“Don’t half-ass something. If you’re going to do it, put the whole ass in it.“
A friend who shall, for now, remain anonymous
I’ve never been a big fan of planners. The college I was at would give them out yearly, I’d pretend to use it for a couple of days, and then return to my normal routine (read: forgetting deadlines and then freaking out at their sudden appearance). A later attempt with an impulsively-bought reporter’s notebook had some success, but the habit quickly faded once I graduated. Last year, while getting a friend a sweet pen for Christmas, I bought a bunch of tiny notebooks (my greatest weakness) to test ink on. After realizing you only need about a page per notebook to make sure the ink doesn’t feather and bleed through, I decided to starting tracking daily tasks on one of them (a Rhodia #10, in case you were interested). To my surprise, when I wrote something down, it often got done, which absolutely wasn’t the norm for my 2020. There was a steady dopamine drip coming from understanding something needed to be done and then doing that thing. So, following the above quote, I went all in, buying some very nice notebooks and devising a strategy that I’ll pay attention to, which so far looks like this:
- Have multiple available notebooks for different situations.
- Have something written out every day.
- Stay honest.
Those are the only rules that I have for myself, and so far, it’s working better than expected. In the spirit of putting the whole ass into it, I splurged on some quality notebooks that I would want to write in: the Midori MD Diary Thin and 1 Day 1 Page. They’re beautiful, minimalist notebooks that I was almost sad to put covers on, and the paper is absolutely quality. Combined with that Rhodia #10, I’m not only keeping track of the next day or so; I’m actually a week or two ahead in some areas. So far, the hardest part has been being honest to myself. I’m very good at talking myself out of plans, but seeing the Xs next to stuff I didn’t do is actually bothering me enough that I’m trying to actually get everything I have planned done. The only place I’m generally failing is on the streaming schedule I’d like to set up for myself, but I can probably resolve that through the combo of fixing my sleep schedule and the negative reinforcement from all of those stupid Xs. One of my resolutions for 2021 is to be more productive. I hope I can stick to it. If I can, you’ll see the result in more posts here.
Until next time, remember to whole-ass things, not half-ass them.