Scheduled that F---er

I tried scheduling for the first time in a long time today. It worked really well, mostly in the time-boxing elements of the process.

I already had my weekly review process, and my daily planning and review processes. All of these work for me, even though I know they are more rigid / routine than most people want or like to do. The process works for me, gives me a fallback when sh-t hits the fan, and helps me keep going when I just don't want to do anything. I am thankful for the momentum my routines give me when I need to rest.

One can want to do nothing and still do something. That's part of being an adult, that's part of being a responsible functioning member of society, that's part of being a good human, that's part of being able to live a life with fewer regrets than you'd have if you did the nothing you want to do.

So, I have my weekly plan, check-in, and review processes. I have my daily three-things-I'm-going-to-do today tasks. What I didn't have, however, was a plan for finishing all of my daily and weekly tasks. Sure, I'd finish most of the items on my task list, but I wouldn't start until late afternoon, and do everything in the evening and late at night. I know WHY I drifted into this mode, but I didn't have to like it.

So (again!), in the interest of experimenting to find something that works even better for me, I did the one thing I've been resisting for the longest time: I scheduled out my day.

Here are the tasks I'm going to do, and here are the times I am going to do them. If I didn't put it on the calendar or in a time slot, said task wasn't getting done.

You know, more rigidity.

The planning worked though. I stuck to my schedule, didn't have to think much when the time slots switched over, I had already done all the planning, and was able to switch to the next task and finish all of them. I learned that I needed more buffer time between tasks, but that my time estimates were pretty good.

Will I stick to this scheduling? /me looks at the clock, sees 8 minutes remaining for "blog" tasks. Likely. Having an end time is great, time-boxing tasks is great, finishing tasks is great (Kyle Smith is great). The newness of the technique for me might be the key to its effectiveness. We'll see.

For now, however, my sh-- is gettin' done! Keepin' it real!