How I organise my life

Since I got a permanent part time position at work (whoo!), I’ve started organising my week in a more structured way. And since I LOVE planning and organising, I thought I’d share with you how I stay on top of things.

1. Daily planner
My planner is one of my most precious possessions. My whole life is in it. I like to write down absolutely everything in it, from meetings with friends to what I’m going to have for lunch, work related stuff, blog posts, as well as lists of things I need to remember in the long run (places to eat, wish lists etc). So every morning after breakfast I sit down and make sure I have a very detailed to-do list for that particular day.

2. Break it down
Instead of having ONE BIG TASK, for me it’s less daunting to have lots of small tasks instead. This way I know it’s going to take me less time to cover them and I can tick them off my list quicker throughout the day, which is going to make me feel accomplished. So for example on days when I know I have to write my book, instead of “Write book” I will enter “Write this particular scene”, or “Write at least 1000 words”, which are tasks I know I can finish by the end of the day.

3. Weekly planner
Since my planner is daily, it’s not visually easy to have an idea of what my entire week looks like. So I made myself a colour-coded weekly plan that is very straightforward and reminds me when I need to do what. This is currently in digital form because I still have to figure out if the current setup is actually going to work (I'm fairly sure I won't make it to yoga that often!), so I needed a platform that’s easy to tweak until I settle on a permanent plan - then I'll probably print it out and stick it on my wall.

4. Monthly planner
Finally, I make myself a calendar every month (I like to design this myself instead of using a pre-made calendar because this way I can use up some of all the scrap paper I’ve got, plus I’m sure I have enough space to fit all my activities in). On here I’m not too precise about what I have to do, I’ll just jot down the main activity of the day, like “Send newsletter”, or “Blog post”, without specifying the topic or what time I need to do that. I also use my monthly planner to keep track of the days I exercise (so I can make sure I'm not slacking around too much) and the days I don't spend any money (if I'm doing a No Spend Challenge).

5. Big projects
For all the things that I don’t have do on a particular day but I still need to do at some point, I have a very fancy piece of scrap paper where I keep a list of my “big projects”. This is also quite approximate (it includes entries like, “Think about that short story you have to submit in June”, or “Books plane tickets”). If and when things become urgent I’ll move them to my other planners.

6. Write in multiple places
Since writing things helps me remember them, I write my tasks in more than just one place. Although different tasks are allocated to different planners, sometimes the do overlap. I might also write the same list twice in one place: for example on my daily planner I’ll quickly jot down the things I have to do that day as they come to mind, but then I’ll grab a sticky note and write them down again in order of priority or time.

7. Have it all out
Once I’ve written down all the tasks I have to do for the longest period of time possible, I stick everything on my wall. I have a wall next to my desk that’s exclusively designated to holding all my reminders. These include pretty much everything except my daily planner: my monthly calendar is on there, my book word count (I’m almost half way through!), my Big Projects reminder, 2018 goals, self-motivation PostIts and a bunch of other sticky notes than constantly come and go.

And this, my friends, is how I make sure I’m pretty much always on top of things. 
I freaking love planning and I kick ass at it, however I do struggle to actually get things done once I've planned them. But guess what? A post on that is coming soon. So stay tuned and until next week!