Using a Digital or Analogue Calendar to Schedule Life

Discover the transformative power of a well-organized life as I take you through my personal journey from a jumbled mess to laser-focused clarity with a splash of color-coded calendars. From the sweet triumph of checking off a completed task, to the trials of establishing a morning walk routine that sticks, I lay bare the ups and downs of creating schedules that lead to achieving your goals. As we navigate through the crucial yet often overlooked skill of time management, you'll see how simple strategies can have profound impacts on your work commitments, personal projects, and those precious plans with your nearest and dearest.

Tune in and get ready to find your own path to discipline and organization as I candidly discuss the merits of both analog and digital tools in our quest for the perfect planning system. Whether you're a devotee of structure or a free spirit looking for a little more control over your to-dos, this episode promises insights and tips to level up your day-to-day. And for those eager to join the conversation with their own organizational wizardry, our social media channels are open for your stories and hacks. Let's conquer those daunting projects and carve out productive routines, with digital calendars as our trusty allies.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Hello, welcome to another episode of Talk Mode. I don't know why I say that so robotically. I always do. I used to say we are in talk mode and we are. I don't say it anymore, I don't know. I'm kind of working on the central thing. Let me know what you think. Today's episode we're going to focus a little bit on scheduling, planning using a calendar.

Speaker 1: 1:10

I don't know man, I'm a nineties kid, right, and I feel like the educational system. Let us down a little bit on some of these skills that a lot of people have and some people don't have. Historically, I'm quite unorganized. I'm organized on a small scale, right. If I'm doing something or working on something, I'd be organized within that thing, but overall in life I'm unorganized. Now I have spoken to you guys before about scheduling the small tasks that you shouldn't have to think about, you know, like washing up and doing laundry and stuff like that, and although I've done that in the past and set up rotors for that kind of thing more recently in fact most of the past year I've not really been doing that anymore and I don't know what that is. For whatever reason, it just dropped off and I never picked it back up.

Speaker 1: 2:09

But what I did do for the past year is I had a calendar on my wall, one of those monthly ones, you know. You flip them. I don't know what I'm saying. It's a calendar. All calendars are monthly. I'm the idiot. But I was basically crossing out the days and then using Sharpies to write important days on there. So I color coded it green for work stuff and blue for stuff I'm into, red for stuff that me and my partner didn't get by and stuff like that. So I was writing those things out, like days off and payday, yeah, excuse me, important appointments, et cetera, et cetera, and that kind of work for me. You know, I like watching, I like crossing off the days, say, oh yeah, I got through that. Well, yeah, I'm looking forward to this thing that's happening on this particular day or whatever it is on this game release that's coming off, and I was like working the days towards it. How many days are left? I'm day left to payday and stuff like that, like I don't know. It made me feel more organized, even though I wasn't doing a lot there. And I went looking for a calendar again this year and I can't find one that I actually like the look of, so I haven't actually bought one for 2024. But I thought, ah, you know what? Yeah, let me.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Well, I started doing this at work and on my work calendar I started scheduling out blocks of time for different things that I need to work on. Meetings, I started setting meetings for next year already training sessions, stuff like that. Right, I did a lot of that for my work calendar and I thought, hey, hold on, I like this crossing out days thing. Right, I like writing big events on the calendar. How about I just do? Instead of doing that on a, even though I like the crossing out side of it, why don't I just do that on a digital calendar instead and see if I can make that work for me? So I've I've now like I'm starting to overlay my, my Apple calendar, whatever it is, with all these different things, and I've got a couple of different calendars on there and some of it's just fun stuff that I'm looking forward to. So I'm going to get some important appointments and stuff that I've booked for the coming year. There's things I want to do schedule in some recordings, stuff like that, and I don't know, man, I feel like doing that and overlaying it with goals set, goals set in and normal chores and getting more organized, and I think part of being that organized needs a bit of discipline. So you need to be disciplined and organized and repiling them together you can go ahead and achieve the goals that you're setting out to achieve.

Speaker 1: 5:19

It sounds stupid, it sounds so simple, but really right. I don't ever remember it. I remember I don't know, I don't know, I don't talk either, but I don't ever remember in school or college, apart from when they talked about, oh yeah, your fucking homework or assignments. But even then they never taught us time management or organization or it was always very much specific to a specific project which is great and works. And I can do that and I've always been able to do that. Whether I do it well or not it's a different question, but I've always been able to do that. But no one ever said oh you know what, if you can schedule every day of your life, you don't want to be dead inside and boring where it's like you're a machine. But scheduling certain things in your life and having a calendar that you follow and you know planning things out and putting stuff down on paper, how much that changes and helps you focus and helps you visualize that thing right and keeps you a little bit disciplined.

Speaker 1: 6:34

And now, with technology, the way it is, and your phone is connected to your laptop, it's connected to your watch and you can put reminders on and it's going to tell you straight away, and all of that like, oh, it just makes sense to schedule your life, it just makes sense. Now, I don't mean every single thing, but there's things that you want to do and you want to achieve and you know what, sometimes you forget, you get so distracted or you're so into the thing you're into that you forget to do the very basic, simple things that you said you want to put on the top of your priority list. For me, for example, sounds really stupid. But one of the things I want to do this year is get into the habit of waking up at six and going for a walk, simple, right Now. It's hard to say I mean it's easier said than done because, well, I live in the UK and it's bloody shit weather for most of the time, so it's freezing when you get out in the morning at that time, but, truly, truly, and it's dark right now, but it's really important for me to do it right and I could say, oh, I'm going to go gym five times a week, blah, blah, blah. And you know what? I did that at six o'clock in the morning for a bit, but I couldn't stick to it and a part of that is just me trying to do to March or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Anyway, the point is I'm getting into deep into shit, I ramble, sorry. The point is that I want to try and get out for a walk. Yeah, five days a week, seven days a week, fuck it. Yeah, but I want to get out every morning six am. I want to be out, take a walk. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a long walk, 20 minutes, 30 minutes around the block a few times, whatever it is right. But I'm out there, I'm getting to walk in, I'm getting the fresh air. If there's sun, I'm getting the sun right and it's an active way to start my day. It's something that's going to wake me up, get the juices flowing and just you know, just, it's a nice, healthy thing to do. So that's what I want to do.

Speaker 1: 8:42

I've scheduled it in. Stupid thing to schedule in, right, surely I don't need that to be scheduled. But what it's going to do is my alarm goes off and then I get a reminder. Yo, go for a walk now. I'm hoping I don't need the reminder, but I'm putting it there to make the time, to make sure that I make the time to do it. Yeah, it's scheduled in, it's baked into my day. I'm waking up that little bit earlier so I can do it. It needs to be done. So, like that, I'm scheduling a few different things right now.

Speaker 1: 9:21

If you're in a relationship with a partner you know this might not be with every partner, but you find this situation where you're like, oh, I shouldn't have to tell you to do something, you should just do it now. Here's the thing, man. It's not that I don't want to do something, I just don't fucking remember, right, I keep forgetting to do the more simple things that I could do that would make our lives easier. Yeah, whether that's a chore or it's something that I should just remember, do something I should talk about, or whatever, whatever, whatever, I'll get scheduling it in. I've put in my calendar right now. I've got it now.

Speaker 1: 9:58

Yo, every Tuesday night, because the bins get picked up on a Wednesday, every Tuesday night, yo, I'll put the bins out. It's in, it's scheduled in, right, I'll get a little reminder on my watch to say yo, take the bins out. And that way, partner doesn't need to say anything. I've just done it. All right, that's a win, win. One I'm doing the job that I'm meant to do, which I don't mind doing, to be fair. Two, partners don't have to ask the question and three, the bins get out. That's a win, win, win. I don't know, man, I'm gonna try it and see where I go. Right, this might not work at all. I need to try something. So I'm gonna try this.

Speaker 1: 10:44

And to be fair, in the past, when I put in those day-to-day rotors where I was like, oh I at this time, wash up at this time, cook dinner at this time, do this at this time, do that, you know what it helped because I didn't have to think about it, I just did it. I got into the habit. It's all about building habits, it's what we're doing. But I'm gonna do another episode on that as I get on with my year and see how I get on. Yeah, thank you guys very much for listening.

Speaker 1: 11:09

Let me know if you use a schedule or a calendar to plan your life out, or plan your day today or plan just certain events. Uh, let me know how you use them, what's your techniques? Are you analog or you digital? Uh, all of those things. I know I've rambled on a little bit here, but I hope some of these tips help someone else and you decide to give it a go. And if it helps, then please let me know, because you know what I'm on the journey with you. I want to see if it helps me. So, thank you guys very much for listening. Contact me at our original on twitter and instagram. Take care, goodbye.