Audio Transcript:
People with ADHD who try to manage life with just to-do lists are going to run into problems. That to-do list won’t prevent us from forgetting all kinds of appointments, goals, and responsibilities.
How do we keep the big picture in mind? What we need is some kind of simple system so things don’t fall through the cracks.
That’s the idea of the In-View Planning System. It’s designed to encourage quick, easy planning each morning, but without forgetting important appointments, projects, and responsibilities. Just 5 minutes each morning with this system is usually enough to bring your day into focus. That’s not to say you don’t need longer planning sessions periodically, but 5 minutes each morning will put your feet firmly on the ground.
So, each morning, start with a fresh Daily Page, where you write today’s day and date. Immediately, you see that your first to-do today is to check your Monthly Planner and then your Weekly To-Dos.
So, you glance quickly at your Monthly Planner –it only takes a moment or two– and you transfer whatever appointments or tasks you find for today onto your Daily Page. (And maybe you set an alarm or two on your phone if you have appointments later today: “Okay google, set an appointment for 12:20 pm called leave for dentist.”)
This rock solid habit of glancing at my Monthly Planner each morning keeps me from forgetting things like dentist appointments, trash day, household maintenance tasks I scheduled in advance, plans with friends and family, etc. And jotting appointments in here is super quick and easy, so I don’t put it off.
What do you put in the Monthly Planner? Anything that you plan in advance for a specific day (and maybe a specific time). Write it in the monthly planner, and you’ll see it when you plan your day. When my wife and I plan together, I love having my Monthly Planner in hand to actually schedule tasks and move them along instead of speaking in terms of maybe someday. There’s also a Notes section attached to each month, which is where I’ll put reminders for monthly goals or to-dos, maybe an outline of a large project this month, etc.
After glancing at your Monthly Planner, next you check your Weekly To-Dos. Just flip up your fresh Daily Page, like this, to check the Weekly Page beneath. You notice that at the top of the Weekly Pages, there is a reminder: “This page goes directly beneath the Daily Page.” That’s so that when you fold up your Daily Page, like this, your Weekly page is instantly visible.
But when do you fill out your Weekly Page? Depends on what works for you. Perhaps on Sunday afternoon, or on Monday morning, or whenever you think of it. The idea is to take a few minutes to think about and plan your coming week. It can be a pretty quick and informal process.
Having a simple system can really reduce stress and worry in your life. One aspect of worry is our brain constantly searching for and retrieving things that we are worried about forgetting. To eliminate that type of worry, those looping thoughts, we need to get this stuff out of our heads and onto paper, and then have a simple system like this to remind us of it at the right time.
So, on my Weekly Page, I’ll write any to-dos that I want to do this week. In fact, whenever I think of something that I can’t do today but that I want to do in the next seven days or so, I’ll draw a little check box in front of it and add it to my Weekly Page. If I want to do a task on a certain day, like Friday, I’ll put a big F by it in parenthesis, but if I choose a specific day and/or time to do something, I always jot it down in the appropriate day in my Monthly Planner.
What other kinds of things do I put on my Weekly Page? Well, basically anything I want to remember to focus on this coming week.
I might put the to-do steps of a project I’m working on.
I play a musical instrument, so I’ll write the songs I want to practice this week.
If I’ve just started tracking a habit in the habit trackers at the back of my Monthly Planner, I’ll put a reminder on my Weekly Page to do the habit, at least until it’s firmly lodged in my memory.
The last couple of weeks, I’ve put a reminder on my Weekly Page to check my business phone messages each day. So many calls are distracting spam that I moved the business phone out of the office area, and I just check the messages everyday. A reminder on my Weekly Page reminds me to add it as a to-do on my Daily Page each day.
And sometimes I put a reminder about a topic I want to study or research this week in my free time. I am often researching something relevant to my life, and since deeper study –over time– usually provides more life-enhancing benefits than a quick, superficial search, my Weekly Page reminds me of what I was studying, so I don’t just flit off to the next thing.
So, after glancing at my Weekly Page, I’ll transfer any activities that are for today onto my Daily Page each morning.
Anyway, that’s how you can use the In-View Planning System to keep the big picture in mind and keep things from falling through the cracks.