My dad was a planner, and I don’t just mean that he had goals and planned how to implement them. My dad was the king of time management. A business owner and environmental planner, he had figured out how to attend all his meetings, write long sections of documents, and generally review and edit documents that were hundreds of pages long while attending softball games, being the Scoutmaster of the local scouting troop, and still being present for us. For him, that included starting his day going through his tasks and meetings and prioritizing what needed to be done.
He did teach this to my siblings and me—we all got some version of the time management lecture so we can figure out how to get our homework done, do our extracurricular activities, and still have a life. I look at us now and I’m in awe of how much all three of us are actually able to accomplish in a day, let alone a week or a month.
While I don’t know how my siblings have organized work and adulting and family, I’ve generally done OK, I think. Most of the time, I can track my tasks, know their priorities, and understand everything that needs to happen to get them done. I still use a day planner and create to do lists by project; this is particularly helpful when there’s a lot to do. I track tasks, however, by week, not by day. By the time I walk in the office door, I h have a list of the tasks that I want to get done each day.
However, in the last six months, I’ve felt less and less able to track my tasks and my progress, my deadlines and my priorities. The weekly planner I’ve used the last couple years has served me well, but there’s not enough room in it for my work tasks, let alone my personal projects. There are so many projects with conflicting priorities that it’s getting more and more difficult to track them and make sure things get done.
And, the last couple weeks in particular, I’m overwhelmed. I’m behind on all deadlines and things that I need to do, which is, of course, hindering my ability to do my own writing. Barbara has taken over (which she has a tendency to do) and the others are having trouble coming to the surface. Even on weekends, it’s a struggle to balance catching up on work for my day job, relaxing, and working on my own projects. Last weekend, I spent a few hours in the library doing research, but it meant that very little of my own writing got done.
So, I’m leveling up and getting a day planner that will help me track all my work tasks, blog and social media posts, exercise and health-related tasks, personal writing, household management tasks that are still mine (my husband has taken up most of them, but I’ve still got a few), and somehow go outside, make friends, and have fun. It’ll be a daily planner, not a weekly planner, and I’ll have to take a page from my dad’s book and spend 10–20 minutes a couple times a day getting my life organized.
There’s a lot, and I’m overwhelmed, but at least I still feel like I can handle it all—I just need to be more organized. The new day planner has been ordered and should arrive this week. The hope is that, by this time next month, I’ll be better able to handle it all. In the meantime, I’ll be over here, frazzled and plugging away, trying to get everything done.
Thanks for the Dad shout out. Organization is necessary, but don’t follow my 5 hr per night sleep routine during all that juggling!😎