“Schedule obsessed…”
Shared by Breanne Smedley
Last Spring, I was introduced to the concept of a Bullet Journal.
Basically, it’s an organizational system that helps you keep track of everything in your life.
Everything from mapping out key dates in the year, month, week, and day to tracking habits, and taking notes.
There are symbols to indicate what type of information you’re entering. Dots for “tasks,” circles for “events” and dashes for “notes.”
Then another system of symbols to indicate if tasks have been completed, migrated to another day or canceled.
The aspect that I love the most is the weekly planner. Every Sunday, I map out the coming week.
I first task dump all the things I need to do that week into four categories: Personal, School, Volleyball, Mindfluent Leadership.
Then, I create a box for each day of the week, with a timeline running down the page vertically, starting at 5am and ending at 8pm.
I then fill in all my scheduled meetings, appointments, and events for each day on the timeline.
From there, I fill in the times I’m going to work out every day. Then block off time to read/write, and complete daily tasks.
When I can look at my week at a glance, I can then add tasks to the days that make the most sense to complete them on.
The last thing I complete is a habit tracker. Depending on the habits I’m trying to create for myself, I will fill in things like: Drink 75oz Water, Meditate, Exercise, No phone in bed.
There is a space for each day where I can check off if I completed that habit for that day.
Yep, that little hit of dopamine that I get from checking off a completed habit, or task-I’ll take it!
I’ve noticed a trend.
When I complete my bullet journal, I get sh*t done!
I’m checking off tasks, time-blocking when I need to complete deep work (and not worrying about it until it happens), and staying consistent with my habits.
The first two weeks of January were like this. My habits were consistent. I was a task-completing machine.
Then, the third week hit. I didn’t complete my weekly plan on Sunday.
No problem, I thought. I’ve been consistent with my habits. I can remember when my appointments are. I know what I need to get done this week.
I’m going to try this “go with the flow” style of planning!
Monday was fine, just like I anticipated. Then, Tuesday I woke up a little late and threw off my morning routine a bit, and didn’t have time to meditate. But, everything else was good.
Then Thursday rolled around and I forgot that I had an appointment in Beaverton until a couple of hours before I was supposed to be there.
By the time Friday hit, I felt like having a rest day and skipped my workout.
Nothing major, but definitely not as productive as the weeks prior.
Fast forward into this week, and I’m feeling stressed, and struggling to get through the days.
I haven’t completed my morning routine once.
I’m worried about all the work I need to complete this week because I haven’t set a plan for when I’m going to complete it.
It’s a classic case of experiencing “success,” and then becoming complacent.
I see it all the time on teams. Coaches and players spend years building culture, habits, and systems. Then they have that breakthrough season, make it to the post-season, or state.
The following year, they expect it will just happen like that again. And let all the intentional effort that got the team there in the first place slide a little bit.
It’s the process that brings us to success, and the process is what we need to keep going back to.
So, for me, the process of planning out my weeks and time-blocking my schedule is what I need to get back to.
Because, as I heard recently,
“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.”
#MindfullyEvolving
#DaringlyResilient
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