My day to day diary for 2019

In my last post, I said how I was staying in my Field Notes sized TN from Meadowgate Leather as my everyday carry. I only need a month to view calendar while out and about, but I need a larger diary to plan my days, so am finishing up using my standard sized TN diary (that I've used all year) until the end of December.

For 2019, I'm staying in the Field Notes sized TN and using the A5 Everyday Diary from Box Clever Press.

I can spend a ridiculous amount of time choosing a diary (often time I can't really spare, but hey ho). To work well for me, I need a diary that:

• is about A5 size
• has a week to a view with the days in vertical columns (so I can time-box)
• has equal sized columns for Saturday and Sunday (my life isn't less busy, just because it's a weekend!)
• has the week starting on a Monday (who in their right minds splits the weekend so that it bookends the week? It's a weekend)
• has space to list tasks for the week
• preferably also has space to list Most Important Tasks for each day
• would help me with planning my week/month/year
• preferably is pretty/attractive because I have neither the time nor talent to do it myself but like the look of them
• will lie flat on the desk
• preferably has 2 ribbon markers, but at least one

Not much to ask for, is it?? You can see why I can end up trawling shops and the internet for yonks, trying to find this mythical beast.

Well, this year I have struck gold!! I've got the 2019 A5 Everyday Diary from Box Clever Press.

Short-lived experiment!

Towards the start of October, I was wondering what to use as my diary set-up in 2019. It had been a choice between three TNs (standard, B6 and Field Notes size) or go back to a Filofax. You can see my thoughts about it all here.

I was itching to use my Field Notes size TN, but wasn't sure if I could make it work as wallet, planner and notebook.

Short answer... Nope. Well, not quite as I had thought I would.

I'd bought a fairly cheap diary to fit in it (the teNeues one... see here for the blog post on it), which had a vertical layout. It fitted in okay, though the TN ended up a bit of a chunky monkey with that, a wallet insert and a home-made credit card insert. The teNeues diary started in December, so I thought I would trial it, and see how it went (while I still also had my standard size, vertical layout, Midori TN diary to hand). I could have made it less chunky by removing the cover of the diary, but it wasn't really the chunkiness that made it not work, it was the fact the small diary wasn't big enough for me to plan my days and weeks in.

My Planning System (2017) -Part 3: Putting it all together

Over the last few posts, I've told you what paper-based items I'm using for planning 2017 and given you a bit more detail about each of them. I realise it was a huge amount of information and probably seemed impossible to follow. So, here is a walk-through of what I do each quarter, month, week, day. Some of you might feel that doing something daily, weekly and monthly is over-kill. Quite a bit of me wonders if it isn't too much at times too, but, this is the system that has (mostly) kept me on track for the last 5 years and maybe some of you will find it helps you too. If it doesn't, no problem! Every one's unique.

My Planning System (2017) - Part 2: Weeks to Days

In this post, I outlined what I would be using in 2017 for planning. These are:

• A book outlining Goals to Projects to Next Actions
• A monthly planner
• My TN with a week + notes diary and a notebook in it
• An A6 Clairefontaine notebook for day planning

In the last post, I gave a bit more detail on the first two elements of my planning system. Today, I'll outline how the last these parts fit together.

My system is essentially the same as it was in this post, but with different paper-based products to achieve the same results! (Incidentally, that post is my most popular post by a country mile!! At the time of writing, it had well over 45 000 hits!).

At close of play yesterday, I had outlined how I got from Goals and Projects to Next Actions and a Plan for the Month. How does this then relate to the other two parts: the TN and the A6 Clairefontaine?

My Planning System (2017) - Part 1: Monthly Planning

In my last post, I outlined what I would be using in 2017 for planning. These are:

• A book outlining Goals to Projects to Next Actions
• A monthly planner
• My TN with a week + notes diary and a notebook in it
• An A6 Clairefontaine notebook for day planning

In this post, I'll outline how the first of these parts fit together into my planning system. This is essentially the same as it was in this post, but with different paper-based products to achieve the same results! (Incidentally, that post is my most popular post by a country mile!! At the time of writing, it had well over 45 000 hits!).

The core of my system is exactly the same as it was in that post, published almost 5 years ago. I have a set of life-areas, and within those life-areas have a set of goals and those goals are broken down to projects. The steps needed to achieve the project are then listed as  next actions.

One thing I've not been good at and need to reinstate, is having the following, clearly visible when I am working on these goals and projects.

Is it my dream?
Is it essential?

Time is finite

When I first posted about my system, my life areas were: Writing, Health and Happiness, Chimwemwe and (Work) with work in brackets as it wasn't really anything I wanted to do, but had to learn how to live with. I have since left that job (hooray!) and so my life-areas are just the three now. Within Health and Happiness there are a number of areas (exercise, social life etc.) but those are the three things that I want to spend time and effort on.

How these goals to next actions are then dealt with, takes a bit of time to explain. Grab a cuppa!

What will I be using in 2017?

I've pretty much settled into a system now and so I'm all set up, ready to go for 2017. In this post, I'll tell you about the components of the system; in the next post, I'll show you how it all fits together.

The System:
One carry-around. This is my Meadowgate TN and it contains a week + notes diary, a monthly insert and a notebook
An A6 daily planner
A separate notebook with Goals to Projects to Next Actions.
An A5 day per page diary to write up my day in

Bullet journalling update: A5 for long-term goals

Just before I went away on holiday, I was experimenting with two bullet journalling things:

1. long-term planning in an A5 Leuchtturm
2. day to day planning in an A6 Clairefontaine grid book

I took both of them away with me; the long-term planning to get filled in (since I thought the perfect time to stand back and think about long-term goals was when I was relaxed) and the A6 day to day, to note things about the holiday so that I could write my journal up when I came back (to save me taking it away with me). I'll show you what happened with the long-term planning version here and save the A6 for another post.

Long-term planning:
A while back, I won a turquoise A5 Leuchtturm notebook, a turquoise pen-holder and a pencil as a set from Bureau Direct, and this was the set I chose to use.
The first thing I did was to set up the first few pages for goals relating to my life-areas. I wanted to make the pages of the book a little bit prettier but I'm not very artistic, so I used pennant washi for headers and wrote the life-area on top of it. I put year plans on the LHS and quarterly plans on the RHS; one double spread for each life-area. I shall be referring back to these pages over the year. The only one not too personal to show you, is the house/garden one.

I then drew up a list of things to get done in the remainder of April, again using the pennant washi for the title of the page. The contents are too personal to share, but here's a picture of the washi!

I try to do monthly reviews, so the RHS will be for reviewing how the end of April went (and may continue over the next pages too). I used more washi, but some small hearts rather than the pennant, and labelled it 'review'

The list of stuff to be done is partly drawn from the life-area lists and also just a dump of things in my head that I think I should be doing, following my bullet-journalling system of a dot for a task (crossed through when accomplished). A dot converted to an arrow will mean the task has been carried forward and rewritten on the next month's list, but I'm showing you the set up before I do my monthly review.

This isn't 'pure' bullet journalling (if there even is such a thing), but my way of trying to keep track of the bigger picture. It's a list of goals and is essentially the 'goals to projects to next actions' of my planning system, relocated to a book. By breaking things down into life areas, I'm hoping it will help me to balance everything a bit better (and not just focus on writing, writing and a bit more writing...). I will (since I bought the pens...) use different coloured Staedtler Triplus fineliners for the different life areas, to give me a visual breakdown of the balance (but I only took a pencil away with me! May will be more colour-coded than April was...).

A more 'traditional' use of bullet journalling with a combination of tasks, notes, waiting on etc. is going on in the A6! More on that in the next post.

It's still a work in progress but has surely got to be better than no real system at all (which is how 2016 has been so far!). In time, I may move all of what's currently in the A5 and what's in the A6 into one book, but the A6 is working too well for me at the moment (in an 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' kind of way!).

What do people think? Hints and tips from anyone? Is anyone using a bullet journalling type system to deal with long-term plans? Let me know in the comments?

More playing with bullet journalling

The bit of my planning that's been falling down recently has been my day planning/weekly list (which is another reason why I'm contemplating a shift towards more bullet journalling type stuff).

I've been using the ABP2 day per page from Quo Vadis as my day planner. It sucks. I've tried to like it, I really have (see here for the most positive I've been...), but those teeny tiny spaces (3.5mm to a line... 3.5!) are defeating me. When I get back from my holiday, I'm going to move to using a pocket (9cm x 14cm) grid Clairefontaine and do a combination of bullet journalling and day planning in a view. I shall do my morning brain dump into the RHS (which I will also use as general bullet journalling space) and then plan my day in the LHS, using time-boxing. The grid is 5mm so I shall have 10mm per hour instead of 7mm - only a small difference, but a significant one!

Image taken from www.bureaudirect.co.uk

It's a much smaller footprint on my desk too - 14cm x 18cm c.f. 17cm x4cm - but with pretty much double the usable space. In my weekly planning session, I'll add tasks to the appropriate day (the way I used to with the ABP2). Each morning I'll then do a brain dump, adding to that list, before planning my day on the LHS. The A6 Clairefontaine is also small enough for me to shove in a pocket if I do actually move away from my desk (which, in fairness, doesn't happen all that often).

Planning on the LHS; space for bullet journal/lists on RHS

In the past, I've bought these little books from Bureau Direct (no affiliation just a perennially happy customer!). You used to be able to buy them singly, but it seems as if they are only available in packs of 10 now, which is a shame for those wanting to just try them out. They have 96 pages, are fountain pen friendly and really cheap! See the listing here. I'm not really one to keep day to day planning - once the day is gone, I don't need the plan, so I won't feel at all upset to toss these once they're full. My writing buddy (Stuart) gifted me 30 of these small notebooks (Go Stu!!) so I have some to be working my way through!

I may possibly have (as in, I have) bought a pack of Staedtler Triplus pens too, in an attempt to pretty the thing up in some way... more on it all when I come back from my holidays!

Bullet Journalling... the notebook

In my last post (you can read it here... it opens in a new window) I said that I was going to try out a modified form of bullet journalling as a way to try and keep track of long-term goals and plans. I finished the post saying I now just needed to choose a notebook for this.

It probably won't come as any great surprise to those who know me, that I've gone for an A5 Leuchtturm notebook. There are a number of reasons:

1. I have a few of them in the stationery emporium, waiting to be used
2. They have space for an index at the front, ready made
3. The pages are numbered already
4. There is a space for filling in the date on each page (though I may not always use it for that, but for indicating the topic instead)
5. They are fairly fountain pen friendly (though there is always some ghosting/show through)

I've not done much with it yet, as I am about to go on holiday (before the madness of the book launch starts...), other than label up the life-areas and fill in the index for the pages used so far. I'm going to take it away on holiday with me and fill in some of it there.

Pictures when I come back!

Dipping my toe into Bullet Journalling...

Hello all you lovely patient people who amazingly still follow this blog, even though I haven't posted anything like as much as I've wanted to recently... It's all The Wrong Kind of Clouds' fault, and my author blog over at www.amandafleet.co.uk!

Anyway, recently, I've been chatting to my lovely friend Helen (*waves*) about my lack of ability to manage my long term plans. I drew up a plan for the year, way back in January, which charted, week by week, what I was hoping to get done. The big problems have been that a) I'm evidently rubbish at guestimating time for projects, b) a whole heap of other stuff came up that I hadn't budgeted for, c) I only put writing plans on it and none of the other life-areas (which were still getting done and still taking up time...) so it wasn't a great representation of life, and d) my levels of productivity and levels of procrastination have swapped roles and I've been b*ggering about too much!

This has really struck home now that Q1 is finished and I'm supposed to be drawing up Q2 plans and thinking about something other than publishing The Wrong Kind of Clouds (which, admittedly, has taken over my life a bit...). I genuinely have no real idea what I'm supposed to be trying to do in Q2, beyond my writing goals and wishing I were a bit thinner and a bit faster at running.

My current planning system (I use the term loosely!) is working okay (ish!) for week to week stuff, but isn't really doing much beyond that and is getting a bit scattered, too. I know how to fix that (and more on that in another post) but I'm really not doing well on my longer-term goals.

So...

I may have a go at a modified version of bullet journalling. Modified in that it will really only be long-term stuff in it and not the daily log aspects.

The sorts of things I think I will have in the notebook are:

• Index
• Year goals for each life area on a LHS with quarterly goals arising from these on the RHS of a spread (one double spread for each life area)
• Monthly goals (broken down into life areas; drawn up month by month, rather than in advance)
• Monthly reviews (done just before drawing up the goals for the next month)
• Quarterly reviews 

There probably won't be any weekly planning in there, because that will still get done in my week + notes diary in my TN, using my long term goals as guidance. That said, if I get into the bullet journalling, maybe I will embrace the whole lot and do yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly and day stuff in there.

Now... just have to choose which of the zillion notebooks I have, to use as my bullet journal!

Looking back; looking forwards

Janus - the god of beginnings and transformations:
He looks to the future and to the past (hence two-headed)

I have finally started to plan 2015. A bit late and still a bit haphazard, but at least I am able to think about what I’m wanting to do in 2015 (beyond the obvious – not end up with burnout again).

I always do a review of the past year – generally between Christmas and the New Year – where I look back over plans/goals etc. and also review my daily journal and see how the day-to-day went. This year’s review a) only took place a couple of days ago and b) was an eye-opener.

I suppose it wasn’t rocket science but it was striking to me to see just how many days towards the last half of 2014 that I noted that I had slept badly/had had vivid dreams or nightmares/was exhausted/kept waking through the night/that my arrhythmia was bad... Since both my mental and physical health were crumbling, all my other goals became affected too. By late November I had collapsed and could barely even plan on getting up. This utterly floored me as I have always been super-planned.

Anyway, doing the review helped me to think about my goals for 2015, central to which are to protect my mental and physical health. I’ve also read back over a couple of posts I did a while back, specifically this one (on ensuring that your goals are things you yearn to do). Finally, I have managed to get my sh*t together and draw up some sensible goals, from which stem the projects and next actions that are the core of my ‘system’. I’m not going to post on the system –see here (2012  set-up), here (my planning system), here (projects to next actions), or here (getting ready for 2014) for details on it. Essentially, the system that worked for me in 2012, 2013 and 2014 (until I hit burnout) will no doubt work for me in 2015! The only tweak I have made is to stay in the compact de Villiers binder. As a consequence I can only have four months of WO2P in the binder, and the monthly planning sheets and weekly planning sheets for everything other than the current month are kept in a ‘planning binder’ (navy Portland filofax) along with the pages outlining the goals to projects to next actions.

Here's hoping that 2015 ends up better than 2014 finished...


As I should remind myself every day:

If I'm not yearning to do it, or it's not essential... why am I squandering my life on it?

Reflection

Photograph is by Colin Nicol
See his website here
reproduced with permission

I’ve come to realise that the most important part of my weekly planning session is not so much the planning for the days to come, it’s reflecting on what has passed. Why did I clear my list so easily this week? Why did I get almost nothing done this week? It’s only when I stop and think back about why I did or didn’t do things that I can make better plans for the upcoming week/month.

For example, the last few weeks have been less than productive for me, but I know why. I can look at the plans I made with hope and enthusiasm and then look at and understand the reality that followed. Of course, reflection needs to be honest. Sometimes I know I didn’t do something I thought I would because I wasn’t well. Other times I know I didn’t get things done because I spent ages faffing about online, looking at notebooks or filofaxes or a zillion other things. Sometimes I realise I’m not doing something because I’m scared of failure, or because I don’t believe in it.

At other times I can get on and clear a to-do list before lunch and am powering through the day. Knowing why that day was productive is incredibly valuable. Was it because I was full of enthusiasm or energy? Or was it just because the Wi-Fi was off? Knowing that I will write much more (and much better) if I get my backside in the chair and start before 9 a.m. is also valuable knowledge and helps me plan when to do other things, so that my least productive writing time is when I sort the laundry or do the shopping.

I realise I have a very set ‘clock’ and if I schedule the wrong kind of thing into a time slot, I might as well not bother. Running (when I am well enough to do it – I am craving those days!!) is best in the morning, but that’s also when I’m the most creative, so I now know better than to expect creative juices to be flowing after I’ve spent half the morning running/stretching etc. Much better to run and then do chores. I also have a creative lull after lunch, but this is an excellent time to go for a walk (my current saviour as I’m not able to run) and when I come back, I’m often good at editing or making notes for writing.

It’s only because I’ve spent the time thinking about why things have gone well or not that I’ve really become in tune with my rhythm. It doesn’t work 100% of the time and life will always throw spanners (and I can always waste time browsing stationery!) but it genuinely feels like I’m making better plans as a result of taking the time to assess why things have or haven’t worked.

Does anyone else spend time reflecting? Have you found it helps?

My planning system, 2014

In essence, my planning system for 2014 is the same as it was in 2012... so yes, I am probably getting a cheap post out of this!

Anyway, in the last two posts, I outlined my monthly and weekly sheets and then my goals to projects to next actions, but how does it all fit together? The keys to it all are the reviews, especially the weekly review.

What I do each week (this will look like a massive list but it only takes me 20-30 minutes each week):

• Collect stray notes, receipts, jottings etc. and process into the right place (this includes my desk as well as my filofax!)
• Make sure there are a few sheets of notepaper in the ‘notes’ section of the day to day binder
• Take the weekly plan for the week just passed out of the binder so I can write my review of it on the back
• Look back over the list of tasks for the week just passed and see what got done and what didn’t
• Reflect on why things did or didn’t get done
• Not beat myself up (too much) if plans have slipped – life happens
• Transfer any outstanding tasks to the sheet for this week’s plan, putting them into the right places of ‘to do’ or next action’
• Take the sheet for this week out of the binder so I can see it while I have my week to view open (no, I can’t flip pages... I just can’t)
• Allocate tasks to days if possible (being sensible about the laws of time and all that)
• Anything not allocated to a day, write on a Post-It note, headed ‘things to do at some point this week’ (make sure the sticky bit of the Post-It is at the top)
• Stick Post-It note into diary on RHS
• Look at the monthly sheet for this month and see how well (badly) it’s going with regards to task completion
• Not beat myself up if things are slipping and remind myself that life happens (and only happens once)
• Look ahead four weeks to remind myself what is coming up
• Add any reminders into the weekly sheets (i.e. to buy a birthday present or organise a dinner etc...) that I’ve suddenly spotted by looking ahead 4 weeks
• Flick through all the life-area sheets and make sure there are next actions or milestones for each project/goal
• Put weekly sheet for week just passed into the back of the navy Portland
• Close both binders
• Feel organised (and slightly smug)

Monthly sheet

How the week to view ends up

During the week, once I get to the end of Tuesday, I move the Post-It note to the LHS (hence the sticky bit needing to be at the top) – I can still see Wednesday but I can now also see the rest of the week too, so things on Thursday (covered by the Post-It on Monday and Tuesday) don’t suddenly sneak up on me.

What I intend to be doing each month, but it all went a bit pear-shaped last year, so here’s hoping I get my sh*t together this year:

• Take the sheet for this month out of the day to day planner so I can write my review on the back
• Look at what did/didn’t get done over the month
• Reflect on why things did/didn’t get done
• Not beat myself up about it all because life happens (just once)
• Take the sheet for the coming month out of the navy Portland
• Transfer outstanding tasks from last month’s sheet to the coming month’s sheet
• Put the sheet from last month into the back of the navy Portland
• Look at the goals-projects-next action sheets carefully: are the goals still valid? Have plans changed? Have new things developed? Are the next actions sensible and applicable still?
• Take out the weekly sheets for the coming month from the navy Portland
• Transfer things from the monthly sheets to the weekly sheets
• Look ahead six months
• Note anything that has ‘appeared’ (i.e. has always been there, I just forgot about it) and whether I need to do anything about it – if so, put a note in the appropriate weekly sheet
• Do the weekly review
• Feel doubly organised (and smug)

Well, that’s my system – what do others do?

Goals to projects to next actions

In my last post, I outlined how I had set up my monthly plans to weekly plans (and at times, daily tasks) in my binder but said that the next actions area was still a big blank as I hadn’t had a chance to think about things. Well, I managed to find some time this weekend to think about things, and to some extent, simplify my ‘life areas’.

In the past I have had between 3-8 life areas, but this year I have just 4 (in no particular order):

• Writing
• Chimwemwe
• Health and fitness (for which, read ‘running’ essentially!)
• Relaxation

Now, the title of this post of “Goals to projects to next actions” is a bit misleading as most of these areas seem to have ended up with either goals and no projects or projects in an area (but no overall goal)! For example, ‘Health and Fitness’ has three goals:

• Run 15-20 miles per week
• Keep weight between 9 stones and 9 stones 4lb
• Maintain core strength and shoulder stability

If I achieve the first, I will almost certainly achieve the second goal! The core strength and shoulder stability (my shoulders dislocate all too easily!) will be achieved by doing my exercises and these have already been written into every single day in 2014 (as described in the last post).

Likewise, ‘Writing’ has three projects, though I suppose they all come under the overall goal of ‘getting published’ – finish and edit book 5; Kindle-publish ‘Faultlines’; script-write ‘3a’ (which makes sense to me).

Anyway, I have now set up the navy Portland in a way that makes sense to me. Here goes!

Walk-through:
Plastic protective sheet
Quote from ‘Inception’

Divider 1
Annual Plans sheet
4x Quarterly plans sheets (grey paper)
Life area 1: Writing – project outline
Life area 1: Writing – projects to next action sheets
Life area 2: Chimwemwe – goals/projects outlines
Life area 2: Chimwemwe – projects to next action sheets
Life are 3: Health and Fitness (aka ‘running’) – goals sheet
Life area 3: Health and Fitness (aka ‘running’) – milestones sheet
Life area 4: Relaxation – projects/goals sheet
Life area 4: Relaxation – ‘finishing the Morris Quilt plans’
Lined cotton cream paper for reviews/extra notes space
Grey lined paper for quarterly review notes

Divider 2
Monthly sheets for 2014 (see previous post for details)

Divider 3
Weekly sheets for 2014 (see previous post for details)

Divider 4
Currently nothing, though review sheets (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual) will probably go in here

In more detail
Behind divider 1:
All of the pages are cotton cream except for the quarterly plans ones (which are on grey so I can find them more easily). I was going to use different coloured paper for each life area and indeed pulled out all the coloured paper I have, then decided it would all clash horribly, so changed to cotton cream with washi tape to code the life area.

The first page is a summary page and lists the (current) goals for the year in each area. There is washi tape at the side to indicate the code for that life area.

Annual plans

Then there are the quarterly plans pages. I have only completed Q1 because three months is a long time and if I plan them all out now, it may all be out of date by the time I get there. I would rather plan a quarter in advance (with a weather-eye on the annual plans). The plans for each life-area are written in colour-coded ink.

Quarterly goals (Q1)

Quarterly goals (Q2) still to be completed

After these sheets come the projects in more detail. The tops of all of the following sheets have washi tape to indicate the life-area and there is a small square of washi tape on the reverse too to help locate pages when I am flicking through the section.

Writing goals/project summary

For each life-area, there is a summary page of things to have achieved in 2014, followed by project to next action sheets for them. For example, ‘finish and edit book 5’ has a page which has the next scenes to be completed and their hoped-for completion date as the next actions, with space to tick them off. The only real exception to the sheet per project system is ‘Relaxation’ as the next actions would be all the same for ‘read 40+ books in 2014’ (‘read a book’ then ‘read a book’ then ‘read a book’...) and similarly for most of the other goals. The only ‘relaxation’ detail sheet is a plan on what needs to be done to finish the William Morris patchwork quilt I am halfway through.

One of the project sheets for 'writing'

Summary sheet for 'Chimwemwe'

Health and Fitness

Milestones rather than next actions

In Health and Fitness, I have milestones rather than projects, so my running milestone for January is ‘long run = 6 miles; 1-2 other runs/week’. Incidentally, the reason that ‘Health and Fitness’ boils down to little more than running is because that when I am running, everything else just drops into place – I eat well, I sleep well, I stay hydrated, my weight drops, my mood improves... as long as I am running, I don’t need to focus on any of that.

List of things to do to complete the quilt

Behind divider 2:
You’ve seen this in the last post, but on these monthly sheets I note any birthdays for the month, any ‘to do’ for the month (things I have to do that month that are unrelated to any of the life-areas/projects e.g. renew car insurance; send card and present to x etc.) and now I have written in, for the first quarter at least, the next actions/milestones for the projects, colour-coded to the life-area.

Behind divider 3:
The weekly sheets. Again, you have seen these in the last post and these are lists of ‘things to do this week’ broken down into ‘to do’ and ‘next actions’ and the next actions are colour-coded to life-area.


This post will get huge if I try to explain my ‘system’ for how all this works on a day to day basis – I’ll cover that in the next post!

Putting off planning

Putting OFF planning? Huh? Isn’t the whole point of planning, to, um PLAN?
Well, yes. But I’ve been where I am now, before. Where I am now, I’m not sure of my goals. Not really. Which makes progressing towards them a bit difficult.

This happens to me regularly and always when I get really busy. I don’t have enough time to think. All I do is stagger from one thing to the next and my to-do lists get filled up with ‘stuff’. Stuff that needs doing (but in all honesty, maybe not now and maybe not by me). But I get so busy doing all the ‘stuff’ that I don’t have time to plan my things properly. So then my to-do list gets emptier of my things and then there’s more space for more ‘stuff’ so I fill up my time with ‘stuff’ and before I know it, I haven’t looked at my goals for ages and I feel like I don’t have time to sit and think, especially when  there’s all this ‘stuff’ piling up around my ears. And then when I do have time to look at my goals, they seem alien and maybe not up to date.

That’s where I am right now and although I could shift things from my goals to tasks sheets onto my monthly and weekly lists, is there any point if the goals generating the tasks aren’t right?

So, it’s time to step back, start saying no to things and focus on my aims, values and (ultimately) goals and projects. I’m going to spend some time thinking about where I am and where I want to go (and therefore how to get there).

I’m going to use my new-to-me (vintage) navy Portland for all this. Before I even get to the goals and projects sections, I’m going to have a section where I can spend a bit of time on ascertaining my aims and values (effectively life-coaching myself) and only then will I review my goals and projects.

There’s really no point following the map if it leads you somewhere you weren’t still wanting to go to.

To Plan or Not to Plan

To plan, or not to plan: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

[with apologies to Shakespeare!]

For the first time in a long while, I didn’t plan this week. I normally sit down at the weekend and plan the week ahead, and also sit down each morning and confirm my day. This week I did neither. It wasn’t a conscious decision not to, I just didn’t do it. And did I suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as a consequence?

Er.

Yes.

I know there are two camps: one camp says to plan things or you’ll drift aimlessly and get sod-all done; the other camp says don’t plan, be free and enjoy yourself. To be honest, I find getting the right balance between those positions really difficult. Sometimes I plan myself almost to death and stop enjoying life as it feels it’s just a series of tick-boxes to get through, at which point I stop planning and end up doing sod-all. Or doing stuff that’s not important. Then I get annoyed that I’ve done sod-all and plan things to death again!

So how did this (unplanned) week pan out?

On my DPP pages, I have boxes to remind me to do yoga each day and to clear the ‘hot-spots’ of clutter. I also have check-boxes for fruit and vegetables, and water Intake.
In my weekly to-do list I had these items:

• Blog post for Chimwemwe
• Philofaxy article
• Edit February Focus
• Write next 2 scenes of book #4
• 3 runs
• Read a book
• 2 blog posts on PPI
• Read the screenplay books
• Birthday (x)
• Birthday (y)

This week:

• I have done no yoga
• the house looks like bombs have gone off in several places
• I didn’t edit the February Focus newsletter (though mostly because I hadn’t been sent it!)
• I haven’t been running
• I haven’t read any books never mind a fiction and two screenplay books
• I did no blog-posts for Paper, Pens and Ink
• I missed two people’s birthdays
• I have no idea if I’ve hit my fruit, vegetable and fluid intake targets.

I did manage to:

• do a couple of quick blog posts for Chimwemwe
• do the article for Philofaxy (which you can read here)
• write the next four scenes of my novel

But, I knew I had to do all those other things – they were already on my weekly list after all – so what happened?

I had a busy Sunday last week and never managed to get around to planning the week ahead (where I normally allocate things from my weekly list to the daily sheets).
On Monday and Tuesday, I went down the rabbit-hole, writing, and didn’t even emerge for a run! And those of you who know me, know that that’s a serious down-the-rabbit-hole moment! It was bright and sunny all week and PERFECT running weather!
Wednesday to Friday I was back at work and ended up working late each day, then the evenings seemed to fill up with things that had appeared since I drew up the weekly list and which were much more important to do.

At the moment, I feel annoyed with myself that I didn’t do most of the things I was supposed to be doing, but I also know I can’t quite blame it on the fact I didn’t plan, as even if I had transferred the weekly list onto the days, I would still have had to do all the ‘extra’ things that popped up in the week.

I think I need to split my task-list into ‘must do’ and ‘want to do’ so that I don’t feel bad if the ‘want to do’ list has unticked things at the end of the week.

How do others deal with tasks that pop up out of nowhere? What do you do to keep your week on track? How do you
‘take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?’?

Reviews and Plans

[Apart from using a fountain-pen and a Ciak notebook in my review, this hasn't a huge amount to do with Paper, Pens or Ink! Sorry.]

I finally found time this morning to go through my goals for 2011 and think about what had been achieved (and why) and what hadn’t been achieved (and why). I can’t think properly without writing, so I ended up filling up pages of my ‘thoughts’ notebook (which is where random ideas that are unrelated to writing go – things I need to rant about, contemplations, musings… that sort of thing).

I only really got down to any serious goal-planning in July. Before that, my life was much more haphazard! Some of my goals I reached (some I surpassed) and some I failed utterly miserably at. But, the key for me, was not only to list what had worked and what hadn’t, but to think why.

I won’t bore you with the minutiae, but what became blindingly clear to me as I did my review was that I had done the things I believed in.

“A goal is a dream with legs”

The key word in that sentence is dream. I generally had not attained goals that were not part of my dream, either because I had not made time for them or had done them with so little heart or soul they hadn't succeeded.

There are many things I could do in my life.

There are far fewer things that I dream of doing.

There are even fewer things that I yearn to do.

One thing that is not limitless though is time. I don’t have the time to do all the things I could do. I may be lucky enough in this life to do all the things I dream of doing. But the chances are, I won’t even get the time to do all the things I yearn to do.

And then the voice in my head asked, "How many lives do you think you will have?" and when I said, "Just one," it asked me to ask myself:

If I'm not yearning to do it, or it's not essential... why am I squandering my life on it?