These days, it seems, I’m always juggling just a bit more than I can handle. If I happen to have some free time, I like to fill it with more things. I know this isn’t quite optimal. I’m a human being, not the terminator. I need time to rest, relax and let go to be at my best.
I also know when I’m resting the things I’ve been focused on start to gel and connect in my mind. New ideas arise when they have time to mulch and grow.
So when I heard Jordan Harbinger talk on the Essentialism podcast about his weekly planning I was very interested. At the end of each week, by Sunday night, he blocks out time in the next week. He includes blocks for free time, rest, chatting with people, and family. He also uses fifteen minute blocks which seems reasonable to me. Sometime last year I had read “Atomic Habits” which talked logging everything I do to the minute. I undertand the point, but it was a big commitment, and a little overwhelming. A fifteen minute block is closer to a bite size morsel, an amuse bouche of time. Not too big, not too small.
This is all well and good. But of course I’ve tried planning out my weeks in advance before. Who hasn’t? So what’s new as I’m approaching it this time?
I have a better awareness of a habit I have for turning schedules into a cudgel or stockade. Something to both lock myself into and beat myself with, which I know does not work.
What I’m suspicious will work, is more bite size morsels, this time for the planning itself. Something to start off this new habit that can be done easily. Something bite sized schedule-wise could be to simply simply planning out the first hour each day, or even the first fifteen minutes. The idea here is to get in the habit of sitting down and doing some scheduling each week, and to grow the habit from there.
timmyr.com 