How I plan when I'm not at work

By Design Team Member - Robyn Dexter-Attwood

 

Planning when not at work

This is a topic where I am still exploring and experimenting. As a teacher, there are a number of weeks within the year where I am not at work which has always given me a bit of a headache when it comes to planning. Before discovering Passion Planner, I just reverted to one week pages in my bullet journal or no white space spreads in my Erin Condren. However with the Passion Planner this presents more of a challenge given the timelines. In this blog, I am going to share with you a few of the different ways I have tried to plan during non-work periods.

Colour blocking

This is where I initially started. I colour blocked different parts of my schedule with the different things that were going on. I just continued this but without work. This has also morphed into matching the colours to the stickers I am using at the time.

Stickers

This is the obvious one - using stickers to fill time with different things and allowing them to take up as much or as little time as I wanted. When trying this, I also tried to use checklists to mark three tasks I wanted to get done that day and use the early hours of the morning when I wouldnt be awake! I love the look of this and the summer I started doing this is probably when I really truly fell in love with Passion Planner and using stickers in it!

Journalling

This has morphed quite a lot over time. Initially, I started using the space around my sticker spreads to add journal comments. More recently, I have used a larger amount of the timeline space to journal.I even covered over the timelines with washi to hide them, although the timelines I think are ingrained!

Ignoring time altogether?

This is fairly new, but something that I am quite enjoying. As I write this, I have been signed off work, a concern of which was work is an anchor to my routine and I was worried about how this might have an effect on my ability to recover. To support this I have sectioned of the day into common areas:

Morning routine time (at about the correct time on the timelines)

To do space for up to three things I want to do

An out and about space to record what activity I have done (I have been told I need to get out and at least go for a walk each day)

A section to record something that I have done for me that day

Meals.

A space for anything else I want to record.

I know one suggestion I have had is to not use an hourly planner. The one thing I haven’t got used to yet is ignoring the timelines an even when I tried covering them with washi, I still can’t help but vaguely time out my day. For me, an hourly planner is a positive tool to help manage my life and health and so I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon!

 

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