Lockdown day 11 - Planning made easier

I'm not even sure what number day this is in the whole social distancing thing, but today I'm going to start using this blog as a bit of a log of our journey through this word-changing epidemic. I'm sorry if that bores you readers, but hey, you might find bits of it interesting! I'll look back at it in a few years time, maybe, and be proud that I didn't go mad from inactivity and under-stimulation.

Firstly, a visiting swan not keeping to the 2 metre distancing rule.

Since January 1st I've been using a bullet planner. Unlike a diary, it looks ahead and helps me to use my time well, and not to forget to do things - important or otherwise. At the start of the year, I listed all those things I could think of at the time that I wanted to get done in 2020. Some would get done in the first week, some of them are to do with with next Christmas. Some of them are related to the house, others to the boat. As new things come up, they go onto this "Future Log".

At the start of each new month, I refer back to the Future Log and take entries from that to put in the month's Task List. At the start of each day, I create a list of those things on the Task List that I want to do (and can do, depending on weather and other external factors) on that day; at the end of the day I tick off the ones I've done and refer forward to the next day the ones that remain, and they will appear among the next day's entries. Any number of them may get referred forward several times, but that simply ensures that they get done as soon as possible.

Naomi (eldest daughter) has been doing this for years, and swears by its power to improve your productivity. Last year, I read the book about it that she had bought, but I wasn't attracted to the idea. Then she showed me exactly how she uses hers, and I was won over straight away.

Of course, the journal can be used for all sorts of  other things, too - recipes, details of films seen, books read, ideas you've had for writing, blogging, growing, making things... It's very versatile, and it really works for her, and now for me, too.