6-4 FAQ | What Does Patricia's Weekly Paper Planner Look Like? [22 mins]

Transcript

1. FQA: what does Patricia's planner look like Wed, 4/27 9:46AM 22:17 SUMMARY KEYWORDS tasks, brain dump, check, block, plan, day, planner, schedule, monday, brain, fill, write, week, area, run, errands, dinner, feel, wednesdays, meals SPEAKERS Patricia Sung Patricia Sung 00:03 Hey there, Mama. Welcome to module eight frequently asked questions. And a lot of you have asked, What does your planner actually look like because I don't, I don't buy a planner, I actually need my own template on Excel. And I originally made it because I found this really cool planner that you could tailor called a plum planner. And I was like, I was feeling like commitment phobic on what should I put, like the categories at the top. So I made the spreadsheet thinking like this will allow me to like try it out, make sure this is what I want my planner to look like. And then I realized I wanted to just keep it using this because I'm able to have it prefilled in. And I don't have to, like copied all in. Patricia Sung 00:48 Whereas if I have a notebook and a planner, I have to recopy all my repeating things. And I was just not down for that, like too much work. So I ended up using this. And it's really worked well for me for about two years now. So I'm going to screen share with you what I have. And I don't want you to get overwhelmed, because it's a lot of stuff on one page. But the reason I do that is because for me for my ADHD brain, I need to see everything in one spot. But I needed to divide it up. Because if it's all just in one clump. Patricia Sung 01:23 Then in my brain can decipher all the information. So I've everything divided up into categories. And this works for me. But obviously, it might not work for some of you that like I'm okay with it. Because I can write tiny and fit stuff in the little boxes. But other people are like, you can't write anything there. I need like giant spaces to write so everybody's gonna be different. And there's, I was torn as like, should I show you this the beginning? Or should I wait because I know a lot of times with ADHD, we need to see the finished product to understand where we're going. But I also don't want you to feel like you have to use my system because that's not what
2. this class is about. The class isn't here by this class, and I'm gonna solve all your problems by doing it exactly like I do it no, like, that's not realistic, you have your own life and your own problems. And they may not be solved the way that I solved mine. Patricia Sung 02:19 And you are welcome to follow what I do. But I don't want you to feel tight to it. Because if you're doing something that's working like okay, but just not quite, I want you to stick with that. Because, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. You don't have to do it just like so, disclaimer said, I'm going to share my screen with you. So you can see my Excel spreadsheet here. Patricia Sung 02:46 So here is okay, this here is my schedule. So at the top, I have my goals. So I fill out just as a reminder, you know, I don't need a 40 page document on what my goals are, I just need like enough to write a word or two, like, you know, my god goal. Right now I'm working on trying to find a new spot in my day to do some quiet time. Because we're in the middle of in the time of recording this, we're right on the end of school. Patricia Sung 03:18 So summer break, starting the schedule is going to change and like this is actually kind of like a, like an iffy time to me, because I'm now trying to like sort out a new way of doing things for the summer. Which isn't gonna look like last summer, thank goodness, because last summer was your pandemic. But it's also not going to look like summers before because now my kids are older, they can do more things we've already gotten on a nap time. So this is kind of a transitionary time for me. So I do need to go in here, you know, I'm gonna have to make some changes coming up. Patricia Sung 03:50 Anyways, all that to say, I feel that my goal is like trying to spend more time with Jesus, a family goal of five instead of this going to be next week yet. This is the podcast goal. So like my main thing I'm trying to do and then a health goal. So like for me personally taking care of me, what am I trying to do this week. And then I have it divided into columns. Patricia Sung 04:12 So Monday, that is the week one horizontal and then the tasks from this way so this is my family and meals where I will write in like if anything's going on major that day like somebody's birthday or like my husband's gonna be out of town and right here and then I'm writing the meals now I have two separate meal things because I have some health issues going on and I'm having to eat this weird, super restrictive diet, hopefully not for much longer. But so I'm planning two meals per day, too.
3. Patricia Sung 04:43 And then I have my schedule. So this is actually my calendar stuff. So I use my digital calendar, I keep everything in the digital calendar, and then I sit down and fill this document out on Friday afternoons. So I'll go through and write down what I'm done. What my other activities are, and I have my usual things already filled in. Patricia Sung 05:05 Then I have for my routines and things that I do every day, the same general format are filled in here. So I have my AM block, my midday block, my afternoon block and my evening block. If you're like, Whoa, Patricia, where do you even start with this, this is the class I'm doing in the fall. And that's coming up soon. I did not want to overwhelm you with this whole thing at one time, because I know it's a lot to adjust at once. But once we do like little pieces at a time, like literally this class is focused on this column right here is getting your schedule down. Patricia Sung 05:45 And then I'm going to add in a little bit about to do lists, I think you're in a sec. But this whole routine business and like figuring out meals, like that's a whole nother ballgame. But it's doable, if you can figure out the things that you need to do every day, and find a smooth way of doing those so that you're not you know, freaking out every day about what's for dinner, when it already is time for dinner. And, you know, having a giant laundry problem, because you have it all piled up for the last, you know, 14 days. And those are the things that are in my blocks here. So it's kind of like a modified time blocking I, when I was learning about Taiwan, he was like, Well, this is really cool. And then I realized it just didn't make sense to my ADHD brain doesn't How do I modify it to make sense for me, and this is what I came up with. Patricia Sung 06:42 Because for most people, if they had time block, like Monday morning is for me is like house stuff. I focus on like, recovering from the weekend and getting things cleaned up and you know, doing stuff around the house. But if I don't write that down, then my brain doesn't remember it. Whereas, you know, most people with a regular brain, they just know, like Mondays my pickup day, I don't write it down, that doesn't happen. Patricia Sung 07:06 And then I have my podcast tasks, and like, it's x out on Monday cuz they don't usually do stuff on Monday. And then I have a brain dump area of like, when I'm like when you don't want to do that. That's where my stuff goes. And then I sorted out. Like where that belongs. And when I actually can do that. And later on, if I can, I'll go ahead and put it in a time where I know it can be like, if I'm on the run, I just dump it in the dump area. Because, you know, our brain has, you know, our executive functioning is not so great. And remembering that ID and like not
4. forgetting it is a different skill set than me looking at the calendar me like when do I actually have time to do that task? Those are two different skills. And our brains are not as good at like sorting out which, like flip flopping between them. Patricia Sung 07:56 So I'd rather put everything on the dump list. And then at the end of the night go through and be like, okay, when is it realistic for me to do these things? Or if I have some open time in the day? That doesn't happen that much. I can look at the brain dump list and be like, Okay, is there something here I could do right now? While I'm waiting, you know, this 15 minutes. And then so it goes across here. Patricia Sung 08:18 So I've got this is Tuesday stuff. This is Wednesday stuff, Thursday stuff, oops, too far back. Friday stuff. And then Saturday and Sunday are smaller blocks because I don't do as much or on my house. Like in terms of like housekeeping you things on the weekends. And then down here is my next week. space. So like when I'm like, Oh, I gotta remember that next week, I need to do this. I fill it in down here. So that it's not in my brain dump area, because it's not something I want to do right now. This is more like future things. That way, when I go make my schedule for the following week, then I look at this and be like, okay, is this something that needs to get done? This week coming up? Or is this something I need to just like, remember for the future and then then that goes into a different home because this paper is just for my week right now. But if I don't have a place like dump those ideas, then I forgot them they don't have. And then for me, I have another little block over here for the podcast, brain dump area. Which you might have like if you have work or like a project you're working on or you can just make this allyou know, one button one giant brain dump area. Patricia Sung 09:29 So this is what my day looks like. So I the night or the week before I'm planning okay on Monday, what's going on? Do I have anything special happening? Fill in these two blocks, the calendar part and then anything special going on? And that will allow me to then go through and choose the food that we're going to do right now. We're trying to use up all of our gymnastics tokens from the pandemic originally when everything shut down. So like I have Have a gymnastics scheduled here at the end of the day. And by the time we finish, it's already dinnertime. So like, I know that this is a short time, we only have a few more weeks to finish up, I'm going to pick up food on Wednesdays because that's not like feasible for me to always get the cooking done. Normally, I cook on Wednesdays, I should have deleted that. And like we have swim on Tuesdays that's been for like the whole school year. So like Tuesdays are leftover day, I don't click on that day, because by the time we get home from swim and get a bath and all like it's time to eat. Patricia Sung 10:33 So this is what I'm filling out. It first is like what's going on, and calendar than I can go back and choose the meals that we're doing. And then all of my routine things are already filled in. So
5. choose the meals that we're doing. And then all of my routine things are already filled in. So like on Monday, I need to throw a load of laundry in, do my physical therapy exercises take a little a little Jesus time, I need to pick up the house from the weekend, make a dinner plan. And when I say make it an append, like I already know, like roughly what I'm going to do, but it's like, did I defrost that thing? Do I have everything I need, like making sure I actually want all this stuff. And that's like my check in to make sure that dinner can actually happen. Patricia Sung 11:13 I'm forwarding tasks, that's where, you know, I look back that because I usually make this on Friday afternoons. That means that some stuff over the weekend may or may not have gotten done. And so I need to go back through my calendar last week and look at it and be like, hey, is there anything on here that I didn't get done in need to move forward that I hadn't already noted. And then that's how all these blocks are like the things that I usually do. And I check in and like right now, we have all the construction going on in our house. So I kind of had the afternoons blocked off, because that's what I need to like, check in with all the contractors and make sure everything's going okay. So I try not to schedule, like plan my time for things to happen during then. Because it always gets hijacked by by contractors. And I had to stop looking at it as getting hijacked. And look as like, this is what I need to do to make sure that everybody's doing their jobs and getting things done. So I try not to schedule things. So I literally had to write X's on here and be like, don't plan on doing something in the afternoon blog, because you have to check in with all of the the contracting landscaping, all that stuff, people. Patricia Sung 12:24 And then my evening blog is like after the kids go to bed, what am I doing, or not sorry, not just when they go bed, but like basically it's from like, when I start dinner, prepping like cooking from so basically about like four o'clock ish through dinner or bedtime. And then if there's anything I need to do that night, so it could be stuff like, you know, if I need the kids to like, make a thank you card, or it could be you know, you need to think like random stuff that needs to get done that didn't get done during the day. I'm trying to work on not planning things evening wise, because then I stay up too late. Patricia Sung 13:04 And then I have my podcast tasks by by day. And then my dumpy area, and I try to check in on the done the brain dump every evening when I look at what I'm going to do the next day. And if I can like rearrange them, then sometimes you know, my brain is just too tired, and it's not going to have that extra capability. Totally fine. Patricia Sung 13:26 But if the goal is to do it every day, and I get most of the days, then you know i I've accounted for most of that stuff. The other thing I do is kind of group things together by like similar tasks. So you can see like, on Wednesdays, I have like getting gas in my car because otherwise I forget to get gas returning to library so like this is you know, before we go to swim, I try to run
6. errands and knock out like whatever. Little like close by the House things I can get done. And that's one of the things we'll do in our routines classes. Look at like, okay, these kinds of tasks are all similar. How can we do them together? So I think we're running over errands at one time. That means that it's not like, oh, I probably seen the grocery sir. Oh, I need to mail this letter. Oh, I need to get gas in my car. Oh, I forgot to return in this library bookd. Patricia Sung 14:24 But like, if we can say like, on Wednesday, I'm going to do as many errands as possible. Then one things are done and they don't pile up to it like saves you on like timewise because you're out running all the errands in one swoop instead of you know, doing it in a bunch of, you know, a bunch of different times, especially if you live like farther out from stuff like not, you know, to the city. That's a lot more time consuming. And also like it gives you a designated place to do things. So it's like if I'm going to I need to do this errand. I automatically know like, I need to look at Wednesday first, can it be done on Wednesday like these that have to be done before that? Or can it wait till Wednesday. And that makes my, like planning my day easier because I'm not trying to squeeze in. Patricia Sung 15:15 Because I know our brains are like, well, if I don't do it right now, I'm gonna forget to have to do it right now. No, I know, it's okay. Wednesday, it says I needed Aaron say, I will run those errands then. And the good part is that, you know, a lot of the stuff like my am blocks pretty a lot of those tasks are similarly they repeat themselves, my, you know, my AM isn't as variable. Patricia Sung 15:38 And if I need to, like have our schedule changes, I can just move all those tasks for like, getting the house ready. That's why Monday is my like house day, I can just move all the house stuff to another day. If say, like, on Monday, we don't have school, and I know I'm not going to have as much free time, you know, because the kids are going to be home, then I can just say, Okay, well, then I can just like literally like, copy, paste, pull these three tasks for Monday, drop them on to Tuesday. Patricia Sung 16:12 And that makes it you know, easier to, to organize my day, if I know. Like when I kind of prepare for upcoming changes. So this is what I do. The other bonus of having small squares is that I can't write 400 things on there, because it's not possible to get four things done. So if I only have like this, like smidgen amount of space, it's like, well, you know what, I already have to do a load of laundry, drop, oh, I'm not dropping off anyone. Preschool now, but drop for school. And work on podcast stuff. It's like, well, I already have a full morning there, I can't really fit in any more stuff. Patricia Sung 17:03
7. Patricia Sung 17:03 So that, like, prohibits me from writing that I'm going to do 15 things on that morning because I don't have space for it. So like right here, like Monday morning is full. I already have enough stuff going on on Monday morning. I can't fit in more staff. So if I want to do something else on Monday, it's gonna have to happen later in the day. And that prevents me from being unrealistic because I'm the person who thinks I can put 45 things on the to do list and do all of them or when like, literally never in my life have I done 40 bad things. So I like having the small blocks because it limits me. Cuz I'm optimistic. Patricia Sung 17:46 Um, yeah, I'm trying to think there's anything else you'd want to know. Um, so yeah, I checked in on this thing lives on my kitchen island. I check on it multiple times throughout the day, like basically, whenever I find myself kind of like standing there, like, what am I supposed to be doing now? It's like, no, go check the calendar. And I take a look at it. And so I would say I probably looked at this thing. Oh, like at least probably 20 times a day. At least, because whenever I'm feeling off track, like this is kind of like my grounding area it like, I come back here. And I'm like, I know, like, I have a plan. I don't have to do 450 things right now even though my brain is saying they're all important. I've already sorted them and organize them. And they're here and I know exactly what to do, because I already made a plan. Patricia Sung 18:33 And, and then, you know, this is what I used to check in at night. This is what I used to chicken in the morning. Um, that just makes me feel a lot better when I know I have a clear plan. And I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Because when I am running around the chicken, like a jiggle my head cut off and be like, Okay, let me go check my plan, because I already know what I'm supposed to be doing. And you know, our task initiation is hard. That's not we're not very good at starting things. And a lot of that time is because we don't even like know where to start. Patricia Sung 19:05 Whereas if the plans already made, then I can pass through the like decision phase of what am I supposed to be doing and I can just go to doing. I think that's one of the things that makes it most efficient is because I'm taking out a lot of that like, well, what should I be doing right now? How am I going to start that? What am I going to do? I already know like Monday morning like once everybody is fed dress like this is what I need to do. This is where I need to focus and make sure that laundry is in I need to make sure that I have figured out how dinner is going to happen. Patricia Sung 19:38 And if I end up getting that stuff done like that's great, then I'll try to do something later in the day so that I can you know, lighten that load or I can look at my brain dump area and see is there anything over here that I could tackle but it takes out that like spinning my wheels a lot of
8. the time like not to say that doesn't happen at all, but it cuts back on it a lot. On the weeks where, you know, things were crazy on Friday, and I didn't get to it, and I wake up Monday and haven't filled this out, like, I feel it, I know. And I need to sit down and organize it. Because it my Monday feels very unwieldy when I don't have a plan. Patricia Sung 20:20 So that's why that's how you know, I also stay motivated on this is that I know that it works. And I know how good I feel when I have a plan. And this isn't set in stone, like I said, like, if the kids are off on Monday, then I can rearrange that stuff and put it somewhere else. It's not a problem. But I'm not I like I know which of the things like have to get done. And what are the things it's like, cool, I can just do that on Tuesday, or I can move this one to Thursday, or you know, what if I don't, I'm trying to think Is there anything like that's on it? That's like, if I didn't do it would be the new world. Like, if I didn't water the plants, it's like, well, they probably won't die. That week. I know, I can skip that if I need to skip something. Patricia Sung 21:12 Or like, you know, library books, like, here's the day where I figure out like, do we have books, do find them under a bed, get them ready to go for when I return them on Wednesdays. And you know, if I need to move that to Tuesday, it's totally fine. Patricia Sung 21:28 So, yeah, I don't want this video to get too long. So this is how I run my day. This is how I make things happen. And if you want help on this, like the rhythms of the day in the middle here, like that's what we're going to do in the next class. So I'm excited for it. It's it's a game changer. And I want you to have that lightness that I have like when I approach my day like I know that I so greatly feel the difference between the lightness of having a plan and the heaviness or when I feel like I'm just a chicken with my head cut off and you know that for you too. So that's it. Have your day. I will talk to you soon. And let's see how do I do this? There we go. Okay, I'll talk to you later.