Why Bother With a Daily Plan

How life has changed!

COVID-19 along with a heart problem (mostly solved by a Cyborg...um...pacemaker) had me at home, working in the home office.

I was in front of my laptop every day. So I did work planning in a bullet journal dotted notebook with drawn in monthlies and weeklies with no planner issues.

I planned my personal life with Google calendar (on laptop and on my Galaxy 9 cell) and the Microsoft to do list app (also available on my laptop and cell phone).

I planned, but I didn't do stuff. Not having a personal planner was a disaster.

The problem with not making a daily or weekly plan on paper is mostly no follow-through.

Daily Planner Page on a Rocketbook Fusion

Oh, sure, I showed up at doctors' appointments. But since I never had to recopy something or think about how timing would work, I often forgot about tasks.

Without a paper planner, home-based tasks were never getting done even though I was always home.

Bringing anything with me that needed to come along - the recycling to drop off or the list of meds to the doctor - was a hard no. I had no real plan using just electronics, just a list. I wasn't considering how I'd fit in my tasks or how to balance my day.

But I really didn't want a planner or journal. First, with my heart failing a bit (again, pre-Cyborg) I was fuzzy on appointments and absolutely needed the alarm on my phone. Second, I could barely carry my body, much less a huge notebook, without fainting.

Y'all, it was touch-and-go for a few months. I know many of my fans noticed me not blogging over the last couple of years, as my child and I got sicker and sicker. We are both much better now, but it became obvious that things had to change to make it work. For him, a new epilepsy med. For me, the pacemaker. For everyone - a new planner plan!

None of this means the tips I've always given don't work. They do, and I use old planner tips and tricks every day. Go exploring on my blog.

But slipping from my routine of a daily plan meant I lost something important.

Daily planning forces thinking. 

Thinking was seriously missing from my day and that missing piece caused catastrophes.

For now, I'm using the Rocketbook Fusion Executive size reusable notebook. I'm a lefty and it smudges, so I'm not that impressed, but it's light to carry, which is a big consideration while I recover from Cyborg Surgery. And it's endlessly customizable.

The details when I write out the plan are the magic that makes daily planning worth it. For example, the schedule shows I have a mammogram, but the details list that my special pacemaker scar cream can't be used until after the mammogram. I would have never remembered that without a written plan and might have wasted a trip into town for the procedure. 

When making your daily plan, use that time to think about how to structure your day.

It's not about how the plan looks today, but how it functions! I'm ready to be back to functioning, and as I start to share more of that here, I hope you'll come back with me.

Etcetera.

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*BONUS CONTENT - NOTES FROM THE PIC*

##WORDS## is how Rocketbook knows where to file my picture of the plan when I take a picture from the Rocketbook app. Rocketbook is an endlessly reusable notebook using Frixion pens, but backs up with the app.

I needed more space between appointments. When I made my plan the next day, I fixed that. 

I use a lot of codes. L = Loki (my kid's name), for example. @ means after (like after my husband does his part).

My DUE list was mandatory. My TASKS list was full of goals that might need to be recopied.

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