The Geekette Speaketh

I have a problem keeping my to-do list nice and short. More specifically, if it's not scheduled into the day then it's never going to be done at all. The problem here is that I find it really hard to actually specify a time slot for such tasks. I couldn't visualize how much time I actually used, let alone how much free time I actually have to do the said tasks.

While browsing through Lifehacker I came upon their post about the Muji Chronotebook Non-linear Day Planner. The notebook gives scheduling a new twist. It allowed the owner to schedule their day against a drawing of a 12-hour clock. One side of the paper was for morning tasks and the other side was for evening tasks. The cool thing about it is the ability to actually visualize your whole day like a pie chart. Oh, make that half a day. While it was cool, I didn't like the idea of having to flip to the next page to see what the next half of my day looks like. This inspired me to make my own Chrono-Day template.

You can see the difference between the Japanese-made planner and my new design. The outer area represents morning, the middle gray area is afternoon/evening and the center represents the next day (in case of overnight activities). With this format I could now see my whole day in all its glory!

Now I can apply a few tricks I learned from "The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore. Here's what I did to my Chrono-Day.

Using some Ikea markers that were given to me as a gift from a friend, I proceeded to shade in my usual activities. These are activities which I know for a fact that I would really end up doing. The blanks are my free time. At the bottom is a list of stuff that I keep putting off till later. As you can see, I finally got around to paying my bills, which only lasted thirty minutes. As for my SCJP review, obviously nothing happened. My 15-minute morning nap (due to my exercise) stretched to almost two hours. Then again, my friend said maybe I actually needed it.

Anyway, the whole thing is really working out for me. I'm attaching a PDF of the file for those who might be interested in trying this out. Do let me know if it works for you or if you did something different to it.