Confession time: I’m foolish for not preparing my Supernote templates to sell before creating this series. But the first (and last part) of the year is the best time to share about planning, and I didn’t finish organizing and packaging the templates beforehand. Likely a missed opportunity for all, but it’s on the agenda for now.
I’ll have extra-special options for you that won’t only apply to Supernote tablet owners (what I show throughout this planning series) coming later this year.
Thanks!
I’ll cut right to the chase.
This is so simple I feel stupid even sharing it. But just like with the surprising, appreciative email responses I received around the “Energy-Level Thinking & Planning” post, I’m hopeful this next practice can be super-useful to even a few of you.
Here it goes:
Create a habit-focused workflow for yourself to review every [insert the best time of day for you here]. Before you begin work or a personal project, sit down with your planning tool of choice. And check-in with each area of importance in your work and/or life.
I told you it was stupid-simple.
Okay, it sounds simple enough, but building yourself up to the daily practice is the hard part. First, let's discuss habit creation (plus a few personal, adjusted examples).
Create habits you can actually keep up with.
Samuel Thomas Davies created a solid summary of James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits.* But to borrow from the full summary here:
A(n atomic) habit is a regular practice or routine that is not only small and easy to do, but is also the source of incredible power; a component of the system of compound growth.
Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change.
Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.
My habits before Covid-infection weren’t bad or wrong for me. But I found that some habits needed to get broken down further. And some just needed to move to different scheduled days, etc.
As I've grown and changed, I added some new habits, too.
For example: My pre-Covid infection habit for my (own) laundry. It had me running dirty clothes and putting them away two days a week—both actions occurring on the same day. My change post-Covid infection was to run my laundry on one day. (I wait until my behind-the-door, hanging laundry hamper-bag* gets full and run it then.) While that’s in the washer, I pull up digital bullet journal's daily page, and on the following day, I write “Put away laundry” as a task. I'll write for an hour, then when done, I load the clean items from the washer into the dryer. And as long as nobody else's hampers need running, I just leave the dang clothes in the dryer overnight. (Thankfully my clothes don't wrinkle if left for less than 48 hours.)
Now, I’m less stressed. And by pre-deciding to split laundry day in two, clean laundry isn’t sitting around in a basket anymore. (At least mine isn’t...)
Another simple-change example regards caring for my plants. I used to mist all my over-30 plants every single morning before sitting down to work. Post-Covid infection, I split it up: I mist the tropical plants on Mondays and Saturdays, and all the plants on Wednesdays. I’m pleased to report that the plants haven't died and they seem perfectly content.
Another plant-related change was that I used to have “Watering & Plant Care Day” on Saturdays. But I found that I can’t concentrate like I used to, and using a weekend (when my whole family is home) to filtered-water-only care for my 30+ plants ate up a potential family day. So now I moved Plant Care Day to Wednesdays, and spend an hour buckling down to complete the often mammoth task.