How do you organise your time?

[charmy]

Hi everyone!

So, I've had a bit of a busy week recently - lots of work and things to do. I often find myself short of time and then stressing out about everything because I want to meet those deadlines. It doesn't help that I'm super forgetful too!

Hence, I was wondering, how does everyone organise their time? Do you plan out a schedule for your day? Do you just go with the flow? Do you keep a diary or notes on your desk for reminders?

I've been trying to organise things better but I am terrible at keeping diaries! I have tried multiple times but I keep forgetting to use them (or I leave them at home). Perhaps I can learn something from everyone

 

[Belazor et Britannia]

How do you organise your time?

Poorly



Usually, what I'll do is write myself design notes for whatever product update I'm doing, or if I'm getting ready to sit down with a massive workload I'll structure it out in lists. You don't need to write an essay that takes longer than the actual work itself, here's what I do:

Doing this has major benefits over just going with the flow:

1. You don't feel as overwhelmed when you have a set of list entries. It lets you say "right, this is what I have to do, no more and no less". Your eyes are much better at realising the true amount of work you have to do than your brain is.
2. You get to tick off list items. If you have a list of 10 items and you've ticked 7 of them, that triggers the "aw yiss almost done" response and gives you a second wind.
3. If for whatever reason you don't finish all of your work, you won't forget what you were doing or what you were meant to do.

 

[charmy]

Poorly

Maybe this is the norm and I'm just overthinking things!

I really like the idea of the lists though! I feel overwhelmed sometimes just by thinking about all the things I have to do. Makes me less motivated to start. At least this way it seems less daunting.

If you had different tasks to do (assuming there wasn't a priority for one), would you start with the quickest ones to finish first? Or save them for the end of the day when you may be more tired?

 

[Belazor et Britannia]

Maybe this is the norm and I'm just overthinking things!

Time management is one of those life skills that should be taught in school, along with negotiation and doing your taxes, but it isn't because we surely need the ability to analyse the deeper meaning behind The Catcher in the Rye more than we need those skills.

For some reason.

I really like the idea of the lists though! I feel overwhelmed sometimes just by thinking about all the things I have to do. Makes me less motivated to start. At least this way it seems less daunting.

Yup, that's why lists are a good idea. Make the points as short as you can, but long enough that you'll instantly know what it means if you have to come back to it a week later. You'll get better at writing the lists as time goes on.

If you had different tasks to do (assuming there wasn't a priority for one), would you start with the quickest ones to finish first? Or save them for the end of the day when you may be more tired?

That depends entirely on the type of task. Mostly I write lists for programming stuff, and there's usually a general flow I need to take (e.g. can't create product management without first having created the category management system since products go in categories, etc).

That being said, everything I know about motivation suggests you should do the quickest tasks first. Once you get started, it's much easier to keep going, getting started is half the battle. Getting shit done feels good too, so you get the reward of completing tasks quicker than if you tried to start with the big task, where it's easier to quit halfway through.

 

[charmy]

Time management is one of those life skills that should be taught in school, along with negotiation and doing your taxes, but it isn't because we surely need the ability to analyse the deeper meaning behind The Catcher in the Rye more than we need those skills.

For some reason.

Oh, I could rant about this for a bit. . . but I'll stick with managing my time for now

Yup, that's why lists are a good idea. Make the points as short as you can, but long enough that you'll instantly know what it means if you have to come back to it a week later. You'll get better at writing the lists as time goes on.

Thanks for the advice I'll give this a go and hopefully I can stick to it.

 

[Christofuru]

Hi everyone!

So, I've had a bit of a busy week recently - lots of work and things to do. I often find myself short of time and then stressing out about everything because I want to meet those deadlines. It doesn't help that I'm super forgetful too!

Hence, I was wondering, how does everyone organise their time? Do you plan out a schedule for your day? Do you just go with the flow? Do you keep a diary or notes on your desk for reminders?

I've been trying to organise things better but I am terrible at keeping diaries! I have tried multiple times but I keep forgetting to use them (or I leave them at home). Perhaps I can learn something from everyone

I put an Alarm reminder on my mobile with the descrption for the things i have to do (but i only put important things)

 

[Belazor et Britannia]

Oh, I could rant about this for a bit. . . but I'll stick with managing my time for now

I hated that book so much I only got 4 chapters in before I said fuck it and Wiki'd the rest

Although joke's on me because I guess I did need it, since I use it as an example of how school curricula are out of date

Thanks for the advice I'll give this a go and hopefully I can stick to it.

Let me know how you get on

Feel free to slide into them DMs either here or on Discord if you have any specific questions you don't want to post in public or somesuch.

 

[charmy]

I put an Alarm reminder on my mobile with the descrption for the things i have to do (but i only put important things)

I do use alarms sometimes as reminders for other things (e.g., drink water), but it doesn't always work for me. I guess it's because I'm one of those people that prefers to see things on paper rather than electronically.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

 

[Christofuru]

haha u is amazing, "put an alarm to drink water" i'm your fan haha good luck with your organization.

 

[Six]

@charmy Pen and paper has my preference as well. It might be an idea for you to look up the Bullet Journal system (became popular by Ryder Caroll) but it's obviously been around for a longer time. Be warned, can be a rabbit hole if you are into stationery.

http://bulletjournal.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/bulletjournal

 

[charmy]

haha u is amazing, "put an alarm to drink water" i'm your fan haha good luck with your organization.

Hahaha, it does sound kind of silly, doesn't it? But it's true! I am terrible at drinking water. I used to get lightheaded and dizzy a lot, so was told to drink more water because of dehydration. So yes, I need reminders for my own health too

@Six Thanks for the links! I have been looking into bullet journaling and was browsing different examples and templates. This helps! I do love stationary - gives me reason to buy more

 

[Christofuru]

Hahaha, it does sound kind of silly, doesn't it? But it's true! I am terrible at drinking water. I used to get lightheaded and dizzy a lot, so was told to drink more water because of dehydration. So yes, I need reminders for my own health too

@Six Thanks for the links! I have been looking into bullet journaling and was browsing different examples and templates. This helps! I do love stationary - gives me reason to buy more

But u right ! A lot of people forget to drink water !!

 

[Mitsuki]

Oh my gosh, I could write an essay about this topic. But I must keep myself calm and composed...

Yes, I bullet journal as well, but I haven’t been as active as I would like these past few months. My penchant for writing is strong though, so I have a Jibun Techo planner. I introduced it to my husband who’s not into writing in the first place, but he loves it and uses it everyday for documenting his cases at work.

I love the Jibun Techo (it’s somewhat similar to Hobonichi) and have bought accessories for it, including its own dedicated leather cover traveler’s notebook from Chic Sparrow.

Traveler’s Notebook. Yes, it’s a thing! I love this system soooooo much! It’s fully customizable and...

Okay, I’ll stop for now.

 

[JivelyGames]

Hmmm! This is a very good thread. I'm working on my time management for my content creation these days and this gives me something very important to think about.

Currently I've been spending most of my off-work time editing and improving on my OBS scenes, using a video editor called Lightworks to create YT videos out of the stream content, making thumbnails and logos and other artwork (takes a long time to make good ones since I'm not practiced like many people here on the forums, but it gets done at least!), not to mention a core component of running a good stream is keeping a regular schedule. However, MOST of my time is spent on the stream itself and, actually just spending raw thinking time about what I need to do to take my content to the new level of quality with every new video/stream.

As far as the time management for all this goes, it's hard to say. Besides trying to keep the stream schedule regular, I mainly just always keep working on it and do what I think I should be doing from hour to hour. I'm getting better and my goal now is to get fast enough at my content editing so I can consistently upload a new video each day. I would say my time management is pretty poor and is one of the primary things I need to get better at to improve my work.

I'm still pretty new at content creation for now, but I will be constantly keeping this in mind and will definitely post here again when I've improved some more and have more to say on the matter.

 

[charmy]

I love the Jibun Techo (it’s somewhat similar to Hobonichi) and have bought accessories for it, including its own dedicated leather cover traveler’s notebook from Chic Sparrow.

Why have I not heard of the Jibun Techo before?! It looks amazing! I love all the accessories you can add to it and how additional notes and things fit with the design. Definitely want one of these for next year. Thanks for introducing me to this!

@JivelyGames Sounds like you have quite the busy schedule! I definitely have an appreciation for people who keep up regular streams. I know it can be hard work! Hope you get some ideas for time management from this thread too

 

[Jake]

Extremely poorly, too, haha.

I have a diary that I use to jot down the most important things; I try to have a set idea of what I want to achieve in a day and from there it's just going with the flow. I also use lots and lots of post-it notes everywhere with deadlines and reminders and stuff. I found the most effective place is to put them on the mirror and on the fridge door.

That way you can't escape / forget

 

[Miko]

I have a series of dry erase boards for various uses, time management being the biggest one. When I'm working things get a little hectic and my husband and I seem to respond good to lists. Now that I'm off work it's more like a future plans / honeydo list.

I took a picture of my dirty board that's on my fridge because I wanted to show you guys my super giraffe!

Don't mind the snowman paper list. That's the grocery list - it's empty because we just went shopping.

 

[Daenoxiis]

Mostly according to my work schedule. I'm a "business before pleasure" kind of a guy. I start with my work schedule, and organize my responsibilities thereafter: Paying bills, doing chores, and then grocery shopping. I try to wiggle in a little bit of personal time at the end of the day every day before bed for mental clarity reasons. The idea and goal is to get all of my adult responsibilities done on the days I work either before or after work, so that when I get to my days off that I have a couple days of free time to myself....and I will fight like a motherfucker to make that happen, too. Like I will go shopping at 3:00 or 4:00 A.M. at a 24-hour grocery supercenter if I have to. I enjoy my downtime. However, I enjoy having it responsibly

 

[Miko]

I can't believe 2019 me posted that ugly, dirty dry-erase board. Blah!

My time is organized a bit differently now, though mostly through strategically placed sticky notes. In the past if I wrote stuff down it seemed to set in my brain, but this last year+ my memory hasn't been nearly as good as it used to be. Not sure if it's because I have more things to worry about or if it's just because I'm turning 25 for the fiftieth time again this year.

Bullet Journaling - I'm trying, I really am. I like being organized that way, I think it also goes along with my need to simply just write things down in a way of setting it into my brain, but I'm having issues getting beyond the setup part. There's something satisfying about sitting down and just recording things, but also having something to reference. I usually write stuff down on a calendar we have hanging up but it isn't always utilized, but I'm hoping this will be the year I officially stick to my journal

 

[Bambi]

Very poorly!! I tend to leave everything til i have no choice its a terrible character flaw and one that will never change despite my saying everytime i stress myself out for leaving everything last minute as usual that i will be more organised next time