Staying Focused with a Daily Planner

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I return to my custom daily planner sheets to stay focused, waste less time, make more of my day, and be more productive.

As I’ve aged, I’ve been struggling with productivity. I just can’t seem to do as much in a day as I used to.

The Way Things Were

I remember the height of my writing days. I’d sit down to write a book I was under contract to produce by a certain date. I’d start with an outline or table of contents and I’d sit at my desk for up to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, to knock out the book, chapter by chapter. During that time, I didn’t do much of anything else. But when I was done, I’d take a few weeks to goof off and have fun. That’s when I learned to fly helicopters and did some of my best solo trips. And then I’d get back to work on the next book.

I wrote 85 books from 1991 through 2016. That’s an average of about 3 1/2 books per year. I know that one year, I wrote 10.

In the beginning of my writing career, I also did consulting work, led hands-on computer training classes for a few organizations, and wrote articles for various magazines. Near the end of it, I was juggling flights and clients for my helicopter charter and agricultural services company. I also started a bunch of hobbies, some of which held my interest for years.

But these days, I find myself kind of drifting, spending too much time on social media — don’t we all? — and not getting the things done that I need or want to get done.

Return of the Daily Planner

Daily Planner Page
My Daily Planner form has the sections that work best for me.

A few years ago, when I realized I was struggling with focus, I tried a bunch of different daily planner solutions, finally coming up with my own custom daily planner sheets to meet my needs. I printed a bunch of planner pages up, put them in a looseleaf binder on my kitchen countertop, and started each day by planning it out.

The planner pages have several sections:

  • Heading. This is simple: just the date and day of the week. What’s odd is that since going freelance in 1990, I haven’t had “weekends” the way other people do. I always worked when there was work to do and did personal things or goofed off when there wasn’t. The only time weekends meant anything after 1990 was when I was married to a man chained to a M-F, 9-5 business schedule. My weekends were his weekends. Fortunately, I have’t had to deal with that for a long time. But I still specify what day of the week it is because there are certain things I can’t do on weekends, like make calls to certain businesses.
  • Priorities for Today. This is three lines with check boxes for the things I think are very important to get done that day. I usually have at least one item I put in this section.
  • To-Do List. This is 17 lines with check boxes for other things I want to get done that day. I try to fill this up with specific achievable tasks in no particular order. And yes, sometimes I put very easy things on the list; this ensures I check something off that day.
  • For Tomorrow. This is four lines with check boxes for things I don’t necessarily want to do that day but should get done the next day or soon.
  • Schedule. This is a box with half-hour time slots starting at 5 AM and ending at 8:30 PM. I use this area two ways:
    • Appointment schedule. If I have a known appointment or task that need to be done at a certain time, I block it in, along with any travel time. This can be telephone or video calls, doctor or vet appointments, or lunch dates. Anything that I have to do at a specific time.
    • Time Use. I fill in the space around any appointments with how I’ve actually spent that time as the day goes on. For example, it’ll take me about an hour to write this blog post so that’ll be plugged in at the 7:30 to 8:30 slot: “Blog about planner.” This makes me conscious of how I spend my time and how I waste it.
  • Health. The health section lets me log water intake — I don’t get thirsty so I don’t drink and am always dehydrated; this reminds me to drink — and various exercise and diet stats from my watch and, when I’m dieting, my calorie counter app. I’ll admit that I don’t use this section as much as I should, but I keep it there in case I want to start using it again.

Things are different now. I’m traveling, currently along the east coast, on my boat. There is no spacious kitchen counter where I can leave my Daily Planner pages. But I have some pages with me and the original PDF file to print from. I pulled a page out to consider it and wound up handing it off to Jason while he was on board. He was enthusiastic about it. That got me thinking that maybe I should start using it again, too.

So I did.

Yesterday was the first day in a long time. I listed my things to do and recorded how I spent my time. I found that it kept me very focused and made me more productive. How? Well when I finished doing some things and found myself idle, I’d say to myself “What next?” instead of reaching for my phone or tablet and wasting a bunch of time online. I’d look through the uncompleted tasks, pick one I felt ready to do, and get it started.

I repeated this throughout the day. The result: I finished nine out of 12 list items (but unfortunately, not the priority item) and made progress on a tenth item that could not be finished until Monday. Would I have gotten as much done if I didn’t use the Planner yesterday? I don’t think so.

Today, I planned another day. That Priority item is back and I’ll do it when I finish this. (This blog post, by the way, is not on the planner — although it should have been; I really needed a new blog post. I’ll add it to my schedule but not to the To Do list so I can check it off. That’s cheating.) Throughout the day, I might add a few more items; there are currently a total of 13.

And to further encourage me to stick with it, I’ve ordered a looseleaf notebook with a clipboard front cover so I can leave the list where I’ll see it, whether I’m on the boat or back at home.

Planning on My Mind

Planning is really on my mind lately. I’m writing a multi-part series for my Great Loop blog about cruise planning and have created some custom planning pages for that, too.

Although I have all kinds of planning tools on my laptop, tablet, and phone, I find that pen and paper are the best tools for me. As Jason pointed out this morning, mobile devices are distracting. He’s right! I saw his text about that and replied to it when I reached for my phone to use the calculator. And then I forgot to use the calculator until I got back to this post and realized I needed to do some math. Best to leave the mobile devices on the table or in your pocket.

Any thoughts about this? Share them in the comments.

Letting Things Go

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I think about my inability to “let things go” and realize, with the help of a friend, that it might not be such a bad thing.

The Atheist's Guide to ChristmasYears ago, I went to a Solstice party at a friend’s house near my home in Washington state. This was back when I tried to spend the entire winter at home — maybe 2013? — before I realized that I needed more sun in my life than that latitude would ever offer in December and January.

The party was well attended by the “freethinkers” group I was a member of. We didn’t celebrate Christmas, but we celebrated the Solstice. I celebrated it as the end of the ever-shortening days and the return of the sun.

We had a bonfire (of course) and we gathered around it. There was snow on the ground and we’d spent some time sledding down a hill nearby before it got dark (at around 4:30 PM). One of the partiers handed out slips of paper and pens. We each wrote down something we wanted to let go of forever on that slip of paper. I’m pretty sure I wrote down something to do with my wasband or divorce or the dull, dead-end life I’d had with him. Then we each burned our slip of paper, symbolically destroying these things to remove them from our lives forever.

Ah, if only it were that easy!

As they say, time marches on. I’ve changed a lot since that winter night spent gathered around a fire with friends. I’ve achieved amazing things: building a new home on an amazing piece of land, growing my helicopter business far beyond what it could have been in Arizona, starting a successful jewelry-making business, exploring new hobbies like beekeeping and watercolor painting, and, more recently retiring from my work as helicopter pilot, selling the assets, and diving head first into a life cruising along the east coast in my own boat as a US Coast Guard-certified boat Captain.

Maria and Pups
Me and my pups during a recent stay at the dock in my dad’s backyard. While I’m not convinced that he fully understands what makes me tick, at least he has a clue, accepts the way I am, and doesn’t try to tell me how to manage my life. I appreciate that.

I’ve also resolved to keep toxic people out of my life, a decision that has cut me off from a handful of friends and most family members. After being in a mentally abusive relationship for so long — and not even realizing how it was affecting me until long after it was over — I simply decided I didn’t want to take shit from anyone ever again. Life is too short to let other people get in your head and mess you up emotionally. Why should I be laden with the baggage heaped on me by other people? Best to let them go and move on.

And that’s what I’ve done. Or at least tried to do.

Understand that I’m very happy in my life right now. I have the freedom that I need to do the things I want to make myself whole, to feel fulfilled. For a very long time, I didn’t have that. There’s so much in life that I wanted to do but was held back by people who either didn’t understand what made me tick or were actively trying to prevent me from achieving my own goals because of their own personal failures or jealousies. While I’m not by any means “rich,” I have enough retirement money socked away to do the things I want to before I get too old to do them. (As I’ve said elsewhere, I named my boat Do It Now for a reason.)

Jupiter Island Beach
Dawn at the beach near here the other day. Today’s sky isn’t quite dramatic, but I’m hoping for more sun when I do today’s walk.

As I type this, I’m sitting on my boat at an anchorage along Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, feeling it rock in the wind. Later this morning, I’ll take my dinghy ashore, cross the little island there, and take a good, long walk on a deserted beach, picking up shells along the way and feeling the warm wet sand on my bare feet. Sometime before New Year’s Eve, I’ll travel down the ICW past Fort Lauderdale and Miami, and cruise down the Florida Keys to Key West. Along the way, I’ll anchor out and snorkel in aqua blue waters from the swim platform of my boat, along reefs full of coral and tropical fish. I’ll do this on my terms, on my schedule. And if I want or need to change my plans, I’ll do it without pushback from anyone else.

How can I feel anything other than joy?

But lurking behind the daily joy I experience in life is sadness. It comes mostly from the betrayal of someone I loved and trusted and it has been made worse by the knowledge that people in my family don’t understand or care about me. They say that blood is thicker than water, but in my life, most blood is like a poison acid that burns. Casting these people from my life stops the pain they were causing and helps me move on with the life I want, but I retain the sorrow of lost relationships that once meant a lot to me.

Simply said, I can’t let go of my past and memories that haunt me. So here I am.

I related all this to my friend Jason just this morning as I was preparing to write this blog post. Jason is a very smart, thoughtful, and intuitive guy. His response via text was extremely helpful and worth sharing (with his permission, of course):

Part of being alive might be living through pain. As in … while it doesn’t feel good, it may be an essential part of the human experience.

I’ve also heard that pain can be a messenger. And sometimes we learn more about ourselves by sitting with and reflecting on our pain.

I always love this chapter on joy and sorrow from The Prophet. It helps me think of pain in a positive way:

The Prophet Book Cover

I won’t share the whole quote here; you can read it for yourself. But here’s the meat of it (for me):

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

– Kahlil Gibran

What does this mean to me? I think it explains why I feel so much joy in my everyday life — it’s because I’ve had so much pain in the past. The pain dug a hole that the joy can fill.

So maybe it isn’t necessary to let things go completely to move forward. Maybe having some pain is necessary to have an equal amount of joy. Maybe I should stop thinking about letting things go and just keep moving forward. I’ve been doing pretty well so far.

How about you? How are you doing? What do you think of all this? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments on this post so we can all get something from what you have to add.

And, by the way, Joyous Solstice to everyone!

Cruising with a Companion (Again)

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I welcome a friend on board as a cruising companion (and more) and am glad I did.

If you’ve been reading my Great Loop blog (which is behind yet again), you know that I spent some time buddy boating with my friend Jason in the big Ocean Yachts boat he lives aboard in Washington DC.

Jason and I met on Mastodon — my replacement for what I now call “The Dead Bird Site” (Twitter) — earlier this year. We have lots of mutual interests and seem to be on the same page about so many things. I think we might have been equally excited to actually meet up in person. We did that in October when I cruised down Chesapeake Bay from the Annapolis area (where I picked up my boat after its summer vacation) and he took his boat down to the mouth of the Potomac River. We cruised back up the river together, in our separate boats, with many stops along the way. It was a great week of getting to know each other, as was the subsequent days I spent at the marina where he lives.

Rafting
My boat (the red one) rafted to Jason’s boat at an anchorage during our Potomac River cruise. If he does start cruising full time, he’d likely downsize. His boat is very comfortable, but its size makes it impractical for a cruising lifestyle.

It seemed like a good idea for him to try joining me for a while on my much smaller boat while I continued cruising down to Florida for the winter. He works from home — his boat — and can work from pretty much anywhere, as long as he has an Internet connection. Since I’m cruising down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and am usually pretty close to various coastal communities and cities, Internet access is nearly always available via cell phone. He’s been thinking about casting off from the Wharf and starting a cruising lifestyle and I would give him the opportunity to see if it was feasible. Meanwhile, I’d get an experienced boater to share my travel costs and give me companionship while I explore places along the way.

It was a win-win proposition.

On Command Bridge
Cocktail hour selfie with Jason and my girls up on the command bridge of my boat as we explored the Potomac.

I left his marina after just five nights — mostly because it’s crazy expensive, even after I got four free nights courtesy of Jason and a liveaboard neighbor. (Thanks again, Chris!) I made my way back down the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay and started south along the ICW. Jason had a conference to attend in Miami and other things to take care of before leaving his boat for what might be months.

We made arrangements to meet at Washington, NC, a town at the source end of the Pamlico River that I’d been wanting to check out anyway. I parked at the excellent town dock and spent two days cleaning and prepping my boat for company. Jason arrived on November 4 — already nine days ago! — and moved on board.

JasonAndPups
Jason texted me this selfie while he was driving the boat from upstairs on the command bridge on Friday. My pups really like him, too.

Without boring you with details, I’ll just say that so far it’s been great. We get along remarkably well — he seems to bring out the best in me and keep me in good spirits. What’s crazy (to me) is that his presence seems to calm me even when I feel as if I’m losing my patience over something dumb. We share all the chores: cooking, cleaning up, and even taking my pups to shore for their potty visits. We go on hikes, try to fish and crab, and wander farther afield with me on my electric bike and him on his Onewheel. On most weekdays, he works at the table in my main cabin while I drive the boat to our next destination, sometimes from the command bridge and sometimes from the bench seat only a few feet away. If he has off from work on a cruising day — like he did on Friday — he drives the boat and I try to keep busy doing other things.

And yes, there’s more to our relationship than what I’m including here, but a girl has to have a few secrets, doesn’t she?

In any case, it looks like Jason will be on board until around mid December. That should take us all the way into Florida, including a stop at my Dad’s house in Fort Pierce on my way to the Keys. Then he’ll go spend the Christmas holidays with his family in Michigan and I’ll continue my travels.

Will he be back? Well, the best way to find out is to read that pesky Great Loop blog of mine. With luck, I’ll start updating it again more regularly.