I take planning to the extreme; partly because I enjoy it (and don’t like surprises) and also because I have ADHD.
If I don’t write things down and look ahead, things get bad. I’ve shown up for appointments on the wrong week and once had ten people for Christmas dinner with no food in the house.
I must plan.
Planning your time is good self-care because it gives you a clear picture of what’s ahead, so you can relax.
You don’t get surprised by things you forgot to do or rush around at the last minute trying to get them done because you are in control.
Time blocking is an excellent tool for this. You can do it in Google calendar. It gives you a visual of your day or week with your commitments blocked off.
Assign a different color for each category — like home, kids, work, self — and you can instantly see how balanced your life is — or isn’t.
Google blocks off the time for you in the weekly or daily view, so there’s nothing special you have to do.
If you’re more of a paper person, you can do time blocking in your planner too. You can get very creative with colorful markers and stickers while still keeping track of your time. The important thing is that you do it (and don’t get distracted making it pretty).
If you’ve never tracked your time before, you might be in for a surprise: it looks like you have all this free time, but you aren’t getting anything done. Hmmm.
Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog