fact. Today we will look at both my work and personal weekly review and plan, along with the whys of everything I do.

I am a Planner, Not a Pantser

I have long been a believer in planning out my week. The rare weeks that I don’t do it are lost to a snare of little tasks that have little value. When I take the time to review and plan my next week I have some idea of where I am going and how I will get there.

That’s not to say that I plan out every last little minute. Life still consists about unforeseen things flying at me. And it’s up to me how I respond, and how much I let it affect what is going forward.

Every weekend I sit down and look at the coming week. I make adjustments, and I see what is going forward so that I am best able to move on my own goals and plans regardless of what life may bring.

The Review

Every week has a component where I go over the past week.

Work Review

For each of my projects at work, I have a separate page. These are flagged with little sticky flags, and sometimes will have parent projects. As part of my Friday routine, I go through each of these pages and write the next thing that needs to happen.

I do this weekly so that nothing gets lost in the shuffle of multiple projects and shifting priorities.

• Needs action. If the project needs me to move on it, the action is noted, and placed on a sticky note. The sticky note drives the plan for the week. These actions could include follow up, programming, design or asking the client if this needs to be re-prioritized.
• Needs to be shelved. Sometimes projects at work are shuffled to the back burner because of the priority of other items. If something needs to be shelved, I adjust the task and project in our ticket management system.
• Needs closure. If the item has been finished in the last week, I close the ticket and remove the flag.

Personal Review

I am not as thorough with the personal review as I would like to be, simply because I move tasks around daily. However, I do go back through my week entries in the bullet journal.

• Project is closed. I make sure that the corresponding tasks in Remember the Milk and Trello are closed. I do this because I want my electronic project and someday list to be up to date.
• New task/project. Sometimes I think of something else that needs to be done. Both new tasks and projects are put in Remember the Milk. I do this so that I have some time in every week to do a bit of a brain dump. I find I lose track of far less that has come up by having this session.
• How did I do? I track how much I worked on my current projects plus my daily habits in a two-page grid in my bullet journal. Every day I put a dot if I did the item. I can quickly see if I have a habit that needs shoring up, or if I have neglected a project for an entire week (or longer). This means I need to consider whether or not I will work on it during the coming week or if it needs to be taken out of active rotation.

The Plan

It’s important to note that while I do this plan on a weekly cycle, I do not create weekly spreads in either of my notebook. I find them too confining, since I often will write more or less than the space available in the spread.

I prefer instead to do things as per the Bullet Journal method: I start a day and write from that point forward.

Planning for Work

My work life consists of meetings and projects. Thankfully my client believes that my time is best spent on project work, so my meetings are minimal. Still, some meetings have to be prepared for, and some tasks come out of meetings. This means I have to be prepared for both.

My work also means juggling tasks amidst shifting priorities and deadlines. I have to know the status of each project task and be able to put aside projects (as well as pick them up) without missing a beat.

To start my plan, I start my Monday entry in the notebook. This consists of a horizontal line and a note of the date and day of week in the upper right. I do this so that I can do my weekly and daily planning at the same time.

I do my planning with a sticky note in hand. I note the projects that are my priority for the week as well as the page number in the notebook. This gives me a quick reference of what I should be working on without having to hunt through the book.

• Appointments. I look at my Outlook calendar to see what is coming in the next week. I consider each meeting in terms of a project and write down any prep tasks on the associated project page. I also take a look at the team’s deployment calendar and my client’s schedule. Deployments usually mean that I lose a day of concentrated work as I bounce between the parts of deployment. My client being out means that all questions have to be answered before he leaves, and this can affect my design work. If I need to schedule meetings, I do so at this point…his calendar fills up quickly.
• Tasks. I write down on the page any tasks that need to be accomplished specifically on Monday, but also that may need some lead time. I note the lead time tasks so that first thing Monday I can send out emails to the SME (Subject Matter Expert) to give them time to find the answers. I try not to do this on Friday because I don’t want it to get lost in the email that may come in over the weekend.
• Things that need to be followed up or actioned. As part of my review, I noted projects that may need to be put on hold. I write up an email to my client and ask him about shifting priorities. Since this happens every week, I list what I am working on, what the priorities are and ask if there are any changes. This gives me the framework in which to begin the week.

My work planning is fairly straightforward because of the limited types of work I do. I am either programming, attending meetings about my programming, or designing what I am going to program. This makes the weekly plan fairly straightforward.

(For future reference: I am working on a system of using my bullet journal at work, and once I have the kinks worked out will publish an article on it.)

Planning for Personal

My planning for my personal life follows a very set order, and works between my two sources: Trello, for projects; and Remember The Milk, for tasks. I keep these electronic components because they make tracking the status of things very easy, and I can easily set up repeating tasks.

• Looking at my inbox in RTM. Both Remember the Milk and Trello have inboxes. I go through Remember The Milk first. Those tasks that have ended up there are generally sent from email and require less than an hour to be done. Those get sent to the appropriate list within Remember The Milk. Some of these projects will require more than an hour and will be flagged to automatically move to Trello.[1]
• Looking at my inbox in Trello. Trello is my repository of things that will take more than an hour. It includes lists for current projects, somedays, and paused projects. I take the time to put the items in the inbox in the correct list, as well as assign any start and due dates to projects. The tasks that are in the current projects are sent back to Remember The Milk automatically[2]
• Another Inbox Pass. Back in Remember The Milk, I now go through my inbox for the final time. Projects that were sent to Trello are deleted and the ones received from Trello are put in the correct list in Remember The Milk.
• Look at Upcoming Tasks. At this point I look to see what is coming at me in the next two weeks. My maintenance tasks for the computer and house are split up into weekly tasks with multiple subitems. They each take at least an hour total to do, but the individual tasks can be done at any point. I prefer to know when they are on my plate so that I can plan time to take care of them.
• Update the calendar. My Google Calendar shows items not only for daughter and husband, but also a separate calendar with my typical schedule. The typical schedule has work, sleep, house maintenance, dinner and recurring appointments. I use this to see when I am truly free to work on projects, as well as when I may need to adjust my typical schedule to accommodate things happening that week like technical user groups.
• Go through my lists. From this point I go through each of my Remember The Milk lists to make sure that I have a handle of what is going on. I write down my maintenance tasks on a single page in the bullet journal to keep myself from having to rewrite tasks every day. It also keeps the important details of the day from getting lost in the noise of everyday tasks.
• Decide which projects will be worked. Depending on how much free time I have during the week, and how much I have to do with due dates, I figure out what will be the top of the project list to be done. When I am past dinner in the evenings, I pick out projects to do that evening. This keeps me from feeling trapped into a schedule but allows me to keep moving forward on my personal goals.

With my review and planning sessions designed as they are, I can easily see what needs to be done without feeling trapped by my schedule or task list.

In past articles I have elaborated on my daily review, along with why I keep separate notebooks. Feel free to check them out.

Do you have any special things you do during planning or review? Please share below. I’m always looking to learn.

—

[1], [2] I use IFTTT to automatically do these movements for me.

One of my coworkers was recently complaining that she never knew what she had to do during a given day and that her days always seemed to be taken up by things that landed on her desk that day. She had big projects and wasn’t making any progress but wasn’t sure exactly where her time was going.

A simple daily plan and review can answer all these questions. By learning how to craft a two-step routine, you can know what is coming at you during a day, what you spent your time on, and figure out where to get the time to work on projects.

The Power of the Plan and Review

I find that my daily plan has the power to hold my day together. If I make a good one, the day goes smoothly. If I don’t make a plan, I am at the mercy of whatever blows into my inbox.

Likewise, if I do a review of the day, I can spot patterns that may otherwise elude me. I might see that my lack of energy shown by vegetating in the evening needs to be attended to directly. Or I might see that I have been too busy or busy with the wrong things. The review can keep me on track in the day ahead.

Today we will talk about what is in my daily plan and review…and why.

The Two Phases: Plan and Review

My approach to the day has two distinct phases: planning and reviewing. Sometimes they happen at the same time; but they both have to happen. Failure to plan means the day will be off track. Planning without reviewing ensures I will keep repeating patterns that are detrimental. Reviewing without planning is pointless because I have no benchmark with which to compare my day.

Planning is figuring out what is coming at me, and right-sizing the day. It’s about looking foward.

Reviewing is about comparing what actually happened with what was intended, and looking for things that popped up that need to be attended to.

Planning

Planning would ideally be done the night before. In the work notebook, this happens before I leave for the day. One of my shutdown-the-day tasks is to plan the next workday. I find that I have to do this or I will forget what I need to tackle first thing in the morning.

On the personal front, planning the night before doesn’t happen often. And when I say often, I mean 99% of the time. But my planning is done at the latest when I sit down at my desk to work (on workdays) or as I eat breakfast (non-work days). I find it is crucial so I have some idea of what I need to accomplish.

Here is what I do during this planning phase.

• Set up my Bullet Journal page. Each notebook has a specific format to the day header. For work, it’s a line, below which I list the date, day of week, scheduled and actual hours. For my personal notebook, it is a grid of hours that I can block out to see my busy hours, as well as the date and day of the week. I do this to have a clear visual indication of when the day started in the notebook.
• Look at the weather. ****In my personal notebook, I also note the weather: high and low temperatures, and what it is supposed to be the majority of the day: sunny, cloudy or rainy. This serves a specific purpose. Not only do I know how to dress for the day, but it also informs how long I have to allow for transit times, because people in my area don’t drive well when the streets aren’t dry.
• See what’s on the calendar. Next I look at what is on the schedule for the day. In the work notebook, it reminds me of meetings and allows me to determine when my best blocks of uninterrupted time for programming and design are going to occur. In my personal book, this lets me see how full my day is, and how much time I will have to do other projects. I do this so I am not caught unaware (or outright miss) an appointment on my calendar.
• Look at my tasks for the day. In my work notebook, this is a list of open loops I don’t want to lose track of. This could be tasks that need to be attended to, or where I am in the development of a feature. In my personal notebook, I read the tasks for the day off of my task manager, and decide if I have enough time to tackle them.
• Right size the day. During this phase, I note what needs to be moved to another day based on my available time. At work, it is just a matter of drawing the symbol next to the task (>). In my personal notebook, I write down what I am to do, and move the rest forward in Remember The Milk. Doing this allows me to keep the quantity of work I expect myself to perform under control.
• Block my workday. In my work notebook, I rarely have to write down the blocks. But I often take a sticky note and set my goals for each open time chunk during the day. In my personal notebook, I will color in the time grid day separator and color matching tasks. I only do this for time up until dinner; everything after dinner works under a different system. This gives me a sense of how the day will flow, and allows me to get tasks done on my lunch hour or immediately after work.

Review

Reviewing would ideally be done at the end of the day. I manage this quite well at work, because I transfer my notes into the billing system at the end of each work day.

In my personal notebook, this generally happens right before I do the daily plan. In other words, right before I do my planning for the day.

Here’s what my review consists of:

• Write up my notes. I’ve felt this is more important for my work than my personal life simply because I have to produce weekly status reports. However, since I started reading The Bullet Journal Method*, I have begun to reconsider the notes aspect of my personal life. Right now my BuJo is a record of appointments and tasks, and I want it to include what I did that day as well as thoughts. That means I have to write notes.
• Compare what I did with what I intended to do. As a data nerd, I like comparing the actual with the plan. I haven’t come up with a way to put numbers to it yet, but I do look to see what I intended to do that didn’t get done. This allows me to adjust for the next day.
• Make notes on anything still bugging me about the day. I have found that if I leave things floating in my head I will either forget them or I will wake up in the middle of the night thinking about them. For each environment, I spend a couple minutes after I reviewed the day to see if there is anything that I need to note for the future. I find that doing this clears my mind and permits me to focus on the activities at hand without being dragged back to work, or some unfinished task.
• Generate and move tasks. If I didn’t finish a task, I have the choice of pushing it to the next day or not doing it. In both work and personal notebooks, I go over what was left undone and make the decision on those tasks. I find that this helps keep the number of overall tasks in hand.

What is in your daily review? Do you have something you couldn’t do without? Share below. And if you want more information about why I keep two notebooks, read the article Why I Keep My Work And Life In Separate Notebooks

It’s often said that out of sight is out of mind. At the same time, things ignored pile up and can get out of hand. Getting Household Things Done really has two parts: the items that process through the system, and the items that reoccur. Today we will look at how to handle those cyclical tasks within a framework of Getting Household Things Done.

The problem with housework is that it is not once and done. Cleaning tasks have to be repeated because things get dirty. And you can’t do them ahead of time…tuning a piano twice in one week does no good, and doesn’t make the piano in tune six months later.

The tasks for maintaining a household, when written down, can be overwhelming. If you don’t write them down, you can forget them. If you don’t manage the timing, they can suck up all your free time.

I’ve spent a good portion of my adult life trying to make a working system where I’m not overwhelmed by household maintenance, and where I don’t spend large amounts of time at a stretch doing those tasks. I tried printed lists, apps, systems other people designed, cleaning only on weekends, cleaning only on weekdays, ignoring things until they really needed cleaning, cleaning before things looked dirty and more. All it did was make me exhausted, stressed and resentful.

It’s only been in the last five years that I have taken everything I have learned and put together my own management system. And I will show you how to manage those tasks today so that you can do the same.

Before you can embark on managing your cyclical tasks, you need to have your tasks defined. If you need some help with that, please check out my Custom Chore Grid, which allows you to define your rooms, your tasks, and your frequency.

Methods of Tracking Cyclical tasks

You can manage these household cyclical tasks fairly easily in a number of ways.

Printed List

You can manage your cyclical on paper. Whether a list that splits things up by week or month, or a grid that allows you to see your tasks due, both are equally suited to the paper method.

Pros: It is easy to put something on paper. It requires no special materials and can be changed as needed.

Cons: If you don’t routinely look at your paper, you won’t remember to do the tasks. Out of sight, out of mind.

Electronic List

An electronic list fits in well with how most people manage their tasks.

Pros: Most task managers can import tasks, making it easy to get into the system. You can also assign repeats to tasks easily.

Cons: Too many tasks mixed in with your day-to-day systems will overwhelm it and can cause procrastination on everything because you can’t see what is truly important.

Getting the Cyclical Tasks Done

No matter how you store the tasks, it will still be up to you to get them done. There are a couple of techniques I have learned that seem to work for me, and might work for you.

Have a set time each day. I have a set time to deal with household tasks every day. My schedule might not allow me to do them, but the time is blocked out for the days when I can. Once I am in that block, I pick tasks from my list and do them. This prevents me having to give up large chunks of my weekend to clean.

Track the streaks. I have found that tracking how often I do a task is a big motivation in doing more. My requirement for my household tasks is that I have to do something from my list. It may be only one task, and it may be really easy, but it has to be on the list. I find that tracking this streak allows me to stay on top of the tasks I had previously decided to do during the week.

The End Result

Managing these cyclical household tasks has made my weeks less stressful, my weekends free of housework, and my home cleaner and more organized.

Want to know more? Check out the other articles about Getting Household Things Done: Getting Household Things Done, Inputs: Getting Household Things Done, How to Handle Children’s Papers, Mission Control Setup, Mission Control In Action and How to Control Owner’s Manual

Time blocking is a great way to get things done. But it doesn’t mean putting all of your tasks on your calendar.

Want to make me cringe? Tell me you put all of your tasks on your calendar so that you have time set aside to do them.

No. No. Just no.

The Problem With Tasks On Calendars

Very few (read: no) people are good at estimating how long a task will take, unless it is something they do day in, day out, for years, never varying the method. For tasks that don’t get done as often, humans are absolutely terrible at time estimation.

(And I say that as someone whose job involves a lot of estimation – and I am within 10% of my estimate only about 50% of the time)

When people put all of their tasks on a calendar, they’re going to do it according to how long optimistically they think it will take. (And if they don’t think about it, it will fall into 30 minute increments, as the default from the calendar). But tasks never run that smoothly.

The problem is that if even one thing runs long, the whole schedule shifts. Have a few things run long and all of a sudden your tasks are falling off the edge of your schedule like Disney’s lemmings. (See the Britannica article for that myth busting)

So, given the fact that a person will estimate wrong most of the time, that means that the chances of having a day where all tasks go as planned is almost zero. And that means day after day of watching your schedule fall apart and not getting your tasks done.

Talk about demoralizing. I think I’d give up trying to be productive.

Using Blocks

There is an alternative, and that is using time blocks.

A block is a chunk of time that is dedicated to working on a certain task or group of tasks. These can be put into any schedule, varying each day.

There’s a couple of things you need to note about that definition: working on and varying.

Finishing Is Nice, But Not Necessary

The first key to making time blocking work is to accept that you might not finish your planned-for work during the block.

Let’s face it: life happens. You may be well on your way to finishing your tasks for a block when the milk gets spilled on the dog and then the dog gets stuck to the vacuum. And when life happens that means you are not going to execute your plan.

Time blocking is about setting aside dedicated time to work on something. It doesn’t mean you will finish, or that you should push the end of the time block so you can finish. Pushing the end just throws the rest of your schedule out of whack.

Finishing is a bonus, not a goal, of time blocking.

Blocks Vary

Just because you have an hour on one day and you were able to power through a list of tasks doesn’t mean it will always happen that way. (See Life Happens, above). But what you should tackle and when will depend a lot on the energy you have at the moment.

Some days are just meant to sprint through tasks. There are days when everything is effortless, we’ve all had a few of those. Unfortunately, it is more likely that you will have a day when it’s like wading through molasses.

Blocks allow you to spend time on a task or group of tasks, but just like finishing, you can’t be set on having the same group of tasks accomplished in the same amount of time every time.

How To Block

Blocking is fairly straightforward. You identify your blocks of time, and then match them up with a group of tasks or a task area you want to work on.

Identifying Blocks

Identifying blocks of tasks consists of looking at what is already scheduled, and then finding the time between. The easiest way to do this is to lay your day out on a grid, and then find the empty spots. You can do it on a spreadsheet, a sticky note, a single line on a graph paper (see how I do this daily in My Bullet Journal Setup) or on an empty sheet of paper. List all the hours, and then block out your commitments.

As an example, we’ll use my schedule for this afternoon:

As you can see, there are several blocks that are not filled out. We will fill those with tasks.

Grouping Tasks

For each block of time, I can either group tasks together, or assign a general task.

My tasks this afternoon consist of the following:

• Clean the cat boxes
• Set up FAFSA appointment
• Buy gifts for parents
• Write up Joy to the World slides for 12/24
• Update Mari Lywd lyrics on sheet music
• Finish 12/14 blog article
• Work on book/character brainstorming
• Put away laundry
• Make Facebook Graphic for Yule

I generally group by location and/or equipment.

• Clean the cat boxes (near writing studio)
• Set up FAFSA appointment (computer)
• Buy gifts for parents (computer)
• Write up Joy to the World slides for 12/24 (computer)
• Update Mari Lywd lyrics on sheet music (music room)
• Finish 12/14 blog article (writing studio)
• Work on book/character brainstorming
• Put away laundry (bedroom)
• Make Facebook Graphic for Yule (computer)

I can then group the tasks together.

Assigning Task Groups to Blocks

Once I have the groups, I slot them into the schedule.

I scheduled two of my smaller tasks during my workday, since I know that each block of coding will have a 10 minute testing run. I can’t do anything while the code is testing, so I might as well knock out tasks.

Right after work, but before my voice lesson, I decided to work on my computer. I put all the computer tasks together there. I will tackle the update to the lyrics as I am getting ready for my voice lesson, since it uses the same physical area as the voice lesson.

After my voice lesson, I have to pass through my bedroom to get to my writing studio. So I will put the laundry away as I walk through to blog.

My blogging block doesn’t have tasks assigned. Although I need to finish this article, if I finish early there are other tasks I can move on to, so the block is labeled “blog”. The same applies to the writing block.

Blocking Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult

Looking at my schedule, I see that there are a couple of blocks that might not get everything done. For instance, the site I was ordering presents from had some sort of glitch and told me to come back later. So I’ll do that right before I start writing.

I spend most of my days using this sort of formatted time blocking. It helps me stay on track and get things done.

If you are struggling with time blocking, leave a comment below and I will address your issues in another article.

Far too often what is termed a “weekly review” is actually a planning session for the next week. A true review takes a look at what already has happened, as well as what is coming. The definition of review from Dictionary.com says that review means “a viewing of the past”. This looking back is important, but few do it, unless it has bearing on what is coming next.

I have found that a series of questions designed to review the past week is crucial. In the first place, it fixes the events of the week in my mind. Too often the little details get lost in the rush and busyness of the passing days. Secondly, it gives me valuable insight to how I am living my life. Not in the sense of what I accomplished, but in the meaning behind it.

To that end, I give you ten questions that I try to ask myself each week as I prepare for the next.

What did I complete?

I am often in the mindset of “what’s next” because I perceive my task list as a towering monolith ready to topple over on me. I finish a project, and no matter how big or small, I move right on to the next thing. Asking myself what I completed makes me realize that I am making progress, rather than treading water.

What went well?

Thanks to early conditioning, I am much more apt to look for, and see, the negative in my life. Reminding myself that a good outcome is just as likely as a bad one is something that I work on every day. Asking myself what went well during the week allows me to seek out and focus on the positive. This is not something that comes naturally nor easily, so it is a great mental exercise as I try to develop more positivity.

How can I build on that momentum?

Sometimes, a completed project that went well can spin off other projects that will take advantage of the momentum. For instance, finishing my first novel inspired me to start jotting down ideas for another. However, if I don’t stop and think about it, I will just forget about it, or think “oh, I need to…” and that’s the end of it.

What could I have handled better?

I am a very flawed human, and I sometimes struggle to have positive interactions. I don’t always succeed , although my percentage is going up. This question is one I ask myself in order to learn from my mistakes – and to determine if I need to make amends.

What took me out of my comfort zone?

The comfort zone means stasis. Stasis means no growth. I don’t want to be stuck in the same life without change, and that means I have to force myself to get outside of my comfort zone. Asking myself what took me out of the comfort zone also means that I look at why it was uncomfortable. This gives me a lot of insight about my fears, anxieties and such.

What did I do about the things that matter most?

I have observed, both in my life and in others I work with, that we have a tendency to get caught up in the day-to-day, and the really important stuff languishes. If I didn’t make an effort, I would not be spending time on the important things of family, growth, spirituality and self-care.

How was I kind/compassionate?

The more I look around me these days, the more I see a need for more kindness in the world. Same with compassion. I may not be able to completely understand someone else’s viewpoint or life experience, but I can be compassionate for where they are.

What was the most enjoyable thing I did?

There was a time in my life when depression clouded everything in my life. I know that I have to monitor myself for the signs that I am going down that path; the first thing to go for me is enjoyment. I know that if I can’t find anything enjoyable in the past week, that I am creeping on to thin ice, and I can take action by calling my doctor or doing the other things that work for me.

What did I do to counter negative self-talk?

Along with looking at what went well, I also need to make sure that I’m not slipping back into habitual negative self-talk. The person I am hardest on in the world is me, and I am working to break free of this habit. Habitual negative self-talk won’t go away on its own, though, and it takes effort on my part to counter it. This is a check-in to see how I am doing.

What have I been putting off and why?

We all procrastinate. The question is what are we procrastinating on, and more importantly, why? By knowing what I am putting off, and why, I can take steps to counter it and get it done. This question makes it into the list because it is something I don’t necessarily consider when planning the next week; I just move the tasks forward. Procrastination doesn’t grow to be a big thing if I can identify the root causes.

It’s important to look back at the past week in order to gauge where you are in areas you might not normally consider. Once you have taken the look back, you will have a clearer picture of going forward.

Daily and weekly planning will get you through the day-to-day without having tasks pile up for a massive weekend task-fest. But isn’t there more to life than just the day-to-day?

For a long time I existed on daily and weekly planning only. Partially it was because I was just so busy juggling all of my commitments (work, child, house, spouse and volunteer) that I didn’t have room for anything more. I would plow through my days, insanely productive, falling into bed at night exhausted. But there was never anything more. The novel I wanted to write remained a remote dream, and my craft closet morphed into a craft room with supplies for unstarted projects.

Partially it was because I was completely flummoxed by the thought of thinking of a 5- or 10-year plan. I couldn’t even see the end of the week for the enormous pile of tasks. How could I plan for anything more?

Why I Hate Year-Long Planning

Even bringing it down to a year was almost impossible. Sure, I found some help actually creating the plan. But once the plan was created, it sat as a nice pile of undone tasks because I had other things to do. After all, I had plenty of time, right? It was only the (first, second, third) quarter, and I still had lots of time to get things done before the end of the year.

I hope you’re laughing, because I certainly am.

I never got to those tasks because I was afflicted with grasshopper syndrome. I always thought I had enough time, and never actually got to the work, until it was too late.

I also fell victim to the thought that year-long plans needed to follow the calendar year. And my last quarter was always overfull with holiday activities. As a musician, December is my busiest month, and November is packed with rehearsals. Throw in National Novel Writing Month and the fourth quarter is gone.

So I started to hate year-long planning.

Why I Started Quarterly Planning

It was around this time that I read The 12 Week Year*. What a concept! To condense 12 months into 12 weeks. Sure, I had to scale the projects back, but 12 weeks is much less prone to the grasshopper syndrome.

I even developed my own plan on how to do this. I took what I liked out of the 12 Week Year, discarded the parts that seemed pointless, and added in what I had learned from Covey, Allen and Forster.

This planning workbook, along with an spreadsheet version that is even quicker, is available for purchase. Scroll to the bottom of the post for the link.

Why I Moved To Monthly Planning

With my enforced stay at home due to COVID19, I have shrunk this a bit further. Since I don’t know what life will look like in a month, much less a quarter, I am now doing monthly planning. Things are just too uncertain at the moment to be able to count on time allocation or resources.

For instance, one of the projects that was on my previous 12 weeks was to learn a piece for my daughter’s senior recital. Right as the stay-at-home order was given my flute had a key malfunction that rendered it unplayable (and I don’t have the tools to fix it). With the stay-at-home, I can’t get it fixed. Further, school was cancelled for the rest of the year, and if and when my daughter was going to do the recital was up in the air.

I simply had to narrow the focus from 12 to 4 weeks, quarter down to month.

I use the same planning workbooks/spreadsheet as for the 12 weeks, but I just fill out the first four weeks.

My Monthly Plan Method

The trick to doing any extended planning is to know on which projects you are going to focus. So at the start of my planning phase I pull up a spreadsheet where I have listed all my projects.

Next I weight them by percentage complete, hours to complete, resources on hand, ROI, impact and irritation factor. (Yes, I’m a numbers geek. But it works).

Then I sort by the resulting number. The result is I have a list of projects that are weighted according to my factors.

From there I know what the 3-4 projects are that I will be concentrating on in the next month. If I think that the project is going to take more than I can give it in the month, I break it down into something I can get done during that time. And then split it into actions by week.

This gives me a list of actionable steps that I can work into my weekly plan, and from there, into my daily tasks.

Conclusion

One can survive doing only weekly and daily planning. But to really make progress on bigger projects, you need to do a bit bigger planning. Because of the grasshopper factor, it is better to plan in smaller increments based on situation and capacity.

Doing a weekly plan (see How I Do Weekly Planning) is a great way to frame your tasks in your schedule. But it isn’t enough, because you need to be able to figure out what you will do on any given day. Today we will look at how I do my daily planning, based on my weekly plan.

As I have shared before, I learned how to do daily planning when I purchased my first planner. It was a two page per day spread, with a time grid on one side, and a list for tasks on the other. Every day, I would fill in my schedule, then list the tasks I wanted to get done that day. If I didn’t get them done, I rewrote them onto the next day, adding new tasks. Regardless of what my schedule looked like.

Since I was a full-time engineering student at the time, working half-time in the computer lab, participating in student organizations, well, there wasn’t usually a whole lot of time. And so the tasks kept growing.

It wasn’t until some years later that I realized that the daily plan has to be rooted in reality (yeah, I know, it’s obvious). And while it’s good to have daily goals, it has to be balanced. The daily plan is focused, but it is only with the context of the week that we see beyond what is immediately in front of us. Likewise, the weekly plan isn’t worth much unless it is put into action every day (otherwise you’ll likely wait until the end of week and try to get everything done on Saturday)

Driven By the Weekly

Using the weekly plan to drive the daily means that I will have already looked at my free blocks of time, as well as the size and amount of tasks I want to do. If I want to spend three hours writing this week, I have to make sure there is room for it in the schedule. Three hours of writing can’t effectively be done in five minute increments because of cognitive switching costs.

During my weekly plan, I take a look at my schedule. This gives me some idea of the time I have available to do anything other than work, sleep and the things I’ve committed to. (Although currently under COVID-19 restrictions, my schedule is remarkably empty).

At the same time, I decide the tasks associated with my current goals are, and put those in blocks. I have a tendency to work at these tasks for amounts of time rather than trying to do something specific. This would take the form of “revise novel 30 minutes” instead of “revise chapters 3-5”. This gives me larger chunks of time to make significant progress on a task, rather than trying to snatch time from a busy evening.

My Day’s Schedule

With this weekly framework in hand, I plan my day. I’m currently using the Bullet Journal method (https://bulletjournal.com/). So the night before, I will set up my header, which includes the date, the day of week, and brief weather information.

Then I list out my daily time commitments. This includes work, commuting time, and any other meetings I might have.

My Tasks

Next I look at my task list (Remember The Milk) and see what I have on for the next day. I list these out, being conscious of the amount of free time I have in the day. I sometimes will push tasks off if I have a very busy day. If I don’t have enough to do (hah! like that happens!) I will look at tasks for the rest of the week and add them to the day.

The goal here is to give myself enough tasks to do to keep me moving forward as well as keep me from having to exhaust myself on the weekend trying to catch up. This means I have to have a good feel for how long each task will take, as well as a sense of how my energy will be. I can’t schedule a three hour gardening session after I have spent a whole day at work.

Rough Timeblocking

At the top of the day, as a sort of divider, I put in a time bar. (You can see pictures of this at My Bullet Journal Setup) This is a horizontal listing of all the hours that I then color in so I can have a visual representation of my hours.

Once everything that is on the weekly schedule is filled in, I can see my free time. I can then group tasks together based on location or equipment and roughly block them. This serves two purposes. The first is that it makes me think about how to get the tasks done. The second is that it gives me another way to check that I’m not overloading my time and energy.

Conclusion

By running my daily plan off of my weekly, I have a framework in which to decide which tasks I will tackle. This keeps me from overloading, as well as gives me room to make progress on bigger projects.