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If you took the leap and you went out and you
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bought yourself a planner and now you have no idea
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what to actually do with it.
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Then this is the show for you.
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This is Ex-Gifted.
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Welcome to Ex-Gifted.
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I'm your host Ren Eliza.
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And this week as promised.
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We're going to talk about planner techniques,
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things that you can do in your planner and...
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I'm going to kind of keep these general.
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Obviously how you use your planner is going
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to depend on you and what your own style is.
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And it's also going to depend on the style of planner that
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you bought, which hopefully you incorporated some of
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the advice that I gave in the last episode to figure
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out what kind of planner is going to work for you.
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For the most part all of these options will work
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great with bullet journaling because of course, what is
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great about bullet journaling is that you can design
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it to be your own thing.
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So.
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Let's start.
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What are techniques you can do to use your planner
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or use your planner better to make it work better
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for you and your brain.
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To begin with, I recommend that you pick it up every day.
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Yeah, like we've said from the very beginning
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of this whole series.
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The first thing.
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Is just to make sure that you pick up your planner,
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just to make sure that you're doing something with it.
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Literally just to make sure that you're not
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forgetting about it.
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The very first thing is not any kind of particular method
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or technique or trackers or whatever kinds of things
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that you think of a planner being none of that matters
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if you are actually using it.
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So step one, the very first thing is that.
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You have to actually pick it up, remember it, use it.
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So make that your priority number one, before anything
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else that has to happen and it has to happen first.
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But from there.
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There's a lot of options.
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So a few weeks ago, I kind of talked about um, some
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different things that you could do to incorporate
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more like intentional time into your days.
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And that's kind of the entire point of using a planner in
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the first place of any kind is that you're trying to
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just be more intentional.
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Like just literally using your time, the way that you
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intended to use it, that's the purpose of making a plan.
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And I gave some options of kind of more to less chaotic
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ways that you can do that.
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We're going to kind of do a similar thing here
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to start in this episode.
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So think about your planner style, if you want
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something kind of more structured and rigid or
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more chaotic and freeform.
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Because time management basically consists
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of two parts.
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It's got the, what do you do?
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And when you do it and just mathematically, combining
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these, there are four possible combinations.
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You can plan what you do and when you do it, You can plan.
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When you're going to do something, but not exactly
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specifically what thing is going to happen at that time.
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You can plan.
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The things you're going to do, but not the specific time
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when you're going to do them.
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Or you don't plan either of them.
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I know that that sounds wild.
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I'll explain that when I get to it.
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Okay.
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So.
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To start with planning what you do and when you do it,
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usually that's what people think of when they think
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of planners, they think of something that's got like
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an hourly list that's going to tell you what you're
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doing at 9:00 AM, what you're doing at 10:00 AM.
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Possibly even what you're doing at 9 15, 9 30, 9 45,
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et cetera, throughout the day, when you're going to
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have lunch, when you're going to come home from work.
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Very specific.
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What you're doing each hour of the day, possibly even
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more granular than that.
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That really, that can work really great for some
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people, including some neurodivergent people.
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Remember that I said in the last episode, it is a myth
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that there is a planner that's going to be the best
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planner for all people with ADHD, or there is a planner
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that doesn't work at all for neurodivergent people.
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Neither of those things is true.
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It is going to come down to your individual needs,
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which will vary not only based on your particular
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like your neurotype your.
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Your particular presentation of traits and struggles.
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Also just like your employment situation.
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If you have a job outside of the house, versus if
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you have a job where you are your own boss or you
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and/or you work from home.
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Those require different different levels of structure.
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And additionally, like being a stay at home,
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parent or something is going to require an entirely
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different structure.
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Being a student is going to require different
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structure as well.
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So, whatever your situation is will actually determine
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the kind of structure that you need and therefore, what kind
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of planner and what kind of plan might work best for you.
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If you do feel like you need the intense structure of
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having basically what you're going to do when you're going
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to do it throughout the day.
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Then absolutely go ahead and try that.
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However, I do want to lead with a bit of a precaution
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that even in that case, you don't want to start
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with a plan for- probably not your whole day.
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Definitely not your whole week.
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Absolutely not.
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Like your whole month.
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You don't want to sit down at the start of the month
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and plan out a week and say, okay, this is what
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my weeks are going to look like for the rest of time.
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Especially not when you're first starting
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with your planner.
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So just hear me out for a second.
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I know that sounds counterintuitive.
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I want to tell a story recently from my
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husband who has ADHD.
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Um, He came up to me and he asked.
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Because he knows that I love talking about planners.
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He asked me what it means if you actually really like
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planning and you're actually pretty good at making a
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really good plan, but it's hard for you to stick to it
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and you don't really like to follow it once you've made it.
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He asked me what that means.
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And I said, what it means is that you're like everybody
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else in the world and not in a, everybody in the world
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has ADHD kind of way, but just that it's extremely
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normal for someone to like to make a plan, to even be
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able to make a plan and then not be able to follow it.
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That is not a specific symptom of ADHD or anything else
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that is just kind of life.
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Because the thing is, for a lot of people.
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Like, this is definitely me.
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For a lot of people making a plan is super fun.
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You get to kind of imagine.
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This cool person that you could be, who's doing
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all of these things that you don't normally do.
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Is like, taking care of all these responsibilities, but
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also making plenty of time for the other things that
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really matter in their lives.
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They are basically a superhero.
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It's very easy for you to sit down and make a plan where
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you're seeing your future self as a superhero that can
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like accomplish anything.
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Which is great.
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However, making a detailed plan, especially when you're
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still just in the early stages can trigger demand avoidance.
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Essentially that future self can look at it
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when the time comes, when you're, when you're
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actually in that moment.
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It can feel like someone is stealing
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control of your life.
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That would be your, your past self, the past self
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that sat down and made the plan is stealing control
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over your future self's life, telling that person
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what they need to be doing.
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You might actually find that you don't have the time or
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energy or whatever to do the thing that you were planning
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at the time you were planning.
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But even if you do in theory have that energy, you can
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definitely end up setting off that thing in your
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brain that is just like, you can't tell me what to do.
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And it makes you rebel instead of doing the
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thing that you had already decided that you want to do.
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So you end up in this weird place where you like both
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want to do a thing cause otherwise you wouldn't
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have written it down, but also you don't want to do
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a thing because otherwise you would just do it.
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And that's not the aim.
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That's not what we're going for with trying to
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have a have the planner.
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So, yeah, funny enough in the moment you kind of
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liked the idea of exerting control over a future.
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You, you imagine how it would feel.
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To be the kind of person.
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Who you imagined a future, you to be checking off
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all of those boxes on your planner and you imagined
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that it would feel so great.
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So you got all of these wonderful feel, good
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chemicals at the time that you were making the planner
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instead of at the time that you were doing the plan.
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You assumed that actually doing those things would
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feel great too, but then when the time came actually
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folding laundry or making phone calls or whatever it
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was, doesn't feel great.
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If it did feel great, then probably.
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A lot of those kinds of things past you would have just
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done instead of planning it.
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It's kind of a tricky thing about motivation.
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We think that we feel motivated when we're
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like making a plan to get things done, but usually
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what we're feeling in that moment is not actually, um,
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motivation because we're not actually getting up
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and doing the thing, right?
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We were just thinking about doing the thing.
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I can't really stress enough how different it is to think
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about doing a thing versus actually doing the thing.
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It's not the same thing.
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It's a different feeling.
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Just something to think about.
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So even if you do want to do the kind of hourly planning.
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Don't start off with a detailed plan, just put
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one or two things in for each day for the time that
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you're going to do, and you can build it up over time.
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So start off simple.
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And also start off localized in time, um, which is to
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say, start off like making a planner for like two
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things that you want to do today and the times that
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you're going to do it versus starting off making a plan
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for the entire week, even if you're only planning out two
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things for the entire week.
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Making a plan for your whole week, when you're first
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getting started, you don't know how much flexibility
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you're actually going to need throughout the week.
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So that can be kind of tricky.
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What can help- and this is something that can be helpful,
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whether you're doing the hourly planning or not- um,
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is to track your time hourly when you're getting started.
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So this isn't planning what you're going to do throughout
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the day at any given time, but just writing down what
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you do throughout the day, at the time that you do it.
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Just making note of the different things that
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you do in the day and the times that you do it.
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And then if you have it over a week, you can look
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to see like, okay, do I usually have lunch at
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the same time every day?
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Do I usually watch TV at a certain time during the day?
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Does my kid usually ask for a snack at a certain
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time during the day?
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Once you have that information, it will be
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a lot easier to fit in the rest of the things
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that you want to do.
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But even if you're not using the hourly planning, it can
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be very useful a to see that actually there are things
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that you're already doing on a regular basis because it
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almost certainly is the case.
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And also you can see what days can tend to be busier
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and what days have more space?
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Um, so even if you're not doing hourly planning,
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you know what days to put more of your effort
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to get stuff done in.
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So, this is just so that you know what you're actually
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doing in a day because whatever you think right
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now that you're doing is probably like 75% wrong.
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At least that was my experience.
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So the second option is that you plan when you do-
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whatever work productivity stuff that you're doing-
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and not exactly what you're doing in that time.
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AKA time-blocking.
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So that means that you're setting aside some amount
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of time, usually a couple of hours in a day at a
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time to be used toward different kinds of tasks.
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So you might say that you're going to work from 8:00 AM
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to 10:00 AM or something on work or it might be
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something more specific, like writing or phone calls
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or whatever kind of stuff that you do at your job.
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But the point is that you're not making it
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very specific tasks.
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It's not like that you call this person at 8 AM you
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call this person at 8 15?
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You call this person at 8 45.
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It's just like this is the time of day that I'm going
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to work on making phone calls and I get done, whatever
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I get done in that time.
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And then at 10:00 AM, I'm going to take a
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break for a bit and then go do the next task.
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From 10 to 12, you might work on sending emails and writing
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proposals or something.
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Whatever stuff people do at work.
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So combining time-blocking and to do lists, which is
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the next thing we're going to kind of talk about can
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be a really great system for neurodiverse people who need
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some amount of structure.
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So you have those blocks that show you what kind of
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stuff you're supposed to be doing in a particular time.
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That doesn't necessarily mean you need to be working on
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that stuff the whole time, but if you have a task that
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you need to do from a 10 to 12, you know that somewhere
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during that time period, you need to get that thing done.
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You don't necessarily have to start on it right away.
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You have some flexibility there.
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But also, you still have a little bit of structure which
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can really help for people that need to, that need
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that help to stay on task.
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If you're interested in this method, you should check out
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my ABCs of Time Management.
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I'll put a link in the show notes.
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Um, because the B in that one is for blocking.
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That's not the method that I've used or
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that I use anymore.
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Actually my, uh, planning progression has been basically
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from the hourly plan um, getting kind of more and more
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chaotic over the years, which might be different from,
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from how normal people do it.
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I don't know.
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But I have definitely started with the strictest method
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and that was useful for me at the time that I was using it.
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Um but I have slowly been going through the hourly
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schedule to time blocking.
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00:17:06
And now I'm on kind of the next step, which is the
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00:17:10
planning what I do, but not exactly when I do it.
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And that means working from to-do lists.
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So perhaps um, in the near future here I would love
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to progress all the way to the most chaotic, not
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planning, what or when planning method, but we'll
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see if I ever get there.
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Because right now, this method is, uh, is working
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really great for me.
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00:17:38
So the planning what you do, but not exactly when means
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that you're keeping to-do lists, which can be daily,
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weekly or even monthly.
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00:17:48
Although, I think it's good to have a monthly task list,
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00:17:52
working straight from that, I think probably isn't going to
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work for most of my listeners just because it's hard to
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deal with things on an entire monthly basis unless your
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days are already pretty much manageable and you just want
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a reminder for the things that you don't do often enough
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to remember on your own.
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Now, that's a thing that a lot of us will need is a
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reminder for those things that don't happen all the time.
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But we additionally need reminders for stuff that
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we are supposed to do all the time, because.
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Brains.
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My favorite kind of to-do list and what I'm using
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right now is called a rolling weekly to-do list.
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I write out a to-do list for the week and across
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the top I have a label for each day of the week-
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just the first letter.
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And so I have basically a grid where I can check
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off the thing that I do on the day that I do it.
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This is super helpful because it works great for things
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that you only have to do once, because you just can
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put an X in that box for the day that you do it.
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But it also works really great for things that you
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have to do more than once.
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I have my regular like morning routines and stuff on there.
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Um, I know that a lot of people don't have to
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write those things down.
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I do, and that's okay.
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So my morning routines, I can check off like I got
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my water, that I took my vitamins, that I made my
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coffee because I will, yes.
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I will forget that.
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If I don't have it written down, I can check each of
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00:19:25
those things off as I do them.
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00:19:27
But also something that's like record a podcast.
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00:19:29
I can check that off on the day that I actually do it.
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00:19:33
And additionally, like any days that I make like
Ren:
00:19:36
edits and stuff like that.
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00:19:37
So I can see the days that I have been working on
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00:19:40
that thing, even though it's not every single day.
Ren:
00:19:43
So it works for things that you have to do every day,
Ren:
00:19:46
but also things that you have to do any day that week.
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00:19:52
You can make a spread like this in a bullet journal.
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00:19:55
It works great for that.
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00:19:56
As far as I know, that's pretty much what it was
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00:19:57
invented for, but you can also use it in any planner
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00:20:02
with enough space for it.
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00:20:04
I'm using mine in my Hobonichi weeks right now.
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00:20:07
So remember that one had a weekly layout on one side,
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00:20:10
and then it had a blank page on the other side.
Ren:
00:20:12
So I use that blank page to basically track my
Ren:
00:20:18
checklists and my to-do lists.
Ren:
00:20:20
And then I use the weekly side to take notes for just like
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00:20:24
things that happened that day that are more just interesting
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00:20:28
facts about the day.
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00:20:30
These rolling to-do lists can also be really great for like
Ren:
00:20:33
annual cleaning routines.
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00:20:35
Um, or like household or car maintenance or just any other
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00:20:39
things that don't happen every day to keep track of the
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00:20:42
last time it was completed.
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00:20:44
The other thing that it can be really good for
Ren:
00:20:46
is managing a project.
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00:20:49
Just a note on the rolling to-do lists
Ren:
00:20:51
for things like annual household cleaning tasks.
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00:20:55
The label at the top could also be the
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00:20:57
months of the year.
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00:20:58
So if you want to note that you like deep cleaned
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00:21:01
your kitchen in January.
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00:21:04
It doesn't necessarily have to be days of the week,
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00:21:06
so you can keep a whole year in there by doing
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00:21:09
months instead of days.
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00:21:22
So it's time to talk about the last thing, the
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00:21:25
planning neither what you do, nor when you do it.
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00:21:29
Okay.
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00:21:30
So.
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00:21:32
You remember how I recommended intentions a few weeks ago?
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00:21:37
If you're not trying to reign in the chaos, but you want
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00:21:40
to let it flow free while still having a bit more
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00:21:45
ownership over the flavor of your days setting intentions
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00:21:49
can actually work great even without any kind of schedule.
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00:21:56
So you're not necessarily saying the specific to-do
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00:22:01
lists items for the day.
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00:22:03
You can just set the intention of working for a day, whether
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00:22:06
that's I'm talking for myself, working on a podcast,
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00:22:10
working on a blog post.
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00:22:11
I can just say like, okay, this day is for
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00:22:13
work, and I will do some work things today.
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00:22:18
I have been.
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00:22:20
Putting some more flavor of this into the system
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00:22:24
that I'm using now.
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00:22:25
I'm kind of setting up each day with a specific
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00:22:31
intention in mind.
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00:22:34
However, it's not really strict, like today is my
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00:22:39
day that is for magic.
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00:22:41
It's a Monday when I'm recording it, Mondays are
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00:22:43
the days that I like to try to incorporate some
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00:22:46
magic things in there.
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00:22:47
That doesn't mean that I can't also do some work on a Monday.
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00:22:51
It just means that my general focus for the day is supposed
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00:22:55
to be on magic things.
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00:22:58
However I have done the to do list thing.
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00:23:04
And I have specified a few magic things that I
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00:23:07
want to work on today.
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00:23:08
I wanted to.
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00:23:10
Uh, do a tarot spread for the week.
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00:23:12
I wanted to study some things about tarot.
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00:23:16
And I also wanted to do some meditating later today.
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00:23:19
So, I do have the specific to-do list, things that
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00:23:24
I want to do today.
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00:23:25
But the idea of the intention settings is to eventually
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00:23:30
get to a place where I don't necessarily have to have
Ren:
00:23:33
a specific list of things.
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00:23:35
In order to still accomplish the general
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00:23:38
kinds of things that I want to use for my days.
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00:23:45
And the truth of the matter is, is just that as I'm
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00:23:47
getting older, my brain is tending toward chaos,
Ren:
00:23:51
whether I like it or not.
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00:23:53
And so having my, um, having my planner system kind of
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00:23:57
go that same way I think has been very helpful that my
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00:24:02
planner is kind of evolving and adapting with me.
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00:24:07
And the other thing is for the people who are operating
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00:24:11
on a hormone system that is primarily a monthly driven.
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00:24:18
That you have the more chaotic weeks and the more kind
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00:24:22
of focused, I don't know.
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00:24:25
Clear brain weeks.
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00:24:27
Can you tell that I'm not in a clear-brained week, myself?
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00:24:29
And so you can adjust these things to go with your weeks.
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00:24:36
The way that you need them to.
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00:24:37
For me during the weeks that I am having more brain
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00:24:40
fog, I kind of want it to be more intentions focused
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00:24:45
where I can allow myself a lot of flexibility.
Ren:
00:24:50
And just give myself a lot of grace for not being able
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00:24:53
to do the things that I can do other times of the month.
Ren:
00:24:57
And during other weeks when I'm more able to
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00:24:59
focus and get things done.
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00:25:02
I want to have that to do list that tells me all the
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00:25:06
things that I'm trying to get done during this week so that
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00:25:08
I don't forget about them.
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00:25:10
So that I can make hay while I have fucking
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00:25:13
estrogen in my body.
Ren:
00:25:16
That's how that saying goes, right?
Ren:
00:25:18
So intention setting, it can be systematized to some
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00:25:22
degree in order to use it more effectively without
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00:25:26
turning it into just an overbearing task list.
Ren:
00:25:31
This is especially useful when you're just getting
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00:25:33
started by boosting your results early on, and kind
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00:25:37
of just giving you an idea of what kinds of things you're
Ren:
00:25:40
supposed to do based on what your intentions are for the
Ren:
00:25:43
day, rather than just sort of flapping about forgetting
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00:25:49
about your intentions as soon as you set them, which
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00:25:52
is something that I've struggled with in the past.
Ren:
00:25:55
So having just a little bit of a system in place.
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00:25:59
Like I said with just having a couple of tasks related to
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00:26:06
your intentions already kind of thought up for yourself.
Ren:
00:26:10
You don't even necessarily have to do all of them,
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00:26:12
but just having a little list that says like, okay,
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00:26:15
this is my magic day.
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00:26:16
Here's five things that I could do on a magic day.
Ren:
00:26:20
All right.
Ren:
00:26:21
So those are the four types of planning that you can kind
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00:26:26
of use and if you're using uh, bullet journal, especially,
Ren:
00:26:31
but if you're using some other system as well, you're
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00:26:37
absolutely free to use any and all of these as needed
Ren:
00:26:41
and change it up as you go for whatever you need at the time.
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00:26:48
But no matter what kind of system you're using, one
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00:26:52
thing that you do need to schedule in is time to plan.
Ren:
00:26:55
Even if you're just using intentions.
Ren:
00:26:58
My intentions for Sundays - my thing that day is
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00:27:04
to work on planning.
Ren:
00:27:05
Today is for magic.
Ren:
00:27:07
Yesterday was for planning for journaling.
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00:27:12
So you have to schedule some time to plan or
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00:27:16
it's not going to happen.
Ren:
00:27:17
You have to make time for it, or it just won't work.
Ren:
00:27:20
Um, It also the.
Ren:
00:27:23
Morning use of my planner and evening journaling are
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00:27:27
both in that daily checklist that I have to do every day.
Ren:
00:27:32
You have to schedule time to plan if you want
Ren:
00:27:34
to make time to plan.
Ren:
00:27:39
It can be any time, but you do have to schedule the time.
Ren:
00:27:42
Another thing that's really useful is to do a brain
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00:27:46
dump or- they call it something different in the
Ren:
00:27:50
bullet journaling book and I've forgotten what it is.
Ren:
00:27:52
Take all of the thoughts and ideas in your head and
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00:27:55
get them down onto paper.
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00:27:57
Uh, daily or weekly or as needed basically.
Ren:
00:28:03
And you can translate this into your to-do list.
Ren:
00:28:05
But the thing to remember here is that not every
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00:28:09
single thing in your brain needs to actually
Ren:
00:28:11
go on your to-do list.
Ren:
00:28:12
So get all of those things out of your head
Ren:
00:28:14
and onto the paper.
Ren:
00:28:18
Now that doesn't mean that they're all going to go
Ren:
00:28:19
on your weekly or even your monthly to-do list.
Ren:
00:28:22
Some of those things are things that you
Ren:
00:28:25
can just cross out.
Ren:
00:28:26
And if it's really that important, then it will
Ren:
00:28:29
come up again later.
Ren:
00:28:30
If it's important to you, then write it down
Ren:
00:28:32
on a master to do list.
Ren:
00:28:34
If it's important for you to do this week, then put it
Ren:
00:28:35
on your weekly to do list.
Ren:
00:28:38
But otherwise, if it's something that
Ren:
00:28:40
you might like to do.
Ren:
00:28:41
But you're not really sure.
Ren:
00:28:43
You can go ahead and cross it off.
Ren:
00:28:45
Knowing that when you become sure.
Ren:
00:28:48
It will come up again.
Ren:
00:28:50
Remember the idea of getting these things out is so
Ren:
00:28:52
that they're your, so that your brain is not trying
Ren:
00:28:54
to hold onto them anymore.
Ren:
00:28:56
And so if you're telling yourself at the time,
Ren:
00:28:59
like this is not important enough to hold on to
Ren:
00:29:02
like I've written it down and I've assessed it.
Ren:
00:29:04
And I know that it's not that important right now that
Ren:
00:29:07
also can help your help your brain actually let go of it.
Ren:
00:29:13
So when you're doing the brain dump, what can help is
Ren:
00:29:15
to think about the buckets of your life and the tasks that
Ren:
00:29:20
you need to do for each one.
Ren:
00:29:21
It could be like home or personal.
Ren:
00:29:25
Family, work, friends, school, et cetera.
Ren:
00:29:28
Once you have a big to-do list, you can also go back and
Ren:
00:29:32
assign any to do items to one or more of these buckets, and
Ren:
00:29:37
if it doesn't fit anywhere, then that's kind of a good
Ren:
00:29:41
sign that you might not want it on your list at all.
Ren:
00:29:46
This is a system that I've been working with recently.
Ren:
00:29:48
And I'll talk more about that in the future, but basically
Ren:
00:29:52
I've been narrowing my life down to the things that I
Ren:
00:29:57
actually find most important.
Ren:
00:29:59
And if I have a thing that doesn't fit into those things,
Ren:
00:30:02
then I have to decide if either there's something
Ren:
00:30:05
important in my life that I just forgot about, or if it's
Ren:
00:30:10
not important, it doesn't need to be on the list at all.
Ren:
00:30:16
When it comes to these different kinds of
Ren:
00:30:17
buckets, if color coding, isn't really your thing.
Ren:
00:30:20
You can use a different kind of code like
Ren:
00:30:22
symbols or signifiers.
Ren:
00:30:24
Just columns or boxes to divide them up, et cetera.
Ren:
00:30:29
There are lots of ways to separate your tasks without
Ren:
00:30:32
using the multicolored pen, but also multicolor
Ren:
00:30:35
pens are awesome.
Ren:
00:30:39
Next, feel free to sketch out your plan on a sheet
Ren:
00:30:43
of paper or in a rocket book that you can erase
Ren:
00:30:45
or whatever, before you commit it into your planner.
Ren:
00:30:49
There's nothing that says that you have to put everything
Ren:
00:30:51
directly into your planner.
Ren:
00:30:52
Although erasable pens, like the friction pens you
Ren:
00:30:55
use in the rocket book are really great for using in
Ren:
00:30:59
your planners and will allow you to move things around.
Ren:
00:31:02
If you're a nineties kid like me, you probably already
Ren:
00:31:05
know that erasable pens are a thing, but it's worth noting
Ren:
00:31:10
that today's erasable pens are not the erasable pens of
Ren:
00:31:14
our childhoods and the ones that are out now actually
Ren:
00:31:18
work really, really well.
Ren:
00:31:20
They are friction based and basically
Ren:
00:31:22
they erase with heat.
Ren:
00:31:23
So, um, don't leave your notebook in your car on a hot.
Ren:
00:31:29
If, uh, if you're using these erasable pens.
Ren:
00:31:34
But the other thing is just, don't be afraid
Ren:
00:31:35
to make mistakes.
Ren:
00:31:37
One really good tip that I have heard is to go to like
Ren:
00:31:40
the last page in your notebook and create a pen test page.
Ren:
00:31:45
I got that tip from Little Coffee Fox, or
Ren:
00:31:48
a grid spacing page.
Ren:
00:31:50
If you start with something kind of ugly and just purely
Ren:
00:31:52
functional from the very beginning, you'll feel less
Ren:
00:31:55
paralyzed when it comes to messing something up later on.
Ren:
00:32:01
A lot of times we are held up, especially if you do go
Ren:
00:32:05
and buy a little bit of a nicer notebook, or if you
Ren:
00:32:09
already have that stash of notebooks, uh, sitting on
Ren:
00:32:14
your desk somewhere that you haven't been using because
Ren:
00:32:19
they are too nice to use.
Ren:
00:32:22
This is a way that you can kind of get over
Ren:
00:32:26
that initial hump of just being afraid of messing up
Ren:
00:32:31
before you ever even start.
Ren:
00:32:33
So you can outline and stuff in pencil, you can sketch it
Ren:
00:32:39
as a practice beforehand, but eventually you're gonna have
Ren:
00:32:43
to just commit to something.
Ren:
00:32:44
You'll make mistakes and that's okay.
Ren:
00:32:48
Remember we are practicing imperfection here.
Ren:
00:32:53
Being imperfect is part of the goal, which means that every
Ren:
00:32:56
time you make a little bit of a mistake, you're actually
Ren:
00:32:58
succeeding at that goal.
Ren:
00:33:00
Next thing.
Ren:
00:33:01
If your current planner style isn't quite working, or if
Ren:
00:33:07
it's feeling too stale, try something new on the next
Ren:
00:33:12
page, instead of just trying to push through and stick with
Ren:
00:33:17
what you're already doing.
Ren:
00:33:19
You don't wanna fix what isn't broken.
Ren:
00:33:22
So if your system is working for you, then don't mess with
Ren:
00:33:26
it just because you think you're supposed to, but also
Ren:
00:33:30
don't hold on something just because it used to work.
Ren:
00:33:34
That is something that I've seen a lot in myself
Ren:
00:33:37
and other people that they have a planner system
Ren:
00:33:41
that works really well for them for a while.
Ren:
00:33:43
And then it stops working and they see a problem there, and
Ren:
00:33:48
there is a problem there, but they think that it's a problem
Ren:
00:33:52
with them and that they need to change theirselves so that
Ren:
00:33:55
their system works again.
Ren:
00:33:57
Instead of seeing that, the problem is that
Ren:
00:33:58
their system isn't working for them anymore.
Ren:
00:34:02
If you're using a pre-printed planner, that can be a little
Ren:
00:34:06
bit more difficult than if you're using something like
Ren:
00:34:08
a bullet journal or even just a kind of more free
Ren:
00:34:11
form planner that lets you do whatever you want in there.
Ren:
00:34:15
But if you think of your pages more, as suggestions
Ren:
00:34:19
than actual rules that you have to stick by, um, then
Ren:
00:34:23
you could still go along with this, you can cover up
Ren:
00:34:28
the labels that are already there with some washi tape
Ren:
00:34:30
or some, some white out and ignore the parts that aren't
Ren:
00:34:35
working for you anymore, or just change them to something
Ren:
00:34:38
that does work for you.
Ren:
00:34:40
Okay, one other suggestion.
Ren:
00:34:42
This is not going to apply to everyone, but I'm just
Ren:
00:34:45
going to throw it out there because it is something
Ren:
00:34:47
that works for me is to use art in your journal.
Ren:
00:34:51
Yes, this is a technique and it can be used to your
Ren:
00:34:55
advantage, but it can be to your disadvantage as well.
Ren:
00:34:59
So if it's not something that's gonna work for
Ren:
00:35:01
you, just don't do it.
Ren:
00:35:03
Just keep your planner strictly for planning.
Ren:
00:35:07
Even if you're interested in art, you can put
Ren:
00:35:10
your art somewhere else.
Ren:
00:35:13
It doesn't have to be in your planner just because
Ren:
00:35:16
that's something that some people like me do.
Ren:
00:35:19
They can be two completely different things.
Ren:
00:35:21
Or if you're not interested in art at all, then
Ren:
00:35:24
you're allowed to have a planner that's just for
Ren:
00:35:27
function without art in it.
Ren:
00:35:28
That is fine.
Ren:
00:35:30
I have noticed that the bullet journal.
Ren:
00:35:33
Who are most in favor of the completely messy utilitarian
Ren:
00:35:39
style are actual artists
Ren:
00:35:42
like professional artists who have just scribbled notes
Ren:
00:35:47
in a spiral bound notebook.
Ren:
00:35:49
And these are usually the people who will be most
Ren:
00:35:52
adamant about how unnecessary art is in a bullet journal.
Ren:
00:35:55
This may seem counterintuitive at first because the bullet
Ren:
00:36:00
journalers who are known for having the really
Ren:
00:36:02
extravagant, beautiful spreads, like Little Coffee
Ren:
00:36:06
Fox, who I just mentioned are also professional artists.
Ren:
00:36:10
Um, but I think it actually makes perfect sense.
Ren:
00:36:13
These people already have their outlet for
Ren:
00:36:17
artistic expression.
Ren:
00:36:19
And so feeling like their productivity tool is yet
Ren:
00:36:26
another place where they're expected to perform is
Ren:
00:36:30
understandably overwhelming.
Ren:
00:36:31
Sometimes you want something where you can just let it
Ren:
00:36:36
be messy and not have to worry about how it looks.
Ren:
00:36:39
They're already getting their creative expression
Ren:
00:36:42
somewhere else.
Ren:
00:36:43
So they don't need to have it in their journal as well.
Ren:
00:36:46
But some artists do like to include art in
Ren:
00:36:49
their bullet journals.
Ren:
00:36:50
And actually don't think of it as a place that they
Ren:
00:36:54
have to perform, but rather is just a place where their
Ren:
00:36:57
art can just be for them.
Ren:
00:36:59
It isn't expected to meet some kind of standard or
Ren:
00:37:04
cater to their audience.
Ren:
00:37:05
It's something that is just for their own benefit.
Ren:
00:37:08
Basically artists, aren't a monolith on this, but most
Ren:
00:37:12
of the people who I've seen say that you shouldn't use
Ren:
00:37:17
art in your bullet journal are people who are making art
Ren:
00:37:20
somewhere else in their lives.
Ren:
00:37:23
So I think that that is worth considering.
Ren:
00:37:26
For the rest of us who don't have other artistic outlets,
Ren:
00:37:29
the bullet journal, or your planner can be a really
Ren:
00:37:32
great place to experiment and learn new things, but
Ren:
00:37:35
only if that's something that you're interested in.
Ren:
00:37:38
I need art in my planner because art was something
Ren:
00:37:41
missing from my life.
Ren:
00:37:43
If that isn't a problem for you, don't take on an
Ren:
00:37:46
artistic obligation just because you're think you
Ren:
00:37:48
think you're supposed to.
Ren:
00:37:49
And it's also worth noting that some weeks
Ren:
00:37:53
I do very little art in my journal at all.
Ren:
00:37:57
And some weeks I leave the page completely blank.
Ren:
00:38:02
One of the things that I like about having that weekly
Ren:
00:38:06
planner that's already laid out for me is that I never
Ren:
00:38:09
feel the need to make any kind of layout artistic or not.
Ren:
00:38:16
If I don't get around to it at the beginning of the week,
Ren:
00:38:20
it's already done for me and I can go ahead and use.
Ren:
00:38:23
And maybe I decide to put art in it later.
Ren:
00:38:25
Maybe I don't, but either way I have something that I
Ren:
00:38:28
can use without having to set something up ahead of time.
Ren:
00:38:31
And that can be where people get kind of tripped
Ren:
00:38:35
up, keeping up with art in their bullet journal.
Ren:
00:38:38
Monday comes around, you haven't set up your weekly
Ren:
00:38:41
spread and because you've been making it artistic, it
Ren:
00:38:44
feels weird to kind of just write the days of the week on
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00:38:49
the page and let it be messy and ugly because it doesn't
Ren:
00:38:54
live up to the standards of the rest of journal that
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00:38:58
you've been working on.
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00:39:01
So you have to figure out a balance there where if
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00:39:04
you want to put art in it to make you inspired,
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00:39:08
to make you excited to come to your notebook,
Ren:
00:39:11
that's a great thing.
Ren:
00:39:13
But you definitely don't want it to feel like an
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00:39:18
obligation that you're barely keeping up with week to week.
Ren:
00:39:23
If you are interested in using art, let it work for you.
Ren:
00:39:28
Using weekly or monthly themes can be a good way
Ren:
00:39:32
to inject some novelty into a system that's already
Ren:
00:39:35
working, but maybe just feeling a little bit tired.
Ren:
00:39:38
You don't have to revamp your whole system.
Ren:
00:39:40
You can just add a little bit of flair into
Ren:
00:39:43
it and stickers count.
Ren:
00:39:46
Taping stuff in counts.
Ren:
00:39:48
Just using a colored pen can be nice.
Ren:
00:39:51
It doesn't have to be.
Ren:
00:39:53
learning to watercolor or learning to draw or doing
Ren:
00:40:00
anything intensely artistic.
Ren:
00:40:03
It can just be putting little bits of visual
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00:40:07
interest into your planner.
Ren:
00:40:09
One thing that bullet journaling is really
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00:40:11
known for aside from the art is habit trackers.
Ren:
00:40:17
Bullet journalers and social media journaling influencers
Ren:
00:40:24
have made habit trackers, a really popular thing,
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00:40:26
and it makes it seem like that's a really fundamental
Ren:
00:40:31
part of bullet journaling.
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00:40:32
And it's just not.
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00:40:35
It is something that you absolutely can include
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00:40:39
to whatever extent that you're interested in and
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00:40:42
that it actually helps you.
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00:40:45
But I am in favor of using more checklists
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00:40:49
and fewer habit trackers.
Ren:
00:40:53
If you'll look over the rolling weeklies that
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00:40:55
I was talking about.
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00:40:57
They look a lot like the kinds of habit trackers
Ren:
00:41:02
that people make, the less artistic kinds of habit
Ren:
00:41:06
trackers that people make.
Ren:
00:41:07
But the real difference between trackers versus
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00:41:12
checklists is that a tracker is keeping track when you
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00:41:18
are doing something, whereas checklists are just there to
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00:41:21
remind you to do the thing.
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00:41:24
So checklists are providing proactive assistance so
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00:41:28
that you can get these things done whereas trackers
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00:41:32
are retroactively looking at and just seeing if
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00:41:37
you have done the thing.
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00:41:39
Trackers are meant to motivate you through guilt or shame,
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00:41:44
or even just the threat of guilt or shame, that if you
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00:41:52
miss a day that you have done something wrong or that you
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00:41:57
better not miss a day, because you'll mess up your streak!
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00:42:00
Then you can see when you succeeded or when you failed.
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00:42:05
If you're having a really hard time with those kinds
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00:42:09
of things in the first place, like thinking of yourself
Ren:
00:42:12
as a failure, trackers may not be as motivating
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00:42:15
as you expect them to be.
Ren:
00:42:18
I use checklists and the ones that I use are completely
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00:42:24
just neutral as far as any kind of success, failure,
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00:42:30
morality or whatever.
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00:42:31
I can look over it and I can see like, oh shit, I forgot to
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00:42:35
take my vitamins this morning.
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00:42:37
I'm not beating myself up for not having that habit
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00:42:40
of taking the vitamin or anything like that.
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00:42:42
It just reminds me that I need to take it or that
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00:42:44
I need to definitely make sure I take it tomorrow
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00:42:46
because I didn't do it today.
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00:42:48
It's basically the difference between having a friend
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00:42:50
or a loved one come over in the morning and saying,
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00:42:53
Hey, remember to go work out right now versus having
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00:42:57
them come over at the end of the day and saying,
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00:42:59
"oh, Hey, did you work out?
Ren:
00:43:00
No.
Ren:
00:43:01
Hmm.
Ren:
00:43:02
Okay."
Ren:
00:43:03
Or even, "Hey, did you work out today?
Ren:
00:43:07
Oh yeah, that's great.
Ren:
00:43:08
Better not forget tomorrow..."
Ren:
00:43:12
Trackers certainly can provide some amount of reminding
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00:43:18
as well, if they are on a page where you're going
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00:43:23
to automatically see them.
Ren:
00:43:24
And it's not something that you only look at once at
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00:43:27
the end of the day, which is how a lot of people use
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00:43:30
them is they're on their own separate pages, you flip
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00:43:32
to it at the end of the day and you fill in the things
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00:43:34
that you did and didn't do.
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00:43:37
I just think that it's something that we need
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00:43:40
to be careful with because they can end up
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00:43:43
being demotivating, not.
Ren:
00:43:46
For tracking, but for using the planner at all.
Ren:
00:43:53
That said I do make my own habit tracker kind of thing.
Ren:
00:44:02
It's on my Ko-fi page.
Ren:
00:44:03
There are some free versions and, um, some paid
Ren:
00:44:08
versions that you can try.
Ren:
00:44:11
The way that my habit maps work is that you
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00:44:17
fill it out every day that you do it and that
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00:44:23
there are no skipped days.
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00:44:26
If you do it today, you put an X in the, the next square.
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00:44:30
If you don't do it tomorrow, there's no X, but the next
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00:44:35
time you do it, you can just put an X in the next square.
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00:44:40
So it's not about how often you do it close
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00:44:43
together, it's just about making progress each time.
Ren:
00:44:47
It's a lot like bullet journaling in
Ren:
00:44:51
general in that way.
Ren:
00:44:53
If you, you know, stop using it for a whole month, even
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00:44:56
you're gonna open it up and just turn to the next page.
Ren:
00:44:59
There's not gonna be, uh, a lot of unused space in there
Ren:
00:45:03
from the days that you missed.
Ren:
00:45:07
And also the habit maps are dungeon maps and that's cool.
Ren:
00:45:12
The one thing that I do think can be kind of
Ren:
00:45:17
useful for trackers is not habits, but just things
Ren:
00:45:23
where you're trying to keep some information
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00:45:25
instead of motivation.
Ren:
00:45:31
So that would be things like tracking your
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00:45:32
migraine headaches or potentially tracking
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00:45:38
when you take your meds.
Ren:
00:45:41
Medication that you have to take daily should probably
Ren:
00:45:43
be in a checklist and remind you to take it daily.
Ren:
00:45:46
Whereas something that you only take as needed, you
Ren:
00:45:52
can put it in an information tracker, so that you'll
Ren:
00:45:55
have that information of, um, you know, when you got
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00:46:00
a headache, when you had to take your medicine, when
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00:46:03
your period started and ended that kind of stuff.
Ren:
00:46:06
That's not stuff that you're trying to do, just
Ren:
00:46:09
stuff about yourself that you're trying to remember
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00:46:12
and maybe make use of that information at some point.
Ren:
00:46:17
If your habit trackers ever make you feel like you're
Ren:
00:46:19
failing, then that means that they are failing you.
Ren:
00:46:24
Future you is a pal.
Ren:
00:46:27
You always need to take care of your future self
Ren:
00:46:30
that applies here as well as everywhere else.
Ren:
00:46:34
Don't set up a planner system meant to punish future you for
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00:46:37
not being a totally different person from present you.
Ren:
00:46:41
Let this apply to your art and to the complexity of your
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00:46:45
spreads that you set up too.
Ren:
00:46:47
Don't expect future you to keep up with ambitions
Ren:
00:46:51
that present you can literally only dream about.
Ren:
00:46:54
That takes me to my final point.
Ren:
00:46:58
I've given you a whole list of ideas and
Ren:
00:47:01
techniques and things here.
Ren:
00:47:03
You might want to check the show notes or the blog
Ren:
00:47:06
post about this, where you can actually see all of
Ren:
00:47:08
the stuff kind of laid out.
Ren:
00:47:11
The last thing is to just kind address the risk of getting
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00:47:15
into aspirational planning.
Ren:
00:47:21
You don't wanna get too hung up on trying to
Ren:
00:47:23
make the perfect system, routine, plan, schedule,
Ren:
00:47:28
et cetera, ahead of time.
Ren:
00:47:31
Doing that and trying to figure out what the best
Ren:
00:47:34
thing is before you get started and setting up a lot
Ren:
00:47:37
of complicated, elaborate, spreads and lists and all
Ren:
00:47:43
trackers, all those kinds of things is not really planning
Ren:
00:47:47
for your current life.
Ren:
00:47:49
You're trying to guess what this fantasy version
Ren:
00:47:52
of yourself would want.
Ren:
00:47:56
But if you are trying to get to that point, you really
Ren:
00:47:59
need to become that person first, and then they can
Ren:
00:48:02
just tell you what they want.
Ren:
00:48:05
Start with something simple.
Ren:
00:48:09
Start with one of those first four things, your
Ren:
00:48:16
schedule with just one or two things on it.
Ren:
00:48:19
Your time blocking with a few blocks in the day for
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00:48:22
different kinds of activities.
Ren:
00:48:25
Your to-do lists that you can choose when you
Ren:
00:48:31
do each kind of thing.
Ren:
00:48:34
Or your intentions for the day with a list of the
Ren:
00:48:39
kinds of things associated with each intention.
Ren:
00:48:43
Start with just one of those four things and then add new
Ren:
00:48:46
things in as you see the need.
Ren:
00:48:50
Once you get kind of used to doing this very simple kind
Ren:
00:48:54
of planning, you'll see more where it is lacking and what
Ren:
00:48:59
it needs to spice it up, or to make it work better for you.
Ren:
00:49:07
And note that I am saying this as a person who has like
Ren:
00:49:11
seven different planners.
Ren:
00:49:14
For me, this is my hobby.
Ren:
00:49:16
Like I said, I have a day of the week that is really
Ren:
00:49:20
just dedicated to doing planners and journal stuff.
Ren:
00:49:25
And this is just something that I love.
Ren:
00:49:27
So, yeah, I have a more complicated system than
Ren:
00:49:31
I would recommend to other people who are
Ren:
00:49:33
just getting started.
Ren:
00:49:34
But the important thing for me to always remember is when
Ren:
00:49:40
I'm not in a place where I can keep up with all of the
Ren:
00:49:43
different stuff at once, I know exactly what it is
Ren:
00:49:47
that I'm still going to find time for every single day.
Ren:
00:49:52
That is the Hobonichi weeks that has my like
Ren:
00:49:55
main planner in it.
Ren:
00:49:57
And it is my daily journal that has my just long
Ren:
00:50:01
form journaling in it.
Ren:
00:50:03
I will do those two things every day, even if I don't
Ren:
00:50:07
do any of my other planners for weeks at a time.
Ren:
00:50:13
You might end up falling down the rabbit hole
Ren:
00:50:15
too, but keep the basics simple at the beginning.
Ren:
00:50:20
It's easy to add and edit and adapt and iterate over time.
00:00:07
If you took the leap and you went out and you
Ren:
00:00:11
bought yourself a planner and now you have no idea
Ren:
00:00:15
what to actually do with it.
Ren:
00:00:18
Then this is the show for you.
Ren:
00:00:20
This is Ex-Gifted.
Ren:
00:00:32
Welcome to Ex-Gifted.
Ren:
00:00:35
I'm your host Ren Eliza.
Ren:
00:00:37
And this week as promised.
Ren:
00:00:40
We're going to talk about planner techniques,
Ren:
00:00:44
things that you can do in your planner and...
Ren:
00:00:49
I'm going to kind of keep these general.
Ren:
00:00:51
Obviously how you use your planner is going
Ren:
00:00:54
to depend on you and what your own style is.
Ren:
00:01:01
And it's also going to depend on the style of planner that
Ren:
00:01:04
you bought, which hopefully you incorporated some of
Ren:
00:01:08
the advice that I gave in the last episode to figure
Ren:
00:01:11
out what kind of planner is going to work for you.
Ren:
00:01:14
For the most part all of these options will work
Ren:
00:01:18
great with bullet journaling because of course, what is
Ren:
00:01:21
great about bullet journaling is that you can design
Ren:
00:01:24
it to be your own thing.
Ren:
00:01:27
So.
Ren:
00:01:29
Let's start.
Ren:
00:01:30
What are techniques you can do to use your planner
Ren:
00:01:34
or use your planner better to make it work better
Ren:
00:01:37
for you and your brain.
Ren:
00:01:39
To begin with, I recommend that you pick it up every day.
Ren:
00:01:45
Yeah, like we've said from the very beginning
Ren:
00:01:48
of this whole series.
Ren:
00:01:50
The first thing.
Ren:
00:01:51
Is just to make sure that you pick up your planner,
Ren:
00:01:54
just to make sure that you're doing something with it.
Ren:
00:01:58
Literally just to make sure that you're not
Ren:
00:02:00
forgetting about it.
Ren:
00:02:01
The very first thing is not any kind of particular method
Ren:
00:02:06
or technique or trackers or whatever kinds of things
Ren:
00:02:11
that you think of a planner being none of that matters
Ren:
00:02:16
if you are actually using it.
Ren:
00:02:18
So step one, the very first thing is that.
Ren:
00:02:22
You have to actually pick it up, remember it, use it.
Ren:
00:02:27
So make that your priority number one, before anything
Ren:
00:02:31
else that has to happen and it has to happen first.
Ren:
00:02:37
But from there.
Ren:
00:02:39
There's a lot of options.
Ren:
00:02:43
So a few weeks ago, I kind of talked about um, some
Ren:
00:02:49
different things that you could do to incorporate
Ren:
00:02:51
more like intentional time into your days.
Ren:
00:02:54
And that's kind of the entire point of using a planner in
Ren:
00:02:57
the first place of any kind is that you're trying to
Ren:
00:03:00
just be more intentional.
Ren:
00:03:03
Like just literally using your time, the way that you
Ren:
00:03:08
intended to use it, that's the purpose of making a plan.
Ren:
00:03:13
And I gave some options of kind of more to less chaotic
Ren:
00:03:18
ways that you can do that.
Ren:
00:03:20
We're going to kind of do a similar thing here
Ren:
00:03:23
to start in this episode.
Ren:
00:03:26
So think about your planner style, if you want
Ren:
00:03:29
something kind of more structured and rigid or
Ren:
00:03:33
more chaotic and freeform.
Ren:
00:03:38
Because time management basically consists
Ren:
00:03:40
of two parts.
Ren:
00:03:41
It's got the, what do you do?
Ren:
00:03:43
And when you do it and just mathematically, combining
Ren:
00:03:47
these, there are four possible combinations.
Ren:
00:03:49
You can plan what you do and when you do it, You can plan.
Ren:
00:03:55
When you're going to do something, but not exactly
Ren:
00:03:57
specifically what thing is going to happen at that time.
Ren:
00:04:02
You can plan.
Ren:
00:04:04
The things you're going to do, but not the specific time
Ren:
00:04:07
when you're going to do them.
Ren:
00:04:09
Or you don't plan either of them.
Ren:
00:04:15
I know that that sounds wild.
Ren:
00:04:17
I'll explain that when I get to it.
Ren:
00:04:19
Okay.
Ren:
00:04:20
So.
Ren:
00:04:21
To start with planning what you do and when you do it,
Ren:
00:04:24
usually that's what people think of when they think
Ren:
00:04:28
of planners, they think of something that's got like
Ren:
00:04:31
an hourly list that's going to tell you what you're
Ren:
00:04:35
doing at 9:00 AM, what you're doing at 10:00 AM.
Ren:
00:04:38
Possibly even what you're doing at 9 15, 9 30, 9 45,
Ren:
00:04:42
et cetera, throughout the day, when you're going to
Ren:
00:04:44
have lunch, when you're going to come home from work.
Ren:
00:04:48
Very specific.
Ren:
00:04:50
What you're doing each hour of the day, possibly even
Ren:
00:04:54
more granular than that.
Ren:
00:04:57
That really, that can work really great for some
Ren:
00:05:00
people, including some neurodivergent people.
Ren:
00:05:04
Remember that I said in the last episode, it is a myth
Ren:
00:05:08
that there is a planner that's going to be the best
Ren:
00:05:11
planner for all people with ADHD, or there is a planner
Ren:
00:05:14
that doesn't work at all for neurodivergent people.
Ren:
00:05:17
Neither of those things is true.
Ren:
00:05:21
It is going to come down to your individual needs,
Ren:
00:05:25
which will vary not only based on your particular
Ren:
00:05:29
like your neurotype your.
Ren:
00:05:32
Your particular presentation of traits and struggles.
Ren:
00:05:38
Also just like your employment situation.
Ren:
00:05:42
If you have a job outside of the house, versus if
Ren:
00:05:45
you have a job where you are your own boss or you
Ren:
00:05:49
and/or you work from home.
Ren:
00:05:52
Those require different different levels of structure.
Ren:
00:05:55
And additionally, like being a stay at home,
Ren:
00:06:00
parent or something is going to require an entirely
Ren:
00:06:02
different structure.
Ren:
00:06:03
Being a student is going to require different
Ren:
00:06:06
structure as well.
Ren:
00:06:07
So, whatever your situation is will actually determine
Ren:
00:06:13
the kind of structure that you need and therefore, what kind
Ren:
00:06:16
of planner and what kind of plan might work best for you.
Ren:
00:06:22
If you do feel like you need the intense structure of
Ren:
00:06:26
having basically what you're going to do when you're going
Ren:
00:06:29
to do it throughout the day.
Ren:
00:06:31
Then absolutely go ahead and try that.
Ren:
00:06:33
However, I do want to lead with a bit of a precaution
Ren:
00:06:38
that even in that case, you don't want to start
Ren:
00:06:44
with a plan for- probably not your whole day.
Ren:
00:06:51
Definitely not your whole week.
Ren:
00:06:53
Absolutely not.
Ren:
00:06:54
Like your whole month.
Ren:
00:06:55
You don't want to sit down at the start of the month
Ren:
00:06:59
and plan out a week and say, okay, this is what
Ren:
00:07:01
my weeks are going to look like for the rest of time.
Ren:
00:07:04
Especially not when you're first starting
Ren:
00:07:06
with your planner.
Ren:
00:07:06
So just hear me out for a second.
Ren:
00:07:08
I know that sounds counterintuitive.
Ren:
00:07:10
I want to tell a story recently from my
Ren:
00:07:13
husband who has ADHD.
Ren:
00:07:15
Um, He came up to me and he asked.
Ren:
00:07:19
Because he knows that I love talking about planners.
Ren:
00:07:21
He asked me what it means if you actually really like
Ren:
00:07:24
planning and you're actually pretty good at making a
Ren:
00:07:28
really good plan, but it's hard for you to stick to it
Ren:
00:07:31
and you don't really like to follow it once you've made it.
Ren:
00:07:36
He asked me what that means.
Ren:
00:07:37
And I said, what it means is that you're like everybody
Ren:
00:07:41
else in the world and not in a, everybody in the world
Ren:
00:07:44
has ADHD kind of way, but just that it's extremely
Ren:
00:07:49
normal for someone to like to make a plan, to even be
Ren:
00:07:54
able to make a plan and then not be able to follow it.
Ren:
00:07:58
That is not a specific symptom of ADHD or anything else
Ren:
00:08:03
that is just kind of life.
Ren:
00:08:06
Because the thing is, for a lot of people.
Ren:
00:08:11
Like, this is definitely me.
Ren:
00:08:13
For a lot of people making a plan is super fun.
Ren:
00:08:17
You get to kind of imagine.
Ren:
00:08:20
This cool person that you could be, who's doing
Ren:
00:08:25
all of these things that you don't normally do.
Ren:
00:08:27
Is like, taking care of all these responsibilities, but
Ren:
00:08:31
also making plenty of time for the other things that
Ren:
00:08:34
really matter in their lives.
Ren:
00:08:37
They are basically a superhero.
Ren:
00:08:40
It's very easy for you to sit down and make a plan where
Ren:
00:08:42
you're seeing your future self as a superhero that can
Ren:
00:08:48
like accomplish anything.
Ren:
00:08:50
Which is great.
Ren:
00:08:52
However, making a detailed plan, especially when you're
Ren:
00:08:57
still just in the early stages can trigger demand avoidance.
Ren:
00:09:04
Essentially that future self can look at it
Ren:
00:09:09
when the time comes, when you're, when you're
Ren:
00:09:11
actually in that moment.
Ren:
00:09:13
It can feel like someone is stealing
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00:09:14
control of your life.
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00:09:17
That would be your, your past self, the past self
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00:09:19
that sat down and made the plan is stealing control
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00:09:23
over your future self's life, telling that person
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00:09:26
what they need to be doing.
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00:09:27
You might actually find that you don't have the time or
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00:09:31
energy or whatever to do the thing that you were planning
Ren:
00:09:34
at the time you were planning.
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00:09:37
But even if you do in theory have that energy, you can
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00:09:43
definitely end up setting off that thing in your
Ren:
00:09:45
brain that is just like, you can't tell me what to do.
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00:09:50
And it makes you rebel instead of doing the
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00:09:52
thing that you had already decided that you want to do.
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00:09:56
So you end up in this weird place where you like both
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00:10:01
want to do a thing cause otherwise you wouldn't
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00:10:03
have written it down, but also you don't want to do
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00:10:04
a thing because otherwise you would just do it.
Ren:
00:10:07
And that's not the aim.
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00:10:12
That's not what we're going for with trying to
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00:10:15
have a have the planner.
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00:10:17
So, yeah, funny enough in the moment you kind of
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00:10:20
liked the idea of exerting control over a future.
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00:10:23
You, you imagine how it would feel.
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00:10:26
To be the kind of person.
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00:10:29
Who you imagined a future, you to be checking off
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00:10:31
all of those boxes on your planner and you imagined
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00:10:34
that it would feel so great.
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00:10:35
So you got all of these wonderful feel, good
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00:10:38
chemicals at the time that you were making the planner
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00:10:42
instead of at the time that you were doing the plan.
Ren:
00:10:47
You assumed that actually doing those things would
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00:10:49
feel great too, but then when the time came actually
Ren:
00:10:53
folding laundry or making phone calls or whatever it
Ren:
00:10:56
was, doesn't feel great.
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00:10:59
If it did feel great, then probably.
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00:11:01
A lot of those kinds of things past you would have just
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00:11:03
done instead of planning it.
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00:11:06
It's kind of a tricky thing about motivation.
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00:11:08
We think that we feel motivated when we're
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00:11:13
like making a plan to get things done, but usually
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00:11:20
what we're feeling in that moment is not actually, um,
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00:11:23
motivation because we're not actually getting up
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00:11:27
and doing the thing, right?
Ren:
00:11:29
We were just thinking about doing the thing.
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00:11:34
I can't really stress enough how different it is to think
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00:11:38
about doing a thing versus actually doing the thing.
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00:11:43
It's not the same thing.
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00:11:44
It's a different feeling.
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00:11:46
Just something to think about.
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00:11:48
So even if you do want to do the kind of hourly planning.
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00:11:53
Don't start off with a detailed plan, just put
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00:11:56
one or two things in for each day for the time that
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00:12:00
you're going to do, and you can build it up over time.
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00:12:02
So start off simple.
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00:12:04
And also start off localized in time, um, which is to
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00:12:10
say, start off like making a planner for like two
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00:12:13
things that you want to do today and the times that
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00:12:17
you're going to do it versus starting off making a plan
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00:12:21
for the entire week, even if you're only planning out two
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00:12:24
things for the entire week.
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00:12:26
Making a plan for your whole week, when you're first
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00:12:30
getting started, you don't know how much flexibility
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00:12:32
you're actually going to need throughout the week.
Ren:
00:12:35
So that can be kind of tricky.
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00:12:37
What can help- and this is something that can be helpful,
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00:12:40
whether you're doing the hourly planning or not- um,
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00:12:42
is to track your time hourly when you're getting started.
Ren:
00:12:47
So this isn't planning what you're going to do throughout
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00:12:49
the day at any given time, but just writing down what
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00:12:54
you do throughout the day, at the time that you do it.
Ren:
00:12:57
Just making note of the different things that
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00:13:00
you do in the day and the times that you do it.
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00:13:02
And then if you have it over a week, you can look
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00:13:04
to see like, okay, do I usually have lunch at
Ren:
00:13:07
the same time every day?
Ren:
00:13:09
Do I usually watch TV at a certain time during the day?
Ren:
00:13:14
Does my kid usually ask for a snack at a certain
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00:13:16
time during the day?
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00:13:17
Once you have that information, it will be
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00:13:20
a lot easier to fit in the rest of the things
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00:13:22
that you want to do.
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00:13:23
But even if you're not using the hourly planning, it can
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00:13:26
be very useful a to see that actually there are things
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00:13:29
that you're already doing on a regular basis because it
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00:13:32
almost certainly is the case.
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00:13:35
And also you can see what days can tend to be busier
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00:13:39
and what days have more space?
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00:13:41
Um, so even if you're not doing hourly planning,
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00:13:43
you know what days to put more of your effort
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00:13:47
to get stuff done in.
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00:13:50
So, this is just so that you know what you're actually
Ren:
00:13:53
doing in a day because whatever you think right
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00:13:57
now that you're doing is probably like 75% wrong.
Ren:
00:14:01
At least that was my experience.
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00:14:07
So the second option is that you plan when you do-
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00:14:13
whatever work productivity stuff that you're doing-
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00:14:17
and not exactly what you're doing in that time.
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00:14:19
AKA time-blocking.
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00:14:21
So that means that you're setting aside some amount
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00:14:25
of time, usually a couple of hours in a day at a
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00:14:30
time to be used toward different kinds of tasks.
Ren:
00:14:34
So you might say that you're going to work from 8:00 AM
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00:14:38
to 10:00 AM or something on work or it might be
Ren:
00:14:43
something more specific, like writing or phone calls
Ren:
00:14:47
or whatever kind of stuff that you do at your job.
Ren:
00:14:51
But the point is that you're not making it
Ren:
00:14:54
very specific tasks.
Ren:
00:14:55
It's not like that you call this person at 8 AM you
Ren:
00:14:59
call this person at 8 15?
Ren:
00:15:00
You call this person at 8 45.
Ren:
00:15:03
It's just like this is the time of day that I'm going
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00:15:07
to work on making phone calls and I get done, whatever
Ren:
00:15:10
I get done in that time.
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00:15:11
And then at 10:00 AM, I'm going to take a
Ren:
00:15:15
break for a bit and then go do the next task.
Ren:
00:15:19
From 10 to 12, you might work on sending emails and writing
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00:15:25
proposals or something.
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00:15:28
Whatever stuff people do at work.
Ren:
00:15:33
So combining time-blocking and to do lists, which is
Ren:
00:15:36
the next thing we're going to kind of talk about can
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00:15:38
be a really great system for neurodiverse people who need
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00:15:42
some amount of structure.
Ren:
00:15:44
So you have those blocks that show you what kind of
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00:15:49
stuff you're supposed to be doing in a particular time.
Ren:
00:15:52
That doesn't necessarily mean you need to be working on
Ren:
00:15:55
that stuff the whole time, but if you have a task that
Ren:
00:15:59
you need to do from a 10 to 12, you know that somewhere
Ren:
00:16:02
during that time period, you need to get that thing done.
Ren:
00:16:07
You don't necessarily have to start on it right away.
Ren:
00:16:09
You have some flexibility there.
Ren:
00:16:12
But also, you still have a little bit of structure which
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00:16:15
can really help for people that need to, that need
Ren:
00:16:18
that help to stay on task.
Ren:
00:16:20
If you're interested in this method, you should check out
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00:16:23
my ABCs of Time Management.
Ren:
00:16:25
I'll put a link in the show notes.
Ren:
00:16:26
Um, because the B in that one is for blocking.
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00:16:29
That's not the method that I've used or
Ren:
00:16:31
that I use anymore.
Ren:
00:16:33
Actually my, uh, planning progression has been basically
Ren:
00:16:37
from the hourly plan um, getting kind of more and more
Ren:
00:16:46
chaotic over the years, which might be different from,
Ren:
00:16:50
from how normal people do it.
Ren:
00:16:52
I don't know.
Ren:
00:16:53
But I have definitely started with the strictest method
Ren:
00:16:57
and that was useful for me at the time that I was using it.
Ren:
00:17:00
Um but I have slowly been going through the hourly
Ren:
00:17:04
schedule to time blocking.
Ren:
00:17:06
And now I'm on kind of the next step, which is the
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00:17:10
planning what I do, but not exactly when I do it.
Ren:
00:17:15
And that means working from to-do lists.
Ren:
00:17:18
So perhaps um, in the near future here I would love
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00:17:25
to progress all the way to the most chaotic, not
Ren:
00:17:28
planning, what or when planning method, but we'll
Ren:
00:17:33
see if I ever get there.
Ren:
00:17:34
Because right now, this method is, uh, is working
Ren:
00:17:37
really great for me.
Ren:
00:17:38
So the planning what you do, but not exactly when means
Ren:
00:17:43
that you're keeping to-do lists, which can be daily,
Ren:
00:17:46
weekly or even monthly.
Ren:
00:17:48
Although, I think it's good to have a monthly task list,
Ren:
00:17:52
working straight from that, I think probably isn't going to
Ren:
00:17:55
work for most of my listeners just because it's hard to
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00:18:02
deal with things on an entire monthly basis unless your
Ren:
00:18:06
days are already pretty much manageable and you just want
Ren:
00:18:09
a reminder for the things that you don't do often enough
Ren:
00:18:13
to remember on your own.
Ren:
00:18:15
Now, that's a thing that a lot of us will need is a
Ren:
00:18:18
reminder for those things that don't happen all the time.
Ren:
00:18:20
But we additionally need reminders for stuff that
Ren:
00:18:24
we are supposed to do all the time, because.
Ren:
00:18:27
Brains.
Ren:
00:18:29
My favorite kind of to-do list and what I'm using
Ren:
00:18:31
right now is called a rolling weekly to-do list.
Ren:
00:18:34
I write out a to-do list for the week and across
Ren:
00:18:37
the top I have a label for each day of the week-
Ren:
00:18:41
just the first letter.
Ren:
00:18:42
And so I have basically a grid where I can check
Ren:
00:18:47
off the thing that I do on the day that I do it.
Ren:
00:18:50
This is super helpful because it works great for things
Ren:
00:18:52
that you only have to do once, because you just can
Ren:
00:18:55
put an X in that box for the day that you do it.
Ren:
00:18:59
But it also works really great for things that you
Ren:
00:19:01
have to do more than once.
Ren:
00:19:02
I have my regular like morning routines and stuff on there.
Ren:
00:19:06
Um, I know that a lot of people don't have to
Ren:
00:19:08
write those things down.
Ren:
00:19:09
I do, and that's okay.
Ren:
00:19:12
So my morning routines, I can check off like I got
Ren:
00:19:17
my water, that I took my vitamins, that I made my
Ren:
00:19:20
coffee because I will, yes.
Ren:
00:19:22
I will forget that.
Ren:
00:19:23
If I don't have it written down, I can check each of
Ren:
00:19:25
those things off as I do them.
Ren:
00:19:27
But also something that's like record a podcast.
Ren:
00:19:29
I can check that off on the day that I actually do it.
Ren:
00:19:33
And additionally, like any days that I make like
Ren:
00:19:36
edits and stuff like that.
Ren:
00:19:37
So I can see the days that I have been working on
Ren:
00:19:40
that thing, even though it's not every single day.
Ren:
00:19:43
So it works for things that you have to do every day,
Ren:
00:19:46
but also things that you have to do any day that week.
Ren:
00:19:52
You can make a spread like this in a bullet journal.
Ren:
00:19:55
It works great for that.
Ren:
00:19:56
As far as I know, that's pretty much what it was
Ren:
00:19:57
invented for, but you can also use it in any planner
Ren:
00:20:02
with enough space for it.
Ren:
00:20:04
I'm using mine in my Hobonichi weeks right now.
Ren:
00:20:07
So remember that one had a weekly layout on one side,
Ren:
00:20:10
and then it had a blank page on the other side.
Ren:
00:20:12
So I use that blank page to basically track my
Ren:
00:20:18
checklists and my to-do lists.
Ren:
00:20:20
And then I use the weekly side to take notes for just like
Ren:
00:20:24
things that happened that day that are more just interesting
Ren:
00:20:28
facts about the day.
Ren:
00:20:30
These rolling to-do lists can also be really great for like
Ren:
00:20:33
annual cleaning routines.
Ren:
00:20:35
Um, or like household or car maintenance or just any other
Ren:
00:20:39
things that don't happen every day to keep track of the
Ren:
00:20:42
last time it was completed.
Ren:
00:20:44
The other thing that it can be really good for
Ren:
00:20:46
is managing a project.
Ren:
00:20:49
Just a note on the rolling to-do lists
Ren:
00:20:51
for things like annual household cleaning tasks.
Ren:
00:20:55
The label at the top could also be the
Ren:
00:20:57
months of the year.
Ren:
00:20:58
So if you want to note that you like deep cleaned
Ren:
00:21:01
your kitchen in January.
Ren:
00:21:04
It doesn't necessarily have to be days of the week,
Ren:
00:21:06
so you can keep a whole year in there by doing
Ren:
00:21:09
months instead of days.
Ren:
00:21:22
So it's time to talk about the last thing, the
Ren:
00:21:25
planning neither what you do, nor when you do it.
Ren:
00:21:29
Okay.
Ren:
00:21:30
So.
Ren:
00:21:32
You remember how I recommended intentions a few weeks ago?
Ren:
00:21:37
If you're not trying to reign in the chaos, but you want
Ren:
00:21:40
to let it flow free while still having a bit more
Ren:
00:21:45
ownership over the flavor of your days setting intentions
Ren:
00:21:49
can actually work great even without any kind of schedule.
Ren:
00:21:56
So you're not necessarily saying the specific to-do
Ren:
00:22:01
lists items for the day.
Ren:
00:22:03
You can just set the intention of working for a day, whether
Ren:
00:22:06
that's I'm talking for myself, working on a podcast,
Ren:
00:22:10
working on a blog post.
Ren:
00:22:11
I can just say like, okay, this day is for
Ren:
00:22:13
work, and I will do some work things today.
Ren:
00:22:18
I have been.
Ren:
00:22:20
Putting some more flavor of this into the system
Ren:
00:22:24
that I'm using now.
Ren:
00:22:25
I'm kind of setting up each day with a specific
Ren:
00:22:31
intention in mind.
Ren:
00:22:34
However, it's not really strict, like today is my
Ren:
00:22:39
day that is for magic.
Ren:
00:22:41
It's a Monday when I'm recording it, Mondays are
Ren:
00:22:43
the days that I like to try to incorporate some
Ren:
00:22:46
magic things in there.
Ren:
00:22:47
That doesn't mean that I can't also do some work on a Monday.
Ren:
00:22:51
It just means that my general focus for the day is supposed
Ren:
00:22:55
to be on magic things.
Ren:
00:22:58
However I have done the to do list thing.
Ren:
00:23:04
And I have specified a few magic things that I
Ren:
00:23:07
want to work on today.
Ren:
00:23:08
I wanted to.
Ren:
00:23:10
Uh, do a tarot spread for the week.
Ren:
00:23:12
I wanted to study some things about tarot.
Ren:
00:23:16
And I also wanted to do some meditating later today.
Ren:
00:23:19
So, I do have the specific to-do list, things that
Ren:
00:23:24
I want to do today.
Ren:
00:23:25
But the idea of the intention settings is to eventually
Ren:
00:23:30
get to a place where I don't necessarily have to have
Ren:
00:23:33
a specific list of things.
Ren:
00:23:35
In order to still accomplish the general
Ren:
00:23:38
kinds of things that I want to use for my days.
Ren:
00:23:45
And the truth of the matter is, is just that as I'm
Ren:
00:23:47
getting older, my brain is tending toward chaos,
Ren:
00:23:51
whether I like it or not.
Ren:
00:23:53
And so having my, um, having my planner system kind of
Ren:
00:23:57
go that same way I think has been very helpful that my
Ren:
00:24:02
planner is kind of evolving and adapting with me.
Ren:
00:24:07
And the other thing is for the people who are operating
Ren:
00:24:11
on a hormone system that is primarily a monthly driven.
Ren:
00:24:18
That you have the more chaotic weeks and the more kind
Ren:
00:24:22
of focused, I don't know.
Ren:
00:24:25
Clear brain weeks.
Ren:
00:24:27
Can you tell that I'm not in a clear-brained week, myself?
Ren:
00:24:29
And so you can adjust these things to go with your weeks.
Ren:
00:24:36
The way that you need them to.
Ren:
00:24:37
For me during the weeks that I am having more brain
Ren:
00:24:40
fog, I kind of want it to be more intentions focused
Ren:
00:24:45
where I can allow myself a lot of flexibility.
Ren:
00:24:50
And just give myself a lot of grace for not being able
Ren:
00:24:53
to do the things that I can do other times of the month.
Ren:
00:24:57
And during other weeks when I'm more able to
Ren:
00:24:59
focus and get things done.
Ren:
00:25:02
I want to have that to do list that tells me all the
Ren:
00:25:06
things that I'm trying to get done during this week so that
Ren:
00:25:08
I don't forget about them.
Ren:
00:25:10
So that I can make hay while I have fucking
Ren:
00:25:13
estrogen in my body.
Ren:
00:25:16
That's how that saying goes, right?
Ren:
00:25:18
So intention setting, it can be systematized to some
Ren:
00:25:22
degree in order to use it more effectively without
Ren:
00:25:26
turning it into just an overbearing task list.
Ren:
00:25:31
This is especially useful when you're just getting
Ren:
00:25:33
started by boosting your results early on, and kind
Ren:
00:25:37
of just giving you an idea of what kinds of things you're
Ren:
00:25:40
supposed to do based on what your intentions are for the
Ren:
00:25:43
day, rather than just sort of flapping about forgetting
Ren:
00:25:49
about your intentions as soon as you set them, which
Ren:
00:25:52
is something that I've struggled with in the past.
Ren:
00:25:55
So having just a little bit of a system in place.
Ren:
00:25:59
Like I said with just having a couple of tasks related to
Ren:
00:26:06
your intentions already kind of thought up for yourself.
Ren:
00:26:10
You don't even necessarily have to do all of them,
Ren:
00:26:12
but just having a little list that says like, okay,
Ren:
00:26:15
this is my magic day.
Ren:
00:26:16
Here's five things that I could do on a magic day.
Ren:
00:26:20
All right.
Ren:
00:26:21
So those are the four types of planning that you can kind
Ren:
00:26:26
of use and if you're using uh, bullet journal, especially,
Ren:
00:26:31
but if you're using some other system as well, you're
Ren:
00:26:37
absolutely free to use any and all of these as needed
Ren:
00:26:41
and change it up as you go for whatever you need at the time.
Ren:
00:26:48
But no matter what kind of system you're using, one
Ren:
00:26:52
thing that you do need to schedule in is time to plan.
Ren:
00:26:55
Even if you're just using intentions.
Ren:
00:26:58
My intentions for Sundays - my thing that day is
Ren:
00:27:04
to work on planning.
Ren:
00:27:05
Today is for magic.
Ren:
00:27:07
Yesterday was for planning for journaling.
Ren:
00:27:12
So you have to schedule some time to plan or
Ren:
00:27:16
it's not going to happen.
Ren:
00:27:17
You have to make time for it, or it just won't work.
Ren:
00:27:20
Um, It also the.
Ren:
00:27:23
Morning use of my planner and evening journaling are
Ren:
00:27:27
both in that daily checklist that I have to do every day.
Ren:
00:27:32
You have to schedule time to plan if you want
Ren:
00:27:34
to make time to plan.
Ren:
00:27:39
It can be any time, but you do have to schedule the time.
Ren:
00:27:42
Another thing that's really useful is to do a brain
Ren:
00:27:46
dump or- they call it something different in the
Ren:
00:27:50
bullet journaling book and I've forgotten what it is.
Ren:
00:27:52
Take all of the thoughts and ideas in your head and
Ren:
00:27:55
get them down onto paper.
Ren:
00:27:57
Uh, daily or weekly or as needed basically.
Ren:
00:28:03
And you can translate this into your to-do list.
Ren:
00:28:05
But the thing to remember here is that not every
Ren:
00:28:09
single thing in your brain needs to actually
Ren:
00:28:11
go on your to-do list.
Ren:
00:28:12
So get all of those things out of your head
Ren:
00:28:14
and onto the paper.
Ren:
00:28:18
Now that doesn't mean that they're all going to go
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00:28:19
on your weekly or even your monthly to-do list.
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00:28:22
Some of those things are things that you
Ren:
00:28:25
can just cross out.
Ren:
00:28:26
And if it's really that important, then it will
Ren:
00:28:29
come up again later.
Ren:
00:28:30
If it's important to you, then write it down
Ren:
00:28:32
on a master to do list.
Ren:
00:28:34
If it's important for you to do this week, then put it
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00:28:35
on your weekly to do list.
Ren:
00:28:38
But otherwise, if it's something that
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00:28:40
you might like to do.
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00:28:41
But you're not really sure.
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00:28:43
You can go ahead and cross it off.
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00:28:45
Knowing that when you become sure.
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00:28:48
It will come up again.
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00:28:50
Remember the idea of getting these things out is so
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00:28:52
that they're your, so that your brain is not trying
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00:28:54
to hold onto them anymore.
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00:28:56
And so if you're telling yourself at the time,
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00:28:59
like this is not important enough to hold on to
Ren:
00:29:02
like I've written it down and I've assessed it.
Ren:
00:29:04
And I know that it's not that important right now that
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00:29:07
also can help your help your brain actually let go of it.
Ren:
00:29:13
So when you're doing the brain dump, what can help is
Ren:
00:29:15
to think about the buckets of your life and the tasks that
Ren:
00:29:20
you need to do for each one.
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00:29:21
It could be like home or personal.
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00:29:25
Family, work, friends, school, et cetera.
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00:29:28
Once you have a big to-do list, you can also go back and
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00:29:32
assign any to do items to one or more of these buckets, and
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00:29:37
if it doesn't fit anywhere, then that's kind of a good
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00:29:41
sign that you might not want it on your list at all.
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00:29:46
This is a system that I've been working with recently.
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00:29:48
And I'll talk more about that in the future, but basically
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00:29:52
I've been narrowing my life down to the things that I
Ren:
00:29:57
actually find most important.
Ren:
00:29:59
And if I have a thing that doesn't fit into those things,
Ren:
00:30:02
then I have to decide if either there's something
Ren:
00:30:05
important in my life that I just forgot about, or if it's
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00:30:10
not important, it doesn't need to be on the list at all.
Ren:
00:30:16
When it comes to these different kinds of
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00:30:17
buckets, if color coding, isn't really your thing.
Ren:
00:30:20
You can use a different kind of code like
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00:30:22
symbols or signifiers.
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00:30:24
Just columns or boxes to divide them up, et cetera.
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00:30:29
There are lots of ways to separate your tasks without
Ren:
00:30:32
using the multicolored pen, but also multicolor
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00:30:35
pens are awesome.
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00:30:39
Next, feel free to sketch out your plan on a sheet
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00:30:43
of paper or in a rocket book that you can erase
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00:30:45
or whatever, before you commit it into your planner.
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00:30:49
There's nothing that says that you have to put everything
Ren:
00:30:51
directly into your planner.
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00:30:52
Although erasable pens, like the friction pens you
Ren:
00:30:55
use in the rocket book are really great for using in
Ren:
00:30:59
your planners and will allow you to move things around.
Ren:
00:31:02
If you're a nineties kid like me, you probably already
Ren:
00:31:05
know that erasable pens are a thing, but it's worth noting
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00:31:10
that today's erasable pens are not the erasable pens of
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00:31:14
our childhoods and the ones that are out now actually
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00:31:18
work really, really well.
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00:31:20
They are friction based and basically
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00:31:22
they erase with heat.
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00:31:23
So, um, don't leave your notebook in your car on a hot.
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00:31:29
If, uh, if you're using these erasable pens.
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00:31:34
But the other thing is just, don't be afraid
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00:31:35
to make mistakes.
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00:31:37
One really good tip that I have heard is to go to like
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00:31:40
the last page in your notebook and create a pen test page.
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00:31:45
I got that tip from Little Coffee Fox, or
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00:31:48
a grid spacing page.
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00:31:50
If you start with something kind of ugly and just purely
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00:31:52
functional from the very beginning, you'll feel less
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00:31:55
paralyzed when it comes to messing something up later on.
Ren:
00:32:01
A lot of times we are held up, especially if you do go
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00:32:05
and buy a little bit of a nicer notebook, or if you
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00:32:09
already have that stash of notebooks, uh, sitting on
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00:32:14
your desk somewhere that you haven't been using because
Ren:
00:32:19
they are too nice to use.
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00:32:22
This is a way that you can kind of get over
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00:32:26
that initial hump of just being afraid of messing up
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00:32:31
before you ever even start.
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00:32:33
So you can outline and stuff in pencil, you can sketch it
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00:32:39
as a practice beforehand, but eventually you're gonna have
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00:32:43
to just commit to something.
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00:32:44
You'll make mistakes and that's okay.
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00:32:48
Remember we are practicing imperfection here.
Ren:
00:32:53
Being imperfect is part of the goal, which means that every
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00:32:56
time you make a little bit of a mistake, you're actually
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00:32:58
succeeding at that goal.
Ren:
00:33:00
Next thing.
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00:33:01
If your current planner style isn't quite working, or if
Ren:
00:33:07
it's feeling too stale, try something new on the next
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00:33:12
page, instead of just trying to push through and stick with
Ren:
00:33:17
what you're already doing.
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00:33:19
You don't wanna fix what isn't broken.
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00:33:22
So if your system is working for you, then don't mess with
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00:33:26
it just because you think you're supposed to, but also
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00:33:30
don't hold on something just because it used to work.
Ren:
00:33:34
That is something that I've seen a lot in myself
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00:33:37
and other people that they have a planner system
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00:33:41
that works really well for them for a while.
Ren:
00:33:43
And then it stops working and they see a problem there, and
Ren:
00:33:48
there is a problem there, but they think that it's a problem
Ren:
00:33:52
with them and that they need to change theirselves so that
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00:33:55
their system works again.
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00:33:57
Instead of seeing that, the problem is that
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00:33:58
their system isn't working for them anymore.
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00:34:02
If you're using a pre-printed planner, that can be a little
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00:34:06
bit more difficult than if you're using something like
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00:34:08
a bullet journal or even just a kind of more free
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00:34:11
form planner that lets you do whatever you want in there.
Ren:
00:34:15
But if you think of your pages more, as suggestions
Ren:
00:34:19
than actual rules that you have to stick by, um, then
Ren:
00:34:23
you could still go along with this, you can cover up
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00:34:28
the labels that are already there with some washi tape
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00:34:30
or some, some white out and ignore the parts that aren't
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00:34:35
working for you anymore, or just change them to something
Ren:
00:34:38
that does work for you.
Ren:
00:34:40
Okay, one other suggestion.
Ren:
00:34:42
This is not going to apply to everyone, but I'm just
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00:34:45
going to throw it out there because it is something
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00:34:47
that works for me is to use art in your journal.
Ren:
00:34:51
Yes, this is a technique and it can be used to your
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00:34:55
advantage, but it can be to your disadvantage as well.
Ren:
00:34:59
So if it's not something that's gonna work for
Ren:
00:35:01
you, just don't do it.
Ren:
00:35:03
Just keep your planner strictly for planning.
Ren:
00:35:07
Even if you're interested in art, you can put
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00:35:10
your art somewhere else.
Ren:
00:35:13
It doesn't have to be in your planner just because
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00:35:16
that's something that some people like me do.
Ren:
00:35:19
They can be two completely different things.
Ren:
00:35:21
Or if you're not interested in art at all, then
Ren:
00:35:24
you're allowed to have a planner that's just for
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00:35:27
function without art in it.
Ren:
00:35:28
That is fine.
Ren:
00:35:30
I have noticed that the bullet journal.
Ren:
00:35:33
Who are most in favor of the completely messy utilitarian
Ren:
00:35:39
style are actual artists
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00:35:42
like professional artists who have just scribbled notes
Ren:
00:35:47
in a spiral bound notebook.
Ren:
00:35:49
And these are usually the people who will be most
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00:35:52
adamant about how unnecessary art is in a bullet journal.
Ren:
00:35:55
This may seem counterintuitive at first because the bullet
Ren:
00:36:00
journalers who are known for having the really
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00:36:02
extravagant, beautiful spreads, like Little Coffee
Ren:
00:36:06
Fox, who I just mentioned are also professional artists.
Ren:
00:36:10
Um, but I think it actually makes perfect sense.
Ren:
00:36:13
These people already have their outlet for
Ren:
00:36:17
artistic expression.
Ren:
00:36:19
And so feeling like their productivity tool is yet
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00:36:26
another place where they're expected to perform is
Ren:
00:36:30
understandably overwhelming.
Ren:
00:36:31
Sometimes you want something where you can just let it
Ren:
00:36:36
be messy and not have to worry about how it looks.
Ren:
00:36:39
They're already getting their creative expression
Ren:
00:36:42
somewhere else.
Ren:
00:36:43
So they don't need to have it in their journal as well.
Ren:
00:36:46
But some artists do like to include art in
Ren:
00:36:49
their bullet journals.
Ren:
00:36:50
And actually don't think of it as a place that they
Ren:
00:36:54
have to perform, but rather is just a place where their
Ren:
00:36:57
art can just be for them.
Ren:
00:36:59
It isn't expected to meet some kind of standard or
Ren:
00:37:04
cater to their audience.
Ren:
00:37:05
It's something that is just for their own benefit.
Ren:
00:37:08
Basically artists, aren't a monolith on this, but most
Ren:
00:37:12
of the people who I've seen say that you shouldn't use
Ren:
00:37:17
art in your bullet journal are people who are making art
Ren:
00:37:20
somewhere else in their lives.
Ren:
00:37:23
So I think that that is worth considering.
Ren:
00:37:26
For the rest of us who don't have other artistic outlets,
Ren:
00:37:29
the bullet journal, or your planner can be a really
Ren:
00:37:32
great place to experiment and learn new things, but
Ren:
00:37:35
only if that's something that you're interested in.
Ren:
00:37:38
I need art in my planner because art was something
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00:37:41
missing from my life.
Ren:
00:37:43
If that isn't a problem for you, don't take on an
Ren:
00:37:46
artistic obligation just because you're think you
Ren:
00:37:48
think you're supposed to.
Ren:
00:37:49
And it's also worth noting that some weeks
Ren:
00:37:53
I do very little art in my journal at all.
Ren:
00:37:57
And some weeks I leave the page completely blank.
Ren:
00:38:02
One of the things that I like about having that weekly
Ren:
00:38:06
planner that's already laid out for me is that I never
Ren:
00:38:09
feel the need to make any kind of layout artistic or not.
Ren:
00:38:16
If I don't get around to it at the beginning of the week,
Ren:
00:38:20
it's already done for me and I can go ahead and use.
Ren:
00:38:23
And maybe I decide to put art in it later.
Ren:
00:38:25
Maybe I don't, but either way I have something that I
Ren:
00:38:28
can use without having to set something up ahead of time.
Ren:
00:38:31
And that can be where people get kind of tripped
Ren:
00:38:35
up, keeping up with art in their bullet journal.
Ren:
00:38:38
Monday comes around, you haven't set up your weekly
Ren:
00:38:41
spread and because you've been making it artistic, it
Ren:
00:38:44
feels weird to kind of just write the days of the week on
Ren:
00:38:49
the page and let it be messy and ugly because it doesn't
Ren:
00:38:54
live up to the standards of the rest of journal that
Ren:
00:38:58
you've been working on.
Ren:
00:39:01
So you have to figure out a balance there where if
Ren:
00:39:04
you want to put art in it to make you inspired,
Ren:
00:39:08
to make you excited to come to your notebook,
Ren:
00:39:11
that's a great thing.
Ren:
00:39:13
But you definitely don't want it to feel like an
Ren:
00:39:18
obligation that you're barely keeping up with week to week.
Ren:
00:39:23
If you are interested in using art, let it work for you.
Ren:
00:39:28
Using weekly or monthly themes can be a good way
Ren:
00:39:32
to inject some novelty into a system that's already
Ren:
00:39:35
working, but maybe just feeling a little bit tired.
Ren:
00:39:38
You don't have to revamp your whole system.
Ren:
00:39:40
You can just add a little bit of flair into
Ren:
00:39:43
it and stickers count.
Ren:
00:39:46
Taping stuff in counts.
Ren:
00:39:48
Just using a colored pen can be nice.
Ren:
00:39:51
It doesn't have to be.
Ren:
00:39:53
learning to watercolor or learning to draw or doing
Ren:
00:40:00
anything intensely artistic.
Ren:
00:40:03
It can just be putting little bits of visual
Ren:
00:40:07
interest into your planner.
Ren:
00:40:09
One thing that bullet journaling is really
Ren:
00:40:11
known for aside from the art is habit trackers.
Ren:
00:40:17
Bullet journalers and social media journaling influencers
Ren:
00:40:24
have made habit trackers, a really popular thing,
Ren:
00:40:26
and it makes it seem like that's a really fundamental
Ren:
00:40:31
part of bullet journaling.
Ren:
00:40:32
And it's just not.
Ren:
00:40:35
It is something that you absolutely can include
Ren:
00:40:39
to whatever extent that you're interested in and
Ren:
00:40:42
that it actually helps you.
Ren:
00:40:45
But I am in favor of using more checklists
Ren:
00:40:49
and fewer habit trackers.
Ren:
00:40:53
If you'll look over the rolling weeklies that
Ren:
00:40:55
I was talking about.
Ren:
00:40:57
They look a lot like the kinds of habit trackers
Ren:
00:41:02
that people make, the less artistic kinds of habit
Ren:
00:41:06
trackers that people make.
Ren:
00:41:07
But the real difference between trackers versus
Ren:
00:41:12
checklists is that a tracker is keeping track when you
Ren:
00:41:18
are doing something, whereas checklists are just there to
Ren:
00:41:21
remind you to do the thing.
Ren:
00:41:24
So checklists are providing proactive assistance so
Ren:
00:41:28
that you can get these things done whereas trackers
Ren:
00:41:32
are retroactively looking at and just seeing if
Ren:
00:41:37
you have done the thing.
Ren:
00:41:39
Trackers are meant to motivate you through guilt or shame,
Ren:
00:41:44
or even just the threat of guilt or shame, that if you
Ren:
00:41:52
miss a day that you have done something wrong or that you
Ren:
00:41:57
better not miss a day, because you'll mess up your streak!
Ren:
00:42:00
Then you can see when you succeeded or when you failed.
Ren:
00:42:05
If you're having a really hard time with those kinds
Ren:
00:42:09
of things in the first place, like thinking of yourself
Ren:
00:42:12
as a failure, trackers may not be as motivating
Ren:
00:42:15
as you expect them to be.
Ren:
00:42:18
I use checklists and the ones that I use are completely
Ren:
00:42:24
just neutral as far as any kind of success, failure,
Ren:
00:42:30
morality or whatever.
Ren:
00:42:31
I can look over it and I can see like, oh shit, I forgot to
Ren:
00:42:35
take my vitamins this morning.
Ren:
00:42:37
I'm not beating myself up for not having that habit
Ren:
00:42:40
of taking the vitamin or anything like that.
Ren:
00:42:42
It just reminds me that I need to take it or that
Ren:
00:42:44
I need to definitely make sure I take it tomorrow
Ren:
00:42:46
because I didn't do it today.
Ren:
00:42:48
It's basically the difference between having a friend
Ren:
00:42:50
or a loved one come over in the morning and saying,
Ren:
00:42:53
Hey, remember to go work out right now versus having
Ren:
00:42:57
them come over at the end of the day and saying,
Ren:
00:42:59
"oh, Hey, did you work out?
Ren:
00:43:00
No.
Ren:
00:43:01
Hmm.
Ren:
00:43:02
Okay."
Ren:
00:43:03
Or even, "Hey, did you work out today?
Ren:
00:43:07
Oh yeah, that's great.
Ren:
00:43:08
Better not forget tomorrow..."
Ren:
00:43:12
Trackers certainly can provide some amount of reminding
Ren:
00:43:18
as well, if they are on a page where you're going
Ren:
00:43:23
to automatically see them.
Ren:
00:43:24
And it's not something that you only look at once at
Ren:
00:43:27
the end of the day, which is how a lot of people use
Ren:
00:43:30
them is they're on their own separate pages, you flip
Ren:
00:43:32
to it at the end of the day and you fill in the things
Ren:
00:43:34
that you did and didn't do.
Ren:
00:43:37
I just think that it's something that we need
Ren:
00:43:40
to be careful with because they can end up
Ren:
00:43:43
being demotivating, not.
Ren:
00:43:46
For tracking, but for using the planner at all.
Ren:
00:43:53
That said I do make my own habit tracker kind of thing.
Ren:
00:44:02
It's on my Ko-fi page.
Ren:
00:44:03
There are some free versions and, um, some paid
Ren:
00:44:08
versions that you can try.
Ren:
00:44:11
The way that my habit maps work is that you
Ren:
00:44:17
fill it out every day that you do it and that
Ren:
00:44:23
there are no skipped days.
Ren:
00:44:26
If you do it today, you put an X in the, the next square.
Ren:
00:44:30
If you don't do it tomorrow, there's no X, but the next
Ren:
00:44:35
time you do it, you can just put an X in the next square.
Ren:
00:44:40
So it's not about how often you do it close
Ren:
00:44:43
together, it's just about making progress each time.
Ren:
00:44:47
It's a lot like bullet journaling in
Ren:
00:44:51
general in that way.
Ren:
00:44:53
If you, you know, stop using it for a whole month, even
Ren:
00:44:56
you're gonna open it up and just turn to the next page.
Ren:
00:44:59
There's not gonna be, uh, a lot of unused space in there
Ren:
00:45:03
from the days that you missed.
Ren:
00:45:07
And also the habit maps are dungeon maps and that's cool.
Ren:
00:45:12
The one thing that I do think can be kind of
Ren:
00:45:17
useful for trackers is not habits, but just things
Ren:
00:45:23
where you're trying to keep some information
Ren:
00:45:25
instead of motivation.
Ren:
00:45:31
So that would be things like tracking your
Ren:
00:45:32
migraine headaches or potentially tracking
Ren:
00:45:38
when you take your meds.
Ren:
00:45:41
Medication that you have to take daily should probably
Ren:
00:45:43
be in a checklist and remind you to take it daily.
Ren:
00:45:46
Whereas something that you only take as needed, you
Ren:
00:45:52
can put it in an information tracker, so that you'll
Ren:
00:45:55
have that information of, um, you know, when you got
Ren:
00:46:00
a headache, when you had to take your medicine, when
Ren:
00:46:03
your period started and ended that kind of stuff.
Ren:
00:46:06
That's not stuff that you're trying to do, just
Ren:
00:46:09
stuff about yourself that you're trying to remember
Ren:
00:46:12
and maybe make use of that information at some point.
Ren:
00:46:17
If your habit trackers ever make you feel like you're
Ren:
00:46:19
failing, then that means that they are failing you.
Ren:
00:46:24
Future you is a pal.
Ren:
00:46:27
You always need to take care of your future self
Ren:
00:46:30
that applies here as well as everywhere else.
Ren:
00:46:34
Don't set up a planner system meant to punish future you for
Ren:
00:46:37
not being a totally different person from present you.
Ren:
00:46:41
Let this apply to your art and to the complexity of your
Ren:
00:46:45
spreads that you set up too.
Ren:
00:46:47
Don't expect future you to keep up with ambitions
Ren:
00:46:51
that present you can literally only dream about.
Ren:
00:46:54
That takes me to my final point.
Ren:
00:46:58
I've given you a whole list of ideas and
Ren:
00:47:01
techniques and things here.
Ren:
00:47:03
You might want to check the show notes or the blog
Ren:
00:47:06
post about this, where you can actually see all of
Ren:
00:47:08
the stuff kind of laid out.
Ren:
00:47:11
The last thing is to just kind address the risk of getting
Ren:
00:47:15
into aspirational planning.
Ren:
00:47:21
You don't wanna get too hung up on trying to
Ren:
00:47:23
make the perfect system, routine, plan, schedule,
Ren:
00:47:28
et cetera, ahead of time.
Ren:
00:47:31
Doing that and trying to figure out what the best
Ren:
00:47:34
thing is before you get started and setting up a lot
Ren:
00:47:37
of complicated, elaborate, spreads and lists and all
Ren:
00:47:43
trackers, all those kinds of things is not really planning
Ren:
00:47:47
for your current life.
Ren:
00:47:49
You're trying to guess what this fantasy version
Ren:
00:47:52
of yourself would want.
Ren:
00:47:56
But if you are trying to get to that point, you really
Ren:
00:47:59
need to become that person first, and then they can
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just tell you what they want.
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Start with something simple.
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Start with one of those first four things, your
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schedule with just one or two things on it.
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Your time blocking with a few blocks in the day for
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different kinds of activities.
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Your to-do lists that you can choose when you
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do each kind of thing.
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Or your intentions for the day with a list of the
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kinds of things associated with each intention.
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Start with just one of those four things and then add new
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things in as you see the need.
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Once you get kind of used to doing this very simple kind
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of planning, you'll see more where it is lacking and what
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it needs to spice it up, or to make it work better for you.
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And note that I am saying this as a person who has like
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seven different planners.
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For me, this is my hobby.
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Like I said, I have a day of the week that is really
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just dedicated to doing planners and journal stuff.
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And this is just something that I love.
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So, yeah, I have a more complicated system than
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I would recommend to other people who are
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just getting started.
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But the important thing for me to always remember is when
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I'm not in a place where I can keep up with all of the
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different stuff at once, I know exactly what it is
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that I'm still going to find time for every single day.
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That is the Hobonichi weeks that has my like
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main planner in it.
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And it is my daily journal that has my just long
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form journaling in it.
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I will do those two things every day, even if I don't
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do any of my other planners for weeks at a time.
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You might end up falling down the rabbit hole
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too, but keep the basics simple at the beginning.
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It's easy to add and edit and adapt and iterate over time.
