Planning and re-planning my days (and life in general) is a constant ongoing process. Just like managing teams or a business, the circumstances around me change as soon as I find my groove. Or perhaps I’ve learned something different, better. Maybe I’ve found something else I want to try out, priorities changed, or maybe I’m simply bored and in need of a change.
Unlike settling, this is not a bad thing.
I guess that for some lucky few being in constant sync with goals and how to achieve them comes naturally and things just fall into place. For the rest of the mortals, a healthy dose of critical thinking, visualization, self-loathing, planning and retrying is the way to go.
Here’s how I go about tracking progress, evaluate achievements, and finally the current daily, weekly and monthly planning on January 12th 2024.
Context
Every week there are many things pulling my attention, and conscientiously picking my battles is step 1. On a weekly basis these are, at best, the only things I can ever focus on:
- Family: Nothing beats this.
- Day to day job: Demanding, time consuming and constant attention seeking.
- Work on health, step by step: Ongoing battle to get back to the old days. Diet and exercise on its own could be half-time concern and are already hard to fit into a dynamic schedule. Hence the constant effort to keep a schedule.
- Hobbies: Carving out some “me” time is essential. I have too many interests to mention here but, I’ll only pick and really work on 1 at a time.
- Personal growth: Daily focus
- External family: Friends are the family you choose for yourself and it’s pretty much the only ad-hoc time of any of my days.
Know what you want to achieve
It’s all about visualization and knowing where we want to get, however, trying to be someone we’re not is a recipe for failure. It doesn’t serve me any purpose to base myself on all the people I follow on a day-to-day and try to be an influencer, a public speaker, a personality. That’s just not me.
As such, goals are set based on what I do want to and can achieve, ego aside. It’s not about changing my character, it’s about working on the best version of myself. If in the process something doesn’t fit, it doesn’t make the cut.
Know what you can achieve
The day doesn’t have more than 24h, sadly, so there are choices to be made. I personally focus on high return gains vs time investment to have maximum impact with least amount of time spent.
Going back to the previous topic, I also know myself and I don’t believe life is only about ordeals and overcoming those. Again, that doesn’t fit me. Unlike David Goggins, who I have the utmost respect for, I’m satisfied with “leave something in the tank” and occasionally indulge in life’s pleasures.
Find what fits.
Critical Thinking
A topic on its own, an important, constant and sometimes painful daily check. It’s a forever feedback loop I believe we should all have with ourselves. It’s a personal 1on1 where we examine the past, really process it around the what, why, how and (re)plan in the future.
I found that journaling really helps with this, hence everything you’re reading.
Tracking
A lot of things to juggle requires some form of organization and ideally some key metrics to both keep you motivated and track progress, which on its own is a very powerful triggering mechanism for dopamine.
Today I use three different trackers but I’ve been through many.
- Nirvana
My all time favorite planner tool for most things, from work to personal. It’s a very simple concept that fits almost perfectly into Getting Things Done. I have boards for virtually any topic of my life here. - Productive
Go-to habit tracker where I lay out all my intents and reminders for the day and the week. It keeps me in check, as there are too many things to track, and it’s a great way to look back on progress and ease in new habits. I use this to track pretty much everything from water consumption, supplements, exercise, tenacity, and a daily record of how productive my day has been. The latter really helps me put things into perspective and try to bring my A game every day. - Whoop
It’s an amazing gadget with so many functionalities I don’t even dare to begin to expose. It’s something I use to keep track of my overall physical condition, performance and trends.
Planning
Now to the nitty gritty. As always this is a framework I try to live by, however, things happen and timelines need to be adapted, sometimes things need to be skipped. And for me, that’s fine.
Daily
- 5:00 - Get up & Wake up:
These are two different things. Waking up before getting up can trigger your mind into staying in bed 5 more minutes. - 5:30 - Stretch:
Recently formed daily habit with a very positive impact. - 5:45 - Newsletters time:
Gotta keep up with the Tech trends. - 6:15 - Visualization & Critical thinking:
I have my first cup of coffee here, mind and body are fully awake and the world is asleep. There is so much you can do with this time. - 7:00 Journaling:
Following the above, either organizing thoughts for posterity, or listing thoughts for next session. - 8:00 to 19:00 - Work time:
Hours are flexible here as are the tasks. I tend to be available at most times but these are the sitting in front of the computer staring at a screen hours. - 19:00 - Family time:
Bringing the A game here, always. It’s been 12h of brain (sometimes body) heavy tasks, this is pure bliss. - 21:00 - Reading:
This is probably the most skipped moment as by now the day either went to plan or it didn’t. - 22:00 - Sleep:
There are very few scenarios where I am still awake after 22:00. Either something is going great or very wrong.
Weekly
The weekly goals are spread across the days as planning each day exactly is, well, impossible for my life style and work. I try to achieve the following every week.
- Solid strength workouts 3x week
Thrown somewhere between the 8:00 and 19:00 range. I’m still online most of the time, only gasping. I focus on high intensity compound exercises here and never spend more than 1h training. - Performance 1/2x week
This ticks 2 boxes: Performance and endurance, which are the main focuses of this; And doing something I really ****ing hate. - Hobby
Usually only have time for this at weekends, which are as heavy in planning as the week days. These, however, have to be planned around family, chores and friend times every Friday.
Monthly
Monthly goals are easy:
- Evaluate progress through Whoop / Productive
- Feel good, bad, and adapt planning if necessary
Final thoughts
It’s a lot, but the accomplishment one gets out of being in control of one’s life on its own is worth it. Keep trying, Keep pushing. This is The Way.