Definitely made good progress from yesterday to today! I utilized as many productivity processes that I could think of and here are the ones that I settled with.
Notion Template
I use a year – month – week – day Notion template. I was trying really hard to find it, but the template gallery has been really hard to work with. I’ll link it back here when I’ve gotten it together.
In essence, I get a year overview, then I get a monthly direction thing that I can set for myself, including personal goals and reflections, then I have a weekly log for weekly goals, and the finally a daily log with a journal and reflection space as well. Honestly if I was unemployed, or pursuing arts purely, I might use that template in a real life journal for me to track myself.
Bullet Journal
I also use a bullet journal, the minimal and highly functional type. This gives me an overview of the month/year and I know that I can use it for daily tasks, but sometimes I just don’t have the space to carry this on me. I try to use it at the end or at the start of the day specifically.
My template follows the most basic bullet journal layout, from the guys themselves: https://bulletjournal.com/pages/learn. I made a tweak for two portions: my monthly log has my full work schedule inside, and instead of goals, I’ve placed my habit tracker on the right hand side. This is because my daily tasks don’t usually follow through, and I don’t really track them on my bullet journal. Or at least I haven’t the past two years.
Within the space next to the date and day, I have 4 slots of time, which are expanded on the right of it. It’s indicative of morning, afternoon, evening, and night. This came mostly because my work has flexible hours, except for some non negotiable slots, so I have to track my working slots specifically. Usually I plonk in the mandatory ones first, then I will fill the space as I go along the day.
On the right side, the habit tracker is really for my own noting. I find that noting it this way works better than using a digital tracker, which I also have. I think its the process of taking the bullet journal out that makes it a very intentional tracking process. Also I don’t get distracted by texts and emails on my bullet journal.
Past Year Review
Lastly, I’ve used Tim Ferriss Past Year Review for this year round. It’s an interesting process to think through the year past, and I’ve come up with some things that I really want to do more of, and some things that I should really avoid. Because of that, I’ve also intentionally included things like skateboarding, or reading into my schedule
It’s more of an internal process than anything else, but that determines your set of actions that you choose to take daily. One of the key things that I’ve really been annoyed with and I want to avoid is the obligatory meetings that I need to attend. To skip out on something that I actually need to be present for sounds ridiculous, but I’ve decided to draw and to create during those meetings. My hands can practice as my mind wanders a bit, and hopefully it will end up being a productive time for myself.
Hopefully these thoughts and processes were helpful. I think it’s made me come up with one of the most intentional posts I’ve ever written here.