When I was first married, I noticed that my mother-in-law had a great way of planning her week. She would take a piece of plain paper and fold it in half one way and in four the other way so that there were eight spaces. Then she would label the squares with the days of the week and have an extra square for notes.
I copied her and used this method for years. And it worked very well for me. I could also make notes on the back if I needed more room to write. It was easy to use and easy to carry around.
I remembered this method yesterday after spending hours trying to organize myself on paper. I was trying to make something fancy on the computer. It just wasn’t coming together the way I wanted. And I realized that I was making it too complicated. I even have a beautiful, expensive planner that I use regularly. I don’t know why I was trying to improve what I already had.
Anyway, I finally gave up discouraged and decided that making it more complicated won’t make it better. I will stick with my lovely planner. It works just fine.
However, I am excited about something I discovered about prioritizing my daily tasks. Books I have read through the years have said to put the most important things in a top priority status, and then a lower level, and lower, and so on. Some say three levels is enough. Others encourage more levels. Then there might even be sub-levels within each level. It could be very complicated. None of it ever clicked with me. I guess I just couldn’t visualize it working in my life.
I ended up coming up with the same plan unknowingly, thinking it was something brand new that would work with how I do things. I thought I should make three lists of tasks for the day. The first list would be things I have to get done or there will be unpleasant consequences. This would be a short list. It would include things like appointments or to get a birthday card in the mail before it is late. The second list would be things I really hope to get done. This could include things like call my mom or declutter a drawer. And the final list would be things I would like to do and can do if I get the first two lists done.
I’m excited about this way of prioritizing because it just makes sense to me. I feel silly that it took me this long to figure out how to implement prioritizing tasks but… oh well! I feel sure this will be an improvement instead of haphazardly working my way through my list of tasks.