I’ve started a daily planning routine with a simple 2020 planner. One page per day. One line per half-hour from 8-21:30.
So far it’s carried several tangible benefits with it.
I now have a place to log my daily mobility practice, so I feel a sense of continuous achievement and a “streak” of performance over time.
I’ve got a place to keep track of grease-the-groove movements, which at the moment is dedicated to pull-ups.
It’s a great place to keep track of small notes on how easy or hard specific workouts were (but it’s not the place to keep track of PRs, those belong in a distinct tracker, separate from the daily log).
The most major benefit however, has been an increased clarity about time passing without an active decision on my part about how I’d spend it.
Having a task planner has forced me to set specific monthly goals, so I am more able to prioritise my time, and it’s made it abundantly clear when the time I’ve blocked off to reach my goals has been “stolen” by an activity that did not bring the goal closer. It’s an exercise in focus.
It’s worth noting that I’m not using the planner very far ahead of time, nor am I using it to replace a digital calendar.
Only workouts are jotted down far in advance (only up to 2 weeks at a time). Most tasks end up in the planner on the day they’re being done, often at the time that I commit to doing them.
Hugely important tasks that will get me closer to a core goal are sometimes blocked aside for half a day’s focused work, which I now protect more fiercely than I otherwise would have. So having the planner has reinforced the deflector shield (yay).
When it slips, and time is not marked off, I have to go back, and often I mark the time down with a question mark – clearly showing me that I’ve let things slide, let the current of “urgent” transport me away.
So far the daily planner is an epic investment. Totally worth the time sunk into it.