5 Facts About Planning My Time

5 FACTS ABOUT PLANNING MY TIME

Last week I talked about my planning process, which you can find here, and this week I'm going to be giving you five facts about how I go about planning my time. These five facts posts have been really well received and so I thought I would delve into my process a little more!

FACT #1: I USE PAPER AND DIGITAL
I know that a lot of you will have seen my planner. I post photos of it all the time on my Instagram and will keep you all updated on what's on the plan for the week and such, but I don't only rely on that. I also use the ipad calender app because it allows me to plan a lot more in advance without having to worry about things changing. It's easier to correct and easier for me to see far ahead to deadlines and the like that I'll need to be thinking about. I will always do my paper planner before the month starts, but I have some idea of where things like chapters and such are going to fall in months upcoming.

FACT #2: I SET ONE THING A DAY MOSTLY
I say mostly, because there are some days when I'll plan to do more. Like the day I'm writing this is very much an end of the month admin day. I'll be doing vlog scripts, blog posts, and if I haven't already, the monthly spread for the coming month. Usually I do the vlog scripts on a different day when I'm just needing to revise, but other times they all end up on the same day. The same applies to recording days. I do the video, but I'll also revise chapters because I generally know that I can cope with all of that in one day. It doesn't happen all the time, but I try to spread out my work as evenly as possible.

FACT #3: I HAVE SOME FLEXIBILITY
While the planner is obviously written in pen, I do like to leave myself room in case something comes up. Like in May I had emergency surgery on the 1st, the planner was already done and I didn't want to just not do things at all. It wasn't major surgery, just a small one for an infection, and so I made sure that I had days when I could push myself, if possible, to do a little bit more than I normally would so that everything all went smoothly. It's not always possible to do that, but sometimes it is. Another example, last Christmas I didn't give myself any days off around the big days because I figured I'd get the work done early. In the end I had to take Boxing Day off and spent the rest of the month catching up, and it worked fine for me.

FACT #4: FOR THE PLANNER, I'LL PENCIL IT ALL IN BEFORE DOING THE PENS
I do this because that way if things change, if something comes up, I can still easily switch things around. I make sure to give myself enough time to do that and have time to really think about the workload for that month before I commit to it. The last thing I wanna do is go straight in with pen and then have to scrap the whole month. I adore my planner, and I'm a bit of a neat freak when it comes to crossing things out. I don't wanna do it unless I absolutely have to!

FACT #5: I COLOUR-CODE
If you've seen my spreads on Instagram then you already know this. I will colour code for projects and types of work. Like drafting, because I do two at once, one book is pink, the other is purple. Green is for admin and recovering, orange for revision, black for things that aren't work related, and blue is always for the youtube watching that I do. It doesn't just make it easy on the eye, but it also allows me to, at a glance know when certain things will be happening. I do it to a lesser extent on the ipad, but the same principle applies. I wanna know what I've gotta get done when and having it coded in colours just makes that a whole lot easier.

So there we go, those are my five facts about planning my time. If you have any questions, or topics you'd like me to cover in this series, then lemme know in the comments!

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