October is a weird month for me emotionally. In Alabama, it’s doing the “is it summer; is it fall” thing but there are days that are very winter-esque which doesn’t bode well for my psyche. But I am reimplementing last year’s plan with a caveat: to hibernate as much as possible this winter, which with COVID will be pretty easy for me. But instead of just hibernating, I am attempting to lean into the weirdness of this time of year and embracing what is coming.
At the beginning of the month, I was feeling very overwhelmed and unorganized with work, educating at home, my writing, etc. So I watched a few videos on YouTube about productivity which sent me down a rabbit hole of productivity gurus, books to read, etc. Did you know that there are ways to get more done and organize your task list, email, etc. and that these ways are systematic?
The first step is to take all of your to do’s (all of them) out of your head and onto a Task Management system, which could be an app or a bullet journal. I had a bullet journal in 2019 but stopped using it for some reason; I can’t tell you why. Well, I have brought back the bullet journal and have really harnessed the power of Apple Reminders and that’s been a great change for me. Right now, I’m am trying to decide if I should have one Task Management System for everything or split my tasks and systems by my life areas: work, daily life, writing, etc. If anyone has any ideas, pop ‘em in the comments below. After I figure that out, the next step is selecting a calendar to use and I have the same question: one main one or different ones for different life areas?
Since I was feeling very much overwhelmed I decided to declare Fall Break for the Buddy Man. I had initially thought that we didn’t need one, but he was trying hard not to throw temper tantrums at the idea of having school AGAIN the last few days and I was throwing my own temper tantrums in the bathroom where he couldn’t see me. So as teacher, principal, and the Board of this particular school, I declared a week of Fall Break. I also took a day off work. And I do mean a complete day; I didn’t check email, Slack, etc., I turned off notifications and I read books. It was awesome.
Speaking of books, my selections this month have reflected my intentionality this season to lean into the strangeness but I will talk about that in my Quick Lit post in a couple of weeks.
I also ran my first virtual race this year, the Liz Hurley Ribbon Run. I beat my anticipated time by almost 5 minutes! I couldn’t believe it!
I voted early!
That’s a good summation of what I have been up to. Let me know what’s been keeping you sane in the comments and if you have a post on your blog, summing up your month, feel free to link to it below. We will do it again next month, Wednesday, December 2.
enjoy life…
shannan enjoys life! 
I love bullet journaling but I don’t like the future log and I never copy things onto the next page/day/whatever. So I use my calendar on my phone with about 5000 reminders for anything that’s further out than the present month. And I just look back at the pages that I need to if something is still written there. It’s so hard figuring out what works for one’s own brain! Good luck!
Something that I’ve been doing lately is paint my nails. It forces me to slow down, plus it makes me happy every time I see my hands looking nice.
Have you ever read Getting Things Done by David Allen? It was revolutionary for me. I didn’t adapt his whole system, but enough of it to make me feel more productive anyway. As of late, I try to pick only 3-4 main things to get done during the day so I won’t feel so disappointed by all the other things I don’t get done. 🙂
Lisa, it is in my TBR list. But I shall have to make it more of a priority thanks to your recommendation. And yes, picking 3-4 or even 1-2 things to do is better than feeling guilty about all the other things.
Our weather has been like that, too–back and forth. We’re having a cold snap right now which makes it seem like we had a short fall and jumped ahead to winter. But hopefully we’ll have a few warmer days before winter truly sets in.
I sometimes make a to-do list for the day, and I use the Reminders app on my phone for appointments. I struggle with feeling hemmed in by productivity systems. I like to pick and choose individual hacks or helps. My focus right now is doing the most important things first so they don’t get shoved into the rushed end of the day or into the next day. Some people do quite well with various systems, though.
Fall break sounds like a lovely idea!
My end-of-month post is here: https://barbaraleeharper.com/2020/10/28/end-of-october-reflections/.
Thanks. I am trying to do the important things first; “eat the frog” is how someone describes it. Thanks for being here.