Planning, planners, and calendars

Planning, planners, and calendars

11/1/2025

6:22 am

Another new month and another early start to the day.  My thoughts this early morning as I stare at the calendar on the wall. It is still set on August, I keep forgetting to flip it to a new page.

I have been trying to get back to a regular sleep schedule, if possible.  I have insomnia and have never had a regular sleep schedule per se, but sticking to 6 to 7 hours of sleep is the goal.

I woke up to the sound of a message notification from my person at 3 am by then I had already been asleep for 5 hours. We talked for almost an hour and I never went back to sleep. So here I am, writing once more.

Another goal is managing my time, the one thing we wish we had more of.

A few months ago I started following a few YouTube channels that talk about planning, planners, and basic time management. I have read many books on the subject and even attended seminars and workshops about this topic. I used to be one of those Franklin Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People devotee, always carrying my planner and notebooks with me everywhere I went.

Has all of this helped?  Well, frankly, it is still a struggle. I still procrastinate on projects and goals.  It is actually surprising that I have accomplished most things that I set out to do in spite of this.

I possibly have undiagnosed ADHD as an underlying issue but it may also be the major depressive disorder and anxiety. It could also be the idea of planning as this tedious task. The most well thought out and laid out plans are sometimes inflexible, too hard, or overly time consuming. The keyword being time.  It takes time to actually plan things out. Then it takes time to put those plans into action and stay consistent.

We are technically limited throughout the day in completing tasks because of interruptions to that block of time. It could be an unexpected phone call, a previously scheduled appointment, or just procrastination and boredom sets in. 

The one thing that I know that personally helps me get things done is routine and setting up habits that are motivators at the beginning of each day.

These are the habits that I try to maintain.

Morning routine

These are just the basic habits or routines that I have developed over the last 5 years. It is the lack of motivation and procrastination that interferes with this process.

I have written before about breaking down my week and seeing how much free time I had when I was working full time. This was to see how much time I had to work on other things.

Fast forward, 5 years later, I do not work a full time job, and that is all I have, time.  Yet, I still procrastinate and struggle with accomplishing daily tasks.

My family and my person say that I should relax more and not overdo because of my physical limitations but that is the frustrating part. I am not used to living without some sort of structure to my day.  I need some sort of routine even with the limitations. 

I get stressed when my day is not planned out. This is partly due to the depression and anxiety.  Those stressors combined with the sense of self that was built up over time. The ego and pride tied to being a “productive” member of society. 

I have tried planners and calendars in both digital and paper formats but still struggle to maintain it or keep it updated.  I have resorted back to my wall of sticky notes, well not quite a whole wall, a clipboard serves this purpose. 

I have realized over time that I am a multimodal learner. Along with the reading and writing aspect I also need visual clues to keep on track, something tactile that I can physically pick up and handle in conjunction with auditory reminders.  

I have always been this way and combined with the ability to map out and plan things in advance is how I maintained my time management and organizational skills throughout my life and career.  

This multimodal way of learning is how I not only worked a full-time and part time job, ran a side business, volunteered, and maintained a household of five other people with all their various schedules and needs. It is also how I maintained a full college class schedule completing 12 credit hours a semester.  

Some saw this as me being great at “multi-tasking” or this “super mom” but as I went through therapy it became apparent that this so called ability was actually a negative.  My constant “busyness” was a result of the depression, anxiety, and the PTSD. I was avoiding facing some of my mental health issues and instead put them in the background of my every day life. I was stressed to my max before I finally broke. Its been more than a decade of piecing it back together.

Later on, it was through testing that it was also determined that my way of thinking and processing information occurred simultaneously between the “right and left brain”.  This is why I seemed to be able to multi-task without effort. I would creatively and logically think through things quickly while working on other things at the same time.  It is also noted that this idea of your brain being left or right dominant has been challenged and researched then determined to have been incorrect.  Both sides of the brain hemispheres are used for all tasks.

Whenever I am talking about things with my person, he finds it intriguing that I can talk to him on the phone, while texting him things as I have a movie on or while I am working on a project at the same time. I did not realize, until much later in life, that this was not something everyone could do. I assumed this was multi-tasking and everyone did it that way. I have been this way since I was a kid.

As I continue on with setting goals, making plans, and accomplishing tasks I will also continue the effort of planning it all out.  Whether that is an actual paper planner, I have several including ones I created. Utilizing digital planners, digital lists, or reminders on my phone. There is also my many whiteboards and calendars, well when I remember to change it. I have yet to find a system that works completely with how I think and work.  For now, the clipboard with the multi colored sticky notes will do.

I used to be great at planning out other people’s lives and I was just a participant in it. Now, it is just me.  Just me with a lot of time on my daily schedule to fill.  Some days I stay busy from sunup to sundown. Then there are other days I’m in my pajamas watching movies while drinking coffee then napping on and off.  

The question is though, “Is it necessary to be busy from the time you wake up until you go to sleep again?”  Thoughts to ponder.

It is ironic that this takes up so much of my thinking lately considering that I haven’t been that “busy” person since 2013 when I retired from my military career. Then I was no longer married by 2016 and my kids grew up.  Then I finally fully retired from work in 2020.  It has been this long process of change that I was not fully ready to face.  That is the real issue.

No matter how well you plan, dream, or hope for the future, things change in this constant river of time.  We can just go along with it, try to fight against it, but we still have to learn to accept it. 

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Have a wonderful week!

Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!

Suzanne