Planning for Happiness
The Surprising Benefit of Planning
I’ve always struggled with organization.
My Myers-Briggs personality type is ENFP (“Everyday New Fantastic Possibilities”) so I’m a visionary, not an executor.
Being a visionary works very well for my writing as well as my college admissions coaching practice, but I struggle with the day-to-day lack of structure while working for myself.
It’s too easy to get sucked into email, Facebook or LinkedIn, and I want to be more careful with my most precious, non-renewable resource — time.
I’ve always had a very basic paper planner, the kind you pick up at CVS, but in recent months I’ve been experimenting and after many hours of research, I’ve discovered some new tools that boost my productivity *and* happiness.
Time Blocking
One of the most impactful things I’ve these days is time blocking.
Quite simply, time blocking is planning out your time. So for example, wake up at 7, journal until 730, prep the kids for school until 930, hike from 1030-noon, etc.
Before time blocking I would just work straight from my to-do list whenever I had a chance (which was pretty much all day).
Panda Planner
I researched several different planners and the one I’m currently experimenting with is the Panda Planner. (I’m not getting paid for this recommendation.)
This planner appeals to me because the company founder had Lyme Disease, a brain injury, and cancer, and these health conditions so severely impaired his life he had to research science-based methods to increase his happiness… and put them all into the planner.
If you sign up for the Panda Planner newsletter, they will give you a free download of their planning pages so you can try them out before buying. (I personally like the Pro version.)
In addition to using the daily planner pages for time blocking, I also appreciate the prompts for gratitude, affirmations, habits, priorities, and tasks.
And in the evening I write down the day’s victories and how I will improve the next day.
I like the built-in reflective aspect of these planning pages.
These are all habits I know would help improve my life, but I have a hard time remembering them, so I appreciate the visual prompts.
Habit Tracking
The third thing that’s been highly impactful for me is a monthly habit tracker. By using habit trackers (again, there are many free printables online) I have broken my habit of reading the news every day.
Even though I’m a journalist, news consumption was stressing me out because every day I read horribly scary things about our planet. I have no control over preventing these disasters so it was causing me way too much stress.
I’ve stopped reading the news because I know if something’s big it will make its way into my inbox or conversations anyways.
Other habits I’m working on include daily journaling, prayer, Bible reading, bedtime by 10:30, and going outside 1-2 hours a day.
This habit tracker is a good way to remind myself of what I’m working on and there’s also satisfaction in placing an x in the box when I complete the action.
Time and Happiness Tracking
Another thing that’s been helpful is tracking my time and happiness.
Professor Cassie Holmes, author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most, has a great, free printable happiness / time tracker.
In tracking how I spend my time and also the happiness associated with the activity, I realized that when I coach students, I’m in flow and my happiness is a 10 out of 10. However, when I’m surfing the web or watching Netflix, my happiness is a measly 3 out of 10.
My goal is to maximize happiness and the tracker has helped me realize what brings me joy, so I can incorporate more of it into my life.
Master Paper Coraller
One final tip: I used to have random habit/happiness time trackers lying all over the house and I could never find them, which would make this process really hard.
I recently got a 3-ring binder and have put all of my papers in there, creating a mega planner / happiness binder (I’ve even created an extra section with happiness activity calendars from the Greater Good Science Center at U.C. Berkeley, and other happiness resources I find helpful, like how to challenge Automatic Negative Thoughts). Now I have these resources at my disposal whenever I need them.
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I’ve found that when I plan my time, I get more done and I can rest more.
When I plan my time, I can rest more.
In the past when I did not plan my time, whenever I had a free moment I would panic and think I needed to “be productive” so I’d complete low value tasks (email, checking Facebook as a break, etc.) in the name of “working.”
Now I know I have built in times to work so I can also block off several hours a day to rest and play.
I’m so curious about you — what’s your planning system? How do you stay on top of all of life’s details?
Read More…
How to Stop Working All the Time
This post is sponsored BrightStory, a boutique college admissions consulting company owned by Stanford graduate, professional journalist and “coach of admission coaches” Alice Chen, who also created Happy Asian Woman.
I got a remarkable tablet for Christmas. Life-changing! It can be a bullet-type journal AND a planner! You can download pdfs and write directly on them. You can make multiple custom “notebooks” that have the page templates you like to use best. Trackers, etc. It can convert your writing to text, save everything in the cloud. (I just downloaded the time tracker onto my tablet excited to discover what I’ll learn from that!) BUT there’s no wandering off into internet rabbit holes! Bc it’s not made for that!
You're welcome. Thanks for your shares. I've been checking them out. I'm always looking for new ideas and better ways.