Thread by @baph0meat

I've seen you talk about doing weekly scheduling, and I was wondering how you cope when you aren't able to comple… — #iracc the short answer is being flexible w whatever i can! i’ll go into detail in replies so i can show examples ⬇️ curiouscat.qa/baph0meat/post…

disclaimers before i start: i can only talk abt my specific method and i think time management stuff is SO specific and u have to figure out what works for u. but i built my method by observing other ppl’s so i hope u get at least some useful things out of this!

here’s what three actual pages from my planner this week look like. my method is a kind of stripped down version of bullet journaling w color coding, which i’ll break down in a second, and the addition of an hourly list to help w time blindness

yes i literally have to write down what i did hour by hour otherwise if u asked me “what did u do yesterday” i’d be like uhhhhhhhhhhh—
anyway. every friday when i’m done working for the day i sit down and write out what i want to do for the next week in black. black is the Plan

then, each day, what’s written in green is what Actually Happened. on friday i Planned to get up at 9 and be working by 10 — but instead i got sidetracked and didn’t start breakfast until 11 so i scratched out the black Plan in green. this helps me see WHY stuff didn’t get done

stuff written in red is stuff that is time sensitive: either just by default, or because it got put off. my problem, esp w adhd, is that when i fail to do something and keep trying to remind myself, eventually i start ignoring it. writing it in red helps stop that from happening

re: ur specific question, this was a good time to ask this bc i have a perfect example on these 3 pages! note the to-do “finish traditional sketchbook.” i have a physical skb with like 2 pgs left and i wanted to just fill those pgs so i can put it away for good + start a new one

the main thing i take from bullet journaling is the concept of moving to-dos from one day to the next. if it doesn’t get done, i cross it out (in green if i decided to put it off on purpose, in red if i just didn’t get to it/didn’t feel like it) and it moves to a later date

on weds i felt like i had gotten enough done and the sketchbook could wait. i didn’t put it on thurs bc i wanted to focus only on my notes and i knew i wouldn’t have time. so i moved it to friday, in red, to remind myself that it was smth i wanted to have done earlier but put off

and then by friday when it still wasn’t done, i realized the reason it kept getting put off was it just isn’t important enough. i crossed it out in green and made a note so i wouldn’t forget why i decided it wasn’t urgent. which brings up that the core of this is prioritizing!

let’s do an example week with some blank pages to show a better example of how i prioritize (sorry, i’m a planner geek, you’ve Activated me). let’s say this is my fake list of stuff i want done this coming week. i guess i could just use this list, but for me this isn’t v helpful

here’s how i would break these tasks down.
1. BEHIND. this is stuff that’s already stressing me out. it’s Not Okay to put it off any longer.
2. SPECIFIC DAY. my life will be easier if i do this asap (haircut, clean desk) or i already know when i wanna do it (tvrn updates fridays)

and then the third category is stuff where i know i would like to do it this week but either i can’t specifically schedule it (i cant predict when i’ll have the energy to go to the aquarium store) or it isn’t urgent/does not matter when it happens in the week.

my secret for not getting overwhelmed, and not demoralizing myself with a bunch of unchecked to-do’s, is i DO NOT WRITE DOWN THE THIRD CATEGORY when i’m planning my week!!!!!!! i add them in on the day of, in green, if i get my pre-planned stuff done and still have time.

so with that in mind, in this example here’s what the pre-planned week would look like with that to do list. this is what i would write down on friday night for the coming week. on days where i worry i won’t get stuff done or i’ll be stressed, i try to make my day rly structured

but then on weds + thurs i have almost nothing written bc i don’t know what i’ll feel like doing, i don’t know if i’m gonna drop the ball on mon/tues and have to catch up; there’s no reason to write in something super rigid and then feel upset/disappointed if it doesn’t work out

and then let’s simulate how i would handle the reality of a real human week lmao. let’s say monday is a little rough, i don’t get started until 1pm, then i get anxious abt the phone call + i take too long to calm down and miss my chance to do it. it has to be moved to tues in red

on tuesday i do manage to do the phone call but i still don’t have a great day, i Kind Of work on the time sensitive thing that’s stressing me out but not as much as i wanted to. maybe tues-weds would have been when i did some fanart/etc but i decide this is more important

on wednesday of my made up week i had decided to work on that comic that wasn’t urgent, but my wife gets off work early so i decide to go do those errands in the middle of the day. see how not locking my day in makes it feel less like my tasks are cannibalizing each other?

and then friday goes, like, okay i guess; and then by the end of the week, even though that FEELS like i dropped the ball a lot and lost a lot of time.... the stuff that didn’t get done is stuff it was OKAY to drop, so i didn’t get upset and overwhelmed when it didn’t happen

SO as always this was super long winded and rambley and unnecessarily detailed BUT, i hope this helps show that for me the best way to not get upset and stressed when things aren’t running smoothly is to keep things as modular and flexible as i can,

and to try to make sure that if anything has to not get done, that it’s mostly unimportant stuff