Grow Your Day

How do you plan your day?

Do you make a list at the start of each day? Then find yourself rolling unfinished items from one day in to the next, and end up with a monster list on a Friday?!😱

Perhaps you use a Bullet Journal? Or a nicely colour coded, electronic list?

Do you even bother planning your day?!

For years I was the queen of planning👸🏻. Yep, really! At one point I was the Financial Planning Manager for a FTSE 100 company.

I’m good at seeing the bigger picture and breaking it down into monthly and weekly actions.

I took that skill in to my personal life. I still have the fancy plastic folder with tabbed sections for the different areas of my life.

But somewhere along the way it started to feel dissatisfying: never getting to the end of those darned lists. Always adding something else on. Rejigging calendars.

In reality Little Miss Perfect was having a field day and I was keeping the chaos at arm’s length…and it takes energy to do that!😴

I tried ditching planning altogether but that didn’t work either. I just ended up feeling crap about not making progress with the things I cared about.

How to create something which felt more fun and easy, AND still get stuff done?

I looked to nature for guidance. Start with the soil. If you want to grow strong, resilient plants you need healthy soil. 

Whereas before, regardless of what system I was using, I used to start at the top with stuff I ‘should’ do – work pretty much was always the first thing I’d note down! – now I get a fresh piece of paper each morning and literally start at the bottom of the page and work up.

First, I write the things I know will make the biggest difference to how I go about my day: my soil. There’ll be meditation, food (planning & prep) and walking in nature on there.

Next I think of one thing that would be about ME. That could be having a bath, or booking a haircut.

Then I make a note of an admin item. There’s usually something that’s shouting for attention. You know the thing you’ve been putting off, like sorting out the dog insurance. The type of items that, if you leave them, build up quickly and you end up feeling like you need a week to catch up.

Finally, I’ll note down 2 – 4 other things to do with areas of my life: parenting, work, friends & family, and home & garden.

Then I get out my diary and phone. I work out when I’ll actually do these things, and I set phone alarm reminders.

There you have it. A simple, low cost, low tech way to grow your day😄.

I invite you to give it a try and see what unfolds.

Love to hear how you get on.

Let’s flourish together!

Arlene x