i am a devotee of planning - my planner is on the list of “must come along” things when i leave the house, back when i left the house. i have long had a rhythm of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly planning that’s helped me visualize my time, understand project rhythm, break down huge goals into smaller chunks, stay on track and make informed choices about where my time goes hour by hour.
and right now i can’t really stand to look at my planner. i have brought it out on my desk a few times, even opened it, and it’s so full of what i thought this year would look like that i spent an hour getting out the important stuff (project names, future dates) and then put it on a shelf.
for a few days, i went on gut instinct - after a few years of my business, i know (generally) what needs to get done in a week, and i have a pretty good memory for deadlines, and i’m still on top of my email. but it was stressful to have to remember everything, and i felt like i wasn’t making any progress on anything that wasn’t on fire and hugely urgent - which just means that when those things did become urgent, i would be behind.
the last two weeks though, i seem to have found a sweet spot - a set of weekly goals, and my daily schedule sheet. just enough structure to keep me on track, but not so far into the future that i’m going to have to redo it if my schedule changes, or if the conditions change, or if something happens.
here’s how it works:
at the end of the day on whatever the last day of my week is (usually friday but some work has been drifting into the weekends lately), i save a half hour to sit down with my notebook where i’m writing everything down these days.
i look over all the old to do lists, the notes from meetings, and the scribbled notes to myself and copy all the open tasks and projects onto a new page.
i put dates on things that need dates, and then i close that notebook for some time off - even if it’s just an hour or two!
when i sit down to start my week, i make notes about which things need to happen first - and estimate what days i might work on the things that are flexible.
and then when i start each morning, i fill out this sheet. sometimes I print it out, and sometimes i copy it out, but the sameness of it helps me feel a little grounded.
at the end of the week, go back to step one!
if i’m clinging too tightly to what worked in the past for me, then i’m faced every day with the gap between what i thought april 2020 would look like and what it is like. if i go without any structure at all, then i’m drifting without any anchor at all. there are days when the idea of working a “normal day” feels like a complete, disrespectful fantasy, and there are days when a few hours of work when i’m in the zone feel like a tiny corner of the world that i can control. i’m just trying to stay in the middle - a kayaker putting in a few strokes to the right, a few to the left, to ride the current as best i can.