I’ve been clicking lots of links lately on people’s Bullet Journal Posts. (Here are Never Enough Novel’s review, and Modern Mrs. Darcy’s thoughts, to get you started.) Looking at other people’s time management is a symptom of the crush I’m feeling right now. And yes, part of it is May (it happens every year). Deeper, though, is the fact that I have a job and a half. And laundry and food and acts of kindness. Novels to write and read and phone calls to make, not to mention keeping the house in livable condition. Church and carpools. Plus all the things I like to do in my “spare time.”
So I’ve tried calendar after calendar. Digital, analog. (I’m an analog girl.) Reading other people’s experiences with the bullet journal made me wonder if it was the magic bullet. (Spoiler: not magic for me.)
Guess what. No matter which calendar I use, I still have only 168 hours in the week. Same as you, same as the planning guru who promises me more time if I will just register for her magic webinar.
In the process I’ve learned a few tricks that work for me:
- go to bed at the same time as my husband (which is early), or else I tumble into a stay-up-late, can’t-get-up-early cycle that goes nowhere good.
- write out my calendar on the weekend, before I write the children’s assignments
- make Fridays lighter, since my energy is low by then
- write my exercise is as an appointment, rather than a to-do item (or else it’s too easy to bump it to another day)
- keep everything (appointments, plans, phone calls, dinner prep, to-do items which I write over there on the upper-right hand side) to one page.
That’s right. Keep everything for the whole week to one page. It’s like a visual version of reality: there are only 168 hours in the week, and only one page of notebook paper for all the weeks goings on. Any more than that (no matter how well organized or documented) and we’ll all be sorry. If I’m starting to cramp my handwriting to fit more on the page, I know it’s a sign I need to say “no.” Or at least, “not yet.”
What about you? How do you contain the craziness?
Learning As We Go 
Not really very well.
But we have finally gotten a wall calendar large enough that everyone can write on it.
About once a month when I’m nervous, I make a huge, multicolored list, then I hang it up for reference under the calendar and cross things off (somewhat viciously.)
I’ve been looking at those bullet journals too, but if I had a beautiful new notebook, lets be honest, I’d draw sweaters and zentangles in it. Which is why my zentangle notebook has maps and notes in it, with a few stitch notations.
But I haven’t been late for PT yet, and sometimes that starts at 6AM, and boy oh boy, am I ever feeling better.
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I’m so glad the PT is helping!!
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