How-to: Finding Time For Me; a Guide on Daily Planning

Finding time to be intentional about our everyday lives can be one of the most difficult parts of our days. The amount of tasks we try to fit in, be it trying to rest, travel, meal plan, reflect (or as the infamous Grinch states, the time we take for self loathing and wallowing in self pity), can be overwhelming, tiring, and confusing. We aren’t often taught tactics and helpful ways to prioritize ourselves. One way I have learned to be most helpful is through organization and planning.

A big critique I always have had regarding – everything I guess, work, capitalism, the whole nine yards, is that there’s very little room for joy. Each second of our careers is based on endless competition and getting ahead of the next person that we lose a lot of the things we strive for in life. A job that we love, a purpose in our positions, in our everyday lives. It creates environments where each of our lives are based off of the expectation of others and what these big companies feel we should be doing. Most people will dispute that the job we have is just a job, it’s just a position that we have temporarily. But, the amount of time spent inside of an office, working, or brainstorming after hours on how to get ahead shapes us, it tires us, it creates little room for anything else. We are working for 8 hours, prepping for work for at least two, sleeping for another 8, and so on. So theoretically we only have about 4-6 hours a day that focuses on us, on our joy, and on our hobbies. And then many of us are holding our breath waiting for a weekend to catch our breath, but by the time it comes are too tired to do much else.

All of the complaining aside…it became essential for me to learn how to take care of myself. To learn how to take those few hours where I knew my time was limited and turn it into something good. I began to try and do things I loved in my spare time, going bike riding or outside to write, even just taking a walk early on a Saturday morning while everything is still silent to clear my mind a bit. These moments where I was being intentional about my day and creating space for myself and the person I wanted to be made days easier. However, it’s difficult. It’s difficult to take yourself out of a cycle of dislikes and to begin to be intentional about the likes. Especially when so much of your day is fulfilled by something that’s not necessarily optional.

So how’d I do it? I began to lay clear boundaries for myself by creating a schedule. Laying out a clear visual of what my day was going to look like and began to keep myself on track, allowing myself the structure to be intentional about how much time I was spending on each task. This practice might begin to seem a bit rigid for most people, and honestly I understand, but there are many different ways to write in these tasks depending on the type of organizer you are.

So, here goes:

1. Utilize the calendar on your device. Be it a phone, tablet, or laptop, most of these devices have some sort of calendar feature that can help you plan out your day. This method I found was more useful for day to day planning, it helped me with an understanding of my hourly play by play and knowing when I could make time for me. This also helps when needing alerts and reminders about next tasks. The settings for reminders on when to leave or for when a new task was approaching helped me learn how not to get too caught up in one project before it was time to start another. It also helps with creating a fair amount of tasks in one day without overloading.
2. Buy a planner or a journal. Physical sheets of paper helped me with planning ahead. When I need to see what my week or month looks like, having a physical piece of paper works best. I found this also helps most for those who enjoy the little things like crossing off tasks or writing in different colors. There’s so much room for creativity inside of journals that it makes planning fun, it’s also a good way to create time for yourself at the end of the day to sit down and write or plan out what your next day or next few days might look like (this is also a really good reason to put down your devices for a little while).
3. Post-its! Ok – hear me out, this last one is for those of us who don’t know how much we want to commit to and need the freedom of moving some stuff around. This can tend to get a little messy especially depending on how much you have on your plate, but I love this method for when I have a task that I need to jot down some notes for. So, example, “go to grocery store” – I am one of those people who try my darndest to not use my phone in a grocery store. So, I will write the reminder/task but then also create the actual list of what I need to buy when I get there so I can take the post it with me when I go. This way I am taking it off my to-do list and having something tangible to look at when I get there. You can use this method in a planner, journal, or one of those large jumbo calendars everyone seems to love. I have been committed to this method for a while and it never fails me.

Making your days a little easier, a little more organized can help a lot with creating space for yourself. There is not always much we can do to be intentional about our work days and the after of it all, but there is a lot we can do to at least try. Methods of organizing and planning does not always seem like fun, but it helps to make time to get in some fun. If we can spend time scrolling on social media for hours or marathon watching a TV series, then we can make time to go out, get fresh air, and plan out time for self care.

I am not oblivious to the complexities of it all. How draining and difficult things can get. But, writing this out simply makes it so that the answers to a lot of our needs are simple. Organizing, planning, lists, this is all just one tactic, one step to take. I found this to be a great place to start because starting here makes room for the explorers and the creators that we want to be. If in the meantime we need to commit to a lifestyle, a position, to hours, then we should find ways to not let it consume us. To not let the power lie in the hands of the big companies or in the schedules we didn’t choose or create.