I ordered my planner yesterday after watching this chick Amanda on You Tube who evidently does nothing on there but review planners and planning methods. She was extraordinarily helpful and I highly recommend.
It was between Laurel Denise and Erin Condren. I considered getting a large landscape style, like one of those huge old checkbooks, but in the end I chose this from Erin Condren:
These are customizable planners and I chose a vertical orientation instead of a horizontal. There is so much room in the boxes that I think it will work well. (I considered getting another brand that actually ordered the day down to 15 min increments, but that is too weird/restrictive/scary/boring for me.) I ordered erasable pens and extra stickers, and a couple of inserts.
My purpose is to—Contain myself, i.e. keep myself from doing too much, nudge myself into Focus, and to Simplify.
I want to—
Stop HURRYING. Altogether. I feel hurried so much of the time, really whenever I do housework or cooking or get ready to go out. I feel overwhelmed, too. Because of growing up around my mother there is always a refrain of “Hurry, hurry. Get it done so you can STOP” or “Clean as you go” or “Get a move on!” in my head. “Hurry up, hurry up, time’s a wasting!” But the thing is, I enjoy cleaning very much and I often enjoy cooking very much but instead of gliding into these tasks with contentment, I feel hurried and harried and put upon. And often resentful.
Limit how long I spend doing necessary tasks.
Limit how long I spend working, i.e. making art and/or writing. Art is my “job”; I don’t want to spend so much time doing it that I crowd out other things I want to do, like spending time with Dale or James.
Plan my cooking—Follow recipes and shop accordingly. I want to spend less time, spend less money, and waste less food. I don’t plan so I am often tossing spoiled vegetables into the bin. I don’t follow recipes so a pot of soup that should take 30 mins to put together can take hours—especially because I tend to fly around the house doing other things while I’m cooking, things that would be better if scheduled.
Schedule Regular Tasks such as cleaning, laundry, organizing, doing financials, shopping.
Schedule PLAY. Play is lunch with friends, going to museums/galleries, going for long walks just anywhere, having people over, playing games.
Schedule Downtime, which includes active meditation and bedtime and baths and doing just nothing.
Schedule Movement and keep it simple.
I have never, ever, ever been able to keep a “schedule.” Keeping to a routine, while I am able to make one and stick to it for months at a time, has always been an elusive goal. I’ve been trying since I was a teen.
I am the sort of person who is attracted to Restriction, to all kinds of self-imposed penalties and sabotages. But I don’t have to keep being such a person. I can change. I feel so different at 59, freer, more able. So.
There it is. Happy New Year 2024. That’s happy to you, little march of days, little tickertape of time, little babies waking up little people shutting down. That’s happy to you, sunset and moonrise and twilight falling down and down soft and downy I sleep when my head hits the pillow I never really sleep because I’m always waking up I remember you fierce and yellow mornings first one eye then the other hello, chickens! hello, perpetually-contented bovine cousins, hello, you crisp rows of neon lettuces, hello you soft blue morning garden moths.
`r.
