Sometimes we need a plan without the time restraints OF a calendar or agenda. My priority list has provided me with just that, an ability to plan without time.
While growing up, nothing would bring me more stress than when my parents would start the countdown. By age nine I would already be up doing whatever they asked. This stress of time has followed me through my life. I always show up really early, need to make sure that I have enough time to do everything and overestimate the time it would take for me to get anything done. As you can assume, I was a detailed calendar keeper for most of my life. I had everything boxed off, when assignments would get done, when I would be eating meals, down to how long it would take me to get from location to location.
With this schedule I was never late, I had everything turned in, but I was always checking it and always doing my best to keep up with what my previous self thought was going to be able to accomplish within that day.
The major fault that I found in my system was that things would come up in the day that were not expected, the laundry machine would break, mom wanted to talk for an hour, class went over the scheduled time. This would put me in a negative mood and cause me to rearrange my day to ensure that I could stay on track later.
After years of this unnecessary stress and rushing around, I found a new way to get everything done: priority lists. These lists were created at the beginning of the week highlighting all the assignments and tasks that I wanted to have done by Friday. Then I fill in the days giving priority to different tasks on different days. My goal was to at some point during the day get through all of my tasks on the priority list. But if they were not completed, I was able to move them down to the next day.
For example, I know I need to get all my class work done, laundry done, three internship applications and some editing for a club I am a part of. I know that I have a light class schedule on Tuesdays so I put high priority on my laundry and internship work that day. I am able to fill that in when I see fit. By the end of the day I know that both my laundry and internships will be done.
This allowed for a lot more flexibility in my schedule and decreased the stress I had around planning and completing the day. I have been using this way for the entirety of the school year and found that I can get the same amount of stuff done throughout the day by better dividing up my day. I have found that listing things in priority has ensured that I got everything that I need on the day done and has given me time to deal with anything that might pop up during the day or extra work that needs to get done.
This has let me go from a stressed-out over planner to a more productive student. I can make sure that everything gets done on time and make sure that I am able to still have free time every day.