Reckoning Day With My Planner

Since I left the corporate world, I’ve been having a bit of a time dilemma. When I was working in an office, I had distractions, sure. But those were all within the realm of work. Trying to stay productive here at home is a little different.

So my planner and I had a come-to-Jesus meeting on Friday, during which I was reminded of everything that made me successful at managing my time when I was immersed in the whirlwind of producing magazines. Being a good employee, I responded with an outline of how I plan to use it now in my daily freelance life.

Biding My Time

I invested in this version from AT-A-GLANCE. Over the years I’ve tried a lot of them, and what I like about this version is its dual-purpose space. Each day has one-third of a page dedicated to it, with less emphasis on evenings and weekends, which is just fine by me.

The left-hand side keeps track of the hour, and of course I use that section for marking down meetings and appointments. I kinda like the fact that these lines aren’t covered in ink like they used to be at work. Now I can use them to plot start and stop times for tasks.

To-Dos

On the right-hand side I keep track of my list of tasks. I’ve never been a big list maker—I’m more the big-picture type. But no matter which way you lean, everyone needs a to-do list.

Some days, I don’t get to check them all off. I don’t waste energy beating myself up about it. What I do is draw an arrow next to it and rewrite it for the next day. I spend the time to rewrite it because I think I it helps reinforce that I will do it tomorrow. It’s helpful, too, to look at priorities here, and decide whether it’ll be possible tomorrow. If it’s a lower priority I may write the task down for a later day. When I see it then, I’m usually ready to knock it out. And it helped that I didn’t spend the days in between beating myself up about not getting it done—less stress that way.

Divide and Conquer

Most of my projects are a little more complicated than a single item on a to-do list. I find that it helps to break them down, dividing the various tasks into phases that can be more easily recorded as single to-dos. This helps me keep better track of where I am on the project timeline; plus I benefit from a more frequent sense of accomplishment because I am making progress by completing each phase.

Divvying up a project into smaller sections has a great side benefit too: I find that this process leaves far fewer loose ends floating around in my brain. Just knowing that I’ve corralled them all into one place sets my mind at ease, which means less stress. Less dropped balls too. And when it’s time to quit working, I know I can pick right up where I left off. No obsessing about what I did and didn’t do today, whether I forgot anything, etc.

My planner is always a work in progress. When I am using it properly—help me stay accountable here, folks!—I treat it like a daily diary and work it every day. I get more done, and I’m better organized. Which should keep the boss happy and leave me a little extra surfing time, right?

Do you use a planner? Any tips for making good use of your workdays? I’d love to hear from you.

-Shelley

Photo credit: happyeclair (Flickr)