When planning our day, we often forget that we are human, not machines.
u/AmbitiousNothing6577 — 17 hours ago
u/AmbitiousNothing6577
Simple daily planning
I want to share my method of daily planning that allows you to have a productive yet relaxed day.
I divide the day into 3 blocks:
🪻WANT🪻
Tasks related to your desires that don’t require energy, but actually restore it. These can be morning rituals like meditation, reading relaxing literature, or going to the beach. In my digital notebook, I mark these tasks with purple checkboxes.
🧪MUST🧪
These are tasks with deadlines, and their completion affects not only you but other people as well. Mostly, these are work-related tasks. I mark them with yellow checkboxes.
⛰️GROW⛰️
So that the day has depth and internal growth.These are tasks that require effort, but after completing them, meaning and goals appear. This could be learning a foreign language, studying technical literature, or training concentration. Here, I chose sage-green checkboxes.
◈ ═══════════════ ◈
If you highlight each type of task with its own color, it immediately becomes clear which ones dominate during the day, for example only “must” or almost no “want” and “grow.” This helps to quickly notice imbalance.
I don’t make more than 10 tasks in my daily planning, practice has shown that I can’t complete more. And I’m not obligated to finish all tasks every day; the main thing is to complete at least one from each category, that’s when harmony appears in the day.
u/AmbitiousNothing6577 — 18 hours ago
Fast does not mean to hurry.
Today I had a job interview planned. Instead of calmly preparing, I suddenly became too serious, started worrying that I hadn’t gone to the store yet, and also felt “not ready enough” for the interview. My focus dropped, and my mood became heavy and slowed down. From the desire to do everything, I seemed to freeze in place.
And then I remembered a live stream of a business woman. She was cooking a complex vegetarian salad for about 40 minutes. At the end she said that she had 5 minutes left before an important business call. But she was not rushing at all. She calmly added nuts on top of the salad, talked about where they came from and what benefits they have. There was no tension or rush, she finished the stream just as calmly and softly.
For me this is a role model of how I want to behave when time is tight. I no longer want to panic, even if I am late for important meetings.
I also remembered another example from my past job. I remembered my former colleague from a Korean cafe. When I worked part time as a cook, I tried to move faster, but instead created a feeling of rush. My colleague told me, “Sit and watch.” She started moving smoothly, almost slowly, but at the same time made several dishes for clients in a short time, and said to me, fast does not mean to hurry.
☾ 🐾✧
With this post I want to encourage you to live and work at your own comfortable pace. Even if you feel slow, there is no need to force yourself to speed up. You can move calmly and still reach your goal.
Even if you are like a snail, just sit on your leaf and let the wind gently carry you to where you need to be.
Have you ever had situations when you or someone else acted unhurried, but in the end everything was done quickly?
Or what helps you slow down when panic starts to grow inside because of lack of time?
Your examples can become support for those who right now are trying to survive in a crazy pace and need to allow themselves to slow down.
u/AmbitiousNothing6577 — 18 days ago
Stop putting work first.
I made this kind of "golden daily template" for every day. I check off with a tick what I completed. The plan includes not only tasks aimed at solving work or household issues, but also tasks that mentally replenish me and make me stronger, for example reading, sports, and meditation.
Without this plan I often forgot that besides spending energy, you also need to remember to accumulate it. I highlighted the most important tasks in pink. And yes, for me these are not work tasks, but food and exercise. It is commonly believed that work is the priority that does not tolerate being late. But then why should sports or eating have to tolerate it? I think this way of setting priorities is wrong.
That is why I am looking for a job where I will have time every day both to train and to cook food. I am not going to sacrifice sports or my eating routine. If the conditions turn out to be unsuitable and I cannot combine these things, I will quit and find a place with a more normal schedule.
I want to gather different approaches, if you’re open to it, share your planners.
u/AmbitiousNothing6577 — 19 days ago
Is it true that planning kills the feeling of freedom?
If I’m honest, I’m afraid of becoming a “nerd” when it comes to creating too many systems and a daily routine. There is a fear that if I start planning everything by days and weeks, the feeling of freedom will disappear. I think many people feel the same. That’s why I believe a post that reflects on this topic could be useful for many people.
I would like to show through my own example that it is possible to remain relaxed and free even if the day is planned in advance. For me, a system for the day is not only a schedule, but also a way to generate energy. If I include sport and reading in it, it feels like I am creating space for rest and recovery in advance.
Right now I want to build a system for four areas of my life:
reading, work, sport, and cleaning.
☾ 🐾✧
Today I started with one area, reading.
Sometimes it is useful to return to books that I have already read. To remember which thoughts from them were important, and which ideas I tried to apply in practice. I would also like to share my thoughts about a book in a digital diary. This will help fix the knowledge I received.
So I created a separate space in my digital notebook.
A folder called “Books”. Inside it there will be notes about what I have read.
☾ 🐾✧
Each book is a separate note. But all notes will have the same structure. I made one “golden template” that I will simply copy into a new note and fill in after reading.
To make it easier to navigate, I add a small visual code to the note title. It helps to immediately understand what type of book it is.
🪐 Fiction ⫸ Fiction books (for the soul and personal growth)
📎 Work ⫸ Professional literature, sales, and management
🔮 Spirit ⫸ Spirituality, mindfulness, philosophy
Inside the note I insert my template.
☁️ State
Where I am now: page 45 of 210
Rhythm: reading in the morning with coffee and condensed milk
🔑 Key thoughts from the book …
🌈 My thoughts about what I read …
This is enough to quickly find the needed book through search by any word, even if many of them accumulate over time.
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How do you keep track of the books you read.
Do you write down your thoughts from books somewhere?
Or how do you manage not to forget ideas from useful books.
How do you preserve inspiring thoughts and carry them with you through the years?
u/AmbitiousNothing6577 — 22 days ago