A simple, daily practice (to help you progress)

And maybe even keep you motivated.

Jan 24, 2023

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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.

And this is just what I could fit in one photo… and only in the main living space. Yes, I have a “problem.” But I love them.

On Wednesday morning, I mist all the plants first thing. Then, I make sure the Berkey water filtration system* is full/fill it preparing for the afternoon's watering. Right before watering the plants, I fill the Berkey again to create a (somewhat stressful) deadline for myself. (Since installing two more filters—now four, total—the upper, tap-water tank drains into the lower, filtered tank twice as fast as before. So if I don’t finish the plant-watering job before the lower tank is empty (meaning: I’ve watered the plants), then the lower tank overflows…

This might be an extreme task-management method, but dang, does it work for me.

And, now, I don’t miss Plant Care Day anymore = not-dehydrated plants.

Create habits that count.

What habits do you need to maintain in your work, life, etc.? What needs to get done daily, weekly, or monthly?

What habits do you need to progress?

Through research, James Clear established that, on average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic—66 days to be exact.1

(To note: I count this daily practice as one habit, even if you're adding, say, 6 new tracking "sections" to your routine.)

Now, let’s get into the components of what makes up my simple, daily practice to help you progress in work and in life.

I’ll deep-dive on each of the mentioned pages/notebook sections another time, but here’s the basic rundown:

Decide: What’s your best method of staying organized?

I’m absolutely a visual person. I need to see what I’m working with (usually) to make progress on projects and such.

The switch to digital from paper planning made that more difficult (to a degree). But I found workarounds.

In this case, I'll add: Don't forget to consider your values and needs.

Switching to digital, for me, was simply because we were drowning in notebooks. Plus, I was so tired of recreating and rewriting the same spreads and tasks over and over and over again.

I prefer small notebooks, which means every one to two months I was moving into a new notebook. I’d record videos of me slowly flipping the pages as a sort of “digital backup.” But seeking information I required from old notebooks was still difficult. And keeping stacks of journals in a “smaller” space with five people in it was problematic, too. (Probably exacerbated because I also have a problem with collecting books and plants…)

With that, there are plenty of visual and more considered-tidy organizational methods to choose from:

a dry-erase board (with sticky notes?) or corkboard

a paper notebook

an online program or app (i.e., Trello, Planner Pro (Apple and Google), OmniFocus, etc.)

an iPad or competing tablet (maybe with GoodNotes or Evernote on it)

an e-ink writing tablet (like the Supernote or reMarkable)

(Anything else you can think of? Please include it in the comments.)

Admittedly, the dry-erase board is my favorite option. Collecting short summaries of all the important pieces onto one board (or multiple ones), plus colorful sticky notes displaying the bits to focus on = Chef’s Kiss.

After stealing a kid's bedroom and converting it into my office in Florida, these 2016 photos showcase two versions of my white-board task and project management displays. (Although looking at this now feels overwhelming... probably all the color.)

But after moving to Seattle and downsizing into half the square-footage of our Florida house, there was no room for boards on the wall anymore. (Also, I tried to streamline our shared spaces to create a calming effect.)

Since, I’ve come up with workarounds which I’ll cover later on. For now, let’s move on to:

Decide: What do you need to know to start every day on “the right foot”?

Back when I did the whole paper bullet journal thing, I’d keep the goals and Preview Planning-type spreads at the beginning of the notebook. Then I’d move onto a Monthly calendar—whether listed or like a standard, grid-calendar. Immediately following, I’d have the Weekly spread, which broke down the major tasks and events of the week in greater detail than the calendar. Then I’d have Daily pages where I’d include the day’s events, day-to-day tasks, what meals and snacks I ate, and notes on the day.

(Did you catch that I re-wrote the same things over and over many times in the same notebook? Yeah. Apparently I like hand-writing so much I’m willing to sacrifice time and hand-energy. No wonder I need surgery for carpal tunnel, nerve damage, and more…)

The repetitive stuff aside, I created a cyclical vacuum with this method of planning and organizing.

With that, I listed the things I know I need to do/review, and easily reference daily:

the Preview Planning pages

a rolling (duplicatable—no more hand-writing the same things over and over again) tasks list—credit to Plant Based Bride on YouTube

a weekly “Goals, Action, and Plan” (GAP—credit to Matt Ragland on YouTube)

a “daily notes” collection where I add some day-specific tasks and take notes on the happenings of the day; a reference-able log, of sorts

a food diary (namely for health reasons, as food is a major trigger for my mast cell condition2)

affirmations (thanks to my therapist)

my writing log

In a paper bullet journal, I may have all these categories organized back-to-back-to-back. But in a digital bullet journal, I have each one in a separate “notebook” in my Supernote.

So, what do you need to track most? What do you need to reference daily?

List those areas out.

Would you have several notebooks or pages to review like I do?

Would, simply, brain dumping the day’s needs into a note on your phone?

Would you pull from an existing list of tasks to isolate the day’s needs?

It’s a personal process and system that you can customize to your needs.

A basic outline of my morning check-in, daily practice.

My morning practice consists of me opening my Supernote tablet’s cover. My screensaver is a screenshot of my Projects page—a regular reminder of what I’m working toward, and a decent white-board replacement.

My notebooks/sections are in a "Planning & Tracking" file, and organized by numbers. From there, every morning I open each necessary notebook to check in and fill in wherever needed.

With the first—the Weekly (GAP)—notebook, I typically only look at the preview page to quick-reference any events. I also refer to pre-drawn weather icons (using the AccuWeather app), remind myself of the week’s goal, etc.
Next, I open the Rolling Tasks list, and review the recurring tasks scheduled for that day. (I’ll go over how I use this another time. For now, you can check out the creator’s version here.)
I just glance at the Monthly (Preview) Plan’s preview image most days. But I mentally note any tasks there that I could tackle that day or another day that week.
Then, I open the Daily Notes notebook and record any day-specific task(s). I'll also take notes on what happened the previous day.
Moving onto the Food Diary, I fill in whatever I ate yesterday: Breakfast (B), Lunch (L), Dinner (D), and Snacks (S).
I swipe to the next section within the file to the Affirmations page. There, I record three “I (am),” positive statements about myself every day. I begrudgingly started this practice after my therapist recommended it. After a few weeks of spotty entries, I finally committed to daily affirmations about 3 months ago. Upon noticing my self-esteem was less fragile—even with the spotty practice, I now dedicate a couple of minutes to come up with something every day. (Although I’m sure there’s been plenty of repeats in the almost one-year practice. That’s okay. It just means I truly believe it about myself. And that’s a fantastic thing.)
And lastly, I record the day-before’s writing project, what I contributed, and how long I wrote for in the Writing Log. This is another motivator, and generally the final step right before I start writing that day. (I often compete with myself by checking how long I wrote for the day before, and challenging myself to go an extra 30 minutes+.)