Welcome to the Planner Pals Podcast, a podcast hosted by
your two true planner pals. I am Jess or Jessie Curran.
And my name is Mark, and I go by Mark your pages.
Welcome back to the Planner Pals podcast.
Today's episode is going to be a good one because this is
something that I think all of us either do or have talked about.
And today, we're going to be talking about planning for work
versus planning for home, specifically, the importance of
planning for both of those things, the general differences
between the two and how planning for one versus the other is
important. But how's it all so different?
And just I'm curious for you as we get into this, what do you
find to be the most important thing about planning between
work and home? And I guess more importantly, do
you do those separately? I think that the biggest thing
for me is that idea of like striving for a work life balance
type thing. I mean, I feel like it's like
the mythical lands like Narnia or something.
Like can we actually achieve balance?
But if we kind of only put all of our in one basket and just
plan for home or just plan for work vice versa, then you can
kind of end up living a bit of an unbalanced life as kind of
result of that. So by kind of helping ourselves
out, I suppose by having spaces in our journals related to both
of those, it means that we are going to tend more in the
direction of being balanced rather than just like being a
complete homebody or only focusing on work all the time.
In terms of actually planning for both of those, I do not
think that my planning is particularly balanced between.
Would you say yours is quite balanced or not so much?
No, mine is completely 100% unbalanced.
I mean the entire reason I got started in my bullet journal was
based around work because that's where I'm using it the most and
I've been sprinkling in some personal stuff throughout the
years. But I do not really bullet
journal for home necessarily. I think everything for me is
definitely work. And then I would say more hobby
related specifically like bullet journaling, social media,
podcast, things along that, but more about like obtaining the
skills, the tasks, the notes of what's going on.
I really don't feel like I have anything too much really
happening at home where I feel like I need to do that very
much. I'm also realizing now that I'm
not very much of like I'll call like a long form journaler,
really a journaler necessarily as bullet journaling has always
been kind of my main focus always.
So everything that I've really done has been work focused, but
I will include some home things in my work bullet journal, but
it's mostly to remember events or appointments or birthdays or
things like that. Yeah, I think that mine would
probably be kind of similar. And in thinking about it, like
in preparing for this episode, I kind of got to thinking like, oh
gosh, have I like been neglecting all of the home
planning that other people are doing?
Kind of think about it very much in terms of my home related task
versus Vogels home related tasks.
And I'm like, if I feel, I feel like if I had a look at his
journal, it's probably just like stacks upon stacks of things
he's doing around the house. And I'm just like, well, I
scrubbed the toilet three months ago.
So like, don't come at me with all of your like.
Could you please help out? Yeah, a lot of the chores and
things like that for our house too, are not really things that
I feel like I have to remind myself to do.
I feel like we already have kind of a cadence in the house
anyway, You know, like I don't have to remind myself to do the
dishes because we're a family of four and that thing's getting
probably run every single night like most of the other things in
my life, at least from a home purpose I remember.
So the only things that would maybe put in there in like a
future log would be for like a bulk trash pickup.
Like that's not something that I remember.
I know that trash goes out on Monday.
Recycling is every other Tuesday like that I remember for the
most part. But something like a big thing
like bulk trash, it's not like, Oh, I know exactly when that is
like that'll go in my future log to remind me of, but I'm not
creating like a task list or really anything else about that.
It's more like, oh, that's happening.
We should see what we have to put out.
I guess that's also an interesting point of like when I
think about about home versus work planning, my home planning
default is just chores, just those things that you're doing
on like a weekly, monthly, whatever, daily maybe basis,
daily chores, ridiculous. But there's also a lot of other
things I suppose that would probably go into home planning
or planning for home. When I kind of think about it,
when I kind of expand on it outside of just the realm of
chores, it kind of ends up being more like work planning versus
personal planning. So what am I kind of doing in my
personal life with personal projects versus things that I'm
doing, business work, earning money and stuff so I can
survive? I think it's also very much
around like the executive function, if I'm using that term
correctly. I think everyone kind of
struggles or is OK with that executive function to remember
to do those certain things or kind of how those things are
supposed to happen. I don't want to use that too
generally there or be too specific, but I know a number of
people who have a personal journal for home.
You know, they're reminding themselves or checking things
off around their morning routine, making sure that
they're brushing their teeth, making sure that they're doing
whatever certain remedies or cares or things like that.
I don't know if that's necessarily something that they
have to remind themselves to do it versus just the action of
tracking, but I know for some people that's incredibly
helpful. They need that reminder that
step by step. And I think for myself, I don't
have anything that routine or following a certain method or
documenting it in a certain way that I feel like I need to do
that to remind myself to do that.
But I think for others, that might be a really big difference
in how a bullet journal or journaling as a whole and
tracking could be helpful for them at home.
It's just not something that I personally do or feel like I
personally need to do. Yeah, no, the, the teeth
brushing one is one that I continuously bring back into my
trackers because for the longest time my queue or the thing that
would kind of prompt me to brush my teeth was you're leaving the
house. You don't want to go out and
smell like stank breath like, but I don't leave the house
anymore. So now that queue that I've
relied on and that I built up over years of leaving the house,
going to school, then going to school as a teacher, all of
that, I don't have that anymore. So sometimes bringing that into
my journal as something that I'm tracking to literally remind me
to say, hey girl, go brush your teeth.
Sometimes I need that. Well, you know, and I think
that's an important piece, like if you need that to help you
kind of function, that's a great example of something you can do
for home. I think for me, it's just always
been where I needed the most help has been around work and
tracking and remembering the things that are going on there.
So like most other things also are happening within the family.
So I have my wife as an individual person who doesn't
need a bullet journal, doesn't need a reminder.
It lives all up here. She's got excellent executive
function where I don't. She is thinking about what's
happening next. She knows the dates.
Kind of all those typical things, right?
Stereotypical things of a fantastic wife and a dumb, dumb
husband, but it's just something that's like not top of mind.
But if I write it down and I look at it, I know that I'm
good. But that's for everything,
honestly. That's not just for like
personal home things, that's even for work.
You know, there's things that happen.
I have to see it on my calendar. And I'm noticing now too, how I
need to be even more mindful about that because like part of
my job is like setting up the agendas for our team meetings or
meeting with other executives and things like that.
And sometimes I'll find myself like completely forgetting that
it's coming up and someone on my team will remind me.
I'm like, that's my job up though, like I should know that
that's happening. And so I'm thinking about things
for myself even in my work journal though, similar to what
we just talked about for like the daily at home as like a
checklist almost to like remind myself to look ahead a week or
two in my calendar or my schedule for those things.
Because those are the areas where I feel like I need the
most help. Or I'm not remembering to do
those things where, you know, brushing my teeth or, you know,
washing my hair in the morning or whatever.
That might be totally different. I can also wear a hat.
So you know, I also don't need to do everything all the time.
I'm pretty sure I could fit all of this under a hat.
It might just be very uncomfortable, but I think
that's interesting. Also, like the style of things
that we're setting up for home versus work probably do have
some differences. We think about like, you know,
tracking in terms of personal daily rituals and stuff like
that. Are we tracking those kind of
things for work? Are there daily rituals at work
that need to be tracked rather than ones that are kind of
written down in like a task list?
And I suppose that really depends on what kind of line of
work people are in. Of course, I don't think there's
anything that I would need to track on a daily basis
specifically that would be for work.
Do you have any work routines or habits that you track or?
I mean ones that I feel like I need to or that are reoccurring
every single week. So like every Monday morning,
for instance, I have to remind myself of a handful of things.
So here's a great example. I have to approve last week's
timesheets for any of our contractors.
That needs to happen every Monday.
It should happen every Monday morning.
But sometimes I will forget and I'll get a message at like 530
like, hey, can you approve my timesheet?
So like that needs to happen. I have a Monday morning meeting
that I set up. I have a a Monday schedule that
I do for the team, like the out of office.
What's our week look like? And then also like I mentioned,
I'm supposed to be looking ahead at meetings and sending out
early agendas, but I always kind of go through there.
So I actually thought recently of just maybe just printing out
something that I can just stick in my weekly just to remind me
because I have to do it every single week, but I don't want to
have to write it down every single week.
Like that just seems like very repetitive, but I know that I
need to do it and it would be super helpful.
So those would be my like scheduled things that I know
that I have to do that sometimes just slip my mind because once I
sit down at my computer, so many things start to come at you.
Emails and you know, people messaging you already first
thing in the morning. Like no, mark, you need to focus
to do these things. Like this is what it's for.
But I also feel like I don't know if every calendar e-mail
service does this, but we're using like the Microsoft Sphere
at work. And I just noticed something
that Microsoft is doing now. It's called like via or
something like that. It's like all based around
mental health and reminders and like tracking your time.
And I actually find it to be very helpful.
I know that we're going to be talking more about tools
specifically that are helping you to do achieve these things,
digital versus analog, for home or for work.
But I'm just bringing it up now because it's actually very on
point because the other day it was like, I set this thing up.
So every day it'll do a virtual commute is what it's calling it.
So for the remote team members out there, I thought this was
actually really awesome and I'm going to jotted it down as an
idea maybe to talk about in the future YouTube video too.
But you set a time for a virtual commute because usually when you
are driving to the office, you have that 2030 minute hour,
depending where you live commute, you're not working,
you're not checking emails, You have that time.
And Microsoft now is allowing you to schedule that for
yourself as like a virtual commute to like, like shut it
down, have that time and then kind of depart from work, which
I really liked. It's also doing mood tracking
now. It asked me at the end of the
day how I felt about my day. And then it also was doing a
review of tasks, but it's using Microsoft List, which I don't
use. I use my bullet journal.
And the other day I really was like, oh gosh, like maybe I
should be using this because it's automatically prompting me
to do these things or I need to set those alarms almost for
myself and my calendar to remind me.
Like maybe that should be a Monday morning reminder for
myself about those tasks that I need to do versus setting it
inside of my bullet journal. I don't know.
But I think that there are definitely pros and cons to it,
but also a major divide for myself between digital and
analog, for those things where I think a lot of people may have
that same type of internal fighting of what's personal and
what's work and should they be the same, in the same spot or
potentially different too. Yeah, I think that's a good
point also is that like sometimes we do use different
tools for those different areas of our life.
Like, you know, your work tasks and all of those might be housed
in a completely different notebook or a completely
different system. You might be doing it digitally.
It might be enforced by your employer.
That could also be a thing. I know some people have a work
phone and then obviously you're going to have certain apps and
stuff on that that are different to your personal phone because
it's just related to a different area of your life.
And then I guess it's how do we not necessarily combine them
because they're not necessarily what we're trying to do, but
it's like how do we manage both of those in our overall kind of
organizational system to get ourselves, you know, cool, calm,
collective and keep ourselves productive and on the train.
Like in both areas, it can be kind of hard when they don't
necessarily work well together. I suppose because my work, when
I used to be a teacher, we also use the Microsoft products,
which are kind of just my preference.
So I've continued to use them now as I work for myself, but I
find that keeping things separate has not worked well for
me previously. Mainly because if I tried to, I
found that all of the home and personal stuff was like
literally just chores related. And it was the most demotivating
thing I have ever had in my planning system.
So I was like, OK, I need to have them together.
So there's a little bit of variance in what kind of content
is going into the home space because I was blending it with
work, which also just leads me to not balance my work and home
life very well. But that's a whole other kettle
of fish, I suppose, in terms of like the, I guess, products
quote, quote that you use for home planning versus work
planning. I know you literally just said
that you work plan more than your home plan, but what kind of
differences would there be if you were using systems for both
of those? So I would say that my home
organization is much more digital.
So we have, you know, I'm using e-mail, I'm flagging things that
I have to remind myself to do. I might have small things I have
to remind myself of, like I said, appointments and things
like that that I will throw into my bullet journal.
I did set up, I call it like my desk bullet journal.
It's separate than my work journal.
But I find that this is actually more revolving around social
media and mark your pages than it is necessarily home tasks and
things like that. I mean, everything else at home,
we shared digital calendar that we're using just on our iPhones
and inviting each other to remind each other of those types
of things. But everything else really is
just us talking out loud. Really it's my wife talking out
loud, reminding me of things we have to do or just kind of spur
the moment. I think a lot of the times it's
just like, oh, we said we wanted to do this yard work this
weekend during the week, and so it gets there and we just know
that that's what has to be done. I don't have to write that down
for a mind myself necessarily. Or there's like a project that I
started and didn't finish. Well, I can see that it's
unfinished and I have to walk past it all the time.
So that's my visual reminder that that thing has to be done.
Whereas for work is very much analog for me personally, but my
entire team is digital. We're a fully remote team.
So all the tools that we're using, how we communicate,
everything is digital. But for myself, my own personal
organization, it's my bullet journal 1st and then anything
I'm writing down or doing, then I eventually have to translate
into a digital space. It was just my friends at work
were laughing at me the other day because I was showing them
something in Miro, right? So just a collaborative work
board, but I took a picture of my bullet journal and then put
the pictures on there because I had written out these notes and
kind of drawn out this process of what I was thinking.
And it was just easier for me to write it down and just take a
picture of it and put it in there than it was for me to like
start there or recreate it digitally.
I'd already done the work, they just had to give their feedback
on it. But there are times like that,
though, where I feel like, Mark, you have to remember to
translate this into where everyone else is working because
not everyone can read your journal.
You're not in the office anymore.
I guess that's also a point I like because you work with other
people and you have a team in there in a digital space as
well. You kind of have to accommodate
them in a way. Yeah, it definitely is.
I think about you often when we talk about this because you are
in such a very like specialized kind of place because until you
hire more people for the true team, Jessie, I think that you
know, you're, you're kind of on your own.
So everything you're doing is really for yourself inside of
there. But like what about your, you
mentioned before that your work home is separate, but like kind
of involved, Like what tools are you all using I guess for
yourself and and your significant other versus just
yourself for social media? Mine's less about like you know,
home is more digital and work is more analogue or anything like
that. Both of them are very much kind
of blended systems, more so leaning on the analogue than it
is on the digital. So the digital kind of like
augments or like supplements, I suppose the overall planning
system I have. So in terms of work, the only
thing that I really do digitally for work is Notion.
I use Notion to plan out when video contents coming out,
mainly because I can drag and drop things, so when I decide
that I can't get a particular video done, I can put it on
another week. I could bring another video idea
in and that's also a really good place to just plan out the
videos as well. I don't like writing long
handwritten notes, so if I want to write out like a script or
any kind of like talking points or anything like that, it's just
way easier to do that digitally than in a notebook.
It'll also end up being a lot more legible and a lot more user
friendly for me later. Doing future me a favour there
In terms of digital for home, though, it's really just a
shared calendar that does not get as utilized as it could
because Vogel still ends up asking me like, oh, when's your
Carrie's birthday party happening?
I'm like, I put it on the shared calendar.
If you check, you would know this fine when all this effort
to set it up and he doesn't even use it sounds like his bullet
journal, but it's fine. So we've got my journal fleet, I
suppose. And then in that we have the one
that's kind of primarily, I guess for work would be all of
them. Now, as I think about it,
because setting up journals is my work.
So it doesn't really having them separated becomes really tricky
when the way that you're effectively making money and you
know, your profession is making journal content.
And it's also the way you organize your life.
So I find that the separation is a little bit hard to achieve
because they're so kind of like intertwined with one another.
It's definitely helpful in our space when the content you're
creating revolves around what you're using to do that.
I think very much about when I first started my bullet journal
account. I mean, I couldn't have the
account without the bullet journal, and I needed the bullet
journal to really help me continue to succeed at work.
So really the content feeds itself.
I mean, I find personally the hardest stuff for me to create
is the stuff that has to be kind of of like thought up out of the
blue. Like right now you and I are
both on the Archer and all of the ambassador team.
And so we're required each month to create content and blog post
and do all of this. And I appreciate it because it
does help me kind of think outside of my normal, right,
Like how would I use these things?
And a lot of the times I'm just like, well, it's not that I'm an
overly creative planner, so I can't really like, come out with
these like how to make up travel spread for the next six months.
You know, I don't know, I'm making random things up there.
Have you been reading my blog post?
Oh my God, that's literally what I'm writing, right?
Now, well see, that's the thing. Like you have all of those
creative ideas and can kind of think through those things, but
like my brain just for whatever reason doesn't work that way.
So a lot of the times I'm like, okay, how to use acrylic graphs.
So, you know, and, and, but how would I use them and how do I
use them in my journal or whatever that might be?
Whereas like making a weekly spread in my bullet journal,
something that I am doing anyway because I need to do that for
work. So just record that and use that
as content, right? I'm using my bullet journal
throughout the weeks. I'm creating ideas for work
spreads and things like that. Like it's just wonderful when
you have to do that and you're just going to remind yourself,
we'll just record that because that's it's content.
It also gets in the way a lot of the times too.
I'm not going to lie. And I'm sure you have the same
exact, you know, situation where you're like, I just need to do
this thing. You're like, but where is my
camera lights action? You're like, you were just
running down a mote mark. Like it is not that big of a
deal. But I think that it's super
helpful though, when it's like that versus an account for like
sewing or some other hobby type account.
It's not directly related with what we do day-to-day.
So it's maybe a little bit difficult or a different mind.
Like for us, it's just always there, I feel like.
Yeah, it can also be kind of an interesting but tricky
relationship in a way because, OK, you start your planner
because you need to plan. You know, you have things you
need to organize in your life. You need to write stuff down,
but then you start taking pictures of it and sharing it on
Instagram or making videos of it and sharing it on YouTube and
stuff. And so where does it become?
I am planning because I need to plan and I'm also filming it
just to share because versus I'm planning because I need
something to film to share it. I also think that's why a lot of
creators that have burnt out or are not around anymore, maybe
for that exact reason, they had created a bullet journal for
maybe a time and place in their life and they no longer needed
that, but maybe they'd gain a following.
And so they're creating and pumping out content just for the
sake of it and never really using it.
I mean, I know of at least two creators in the past that I've
like talked to and especially earlier on where I was like, I
love your stuff. It's so amazing to see all these
ideas. Like, do you ever post like
after the pens? They were like, you know, don't
tell anybody body, but I don't use any of this in my daily
life. So they were really creating
bullet journal content. One of them specifically didn't
even know what the bullet journal method was.
They were like, I saw that there is this thing bullet journaling.
So I started to do it, but I don't like use it or anything.
And that just like floored me. And I was like, Oh my gosh, wait
a second. Like how are you putting all
content around bullet journaling, but you don't use
the bullet journal method? And I think that's earlier on in
my mind, right? The two are the same.
Your bullet journal, you use the bullet journal method, but it
wasn't until years later and even a lot recently you and I
talked about that, that like creative planning isn't
necessarily always bullet journaling, but sometimes bullet
journaling is creative planning, right?
Like it's, it's a, there's a bullet journal method and then
there's creative planning. And some people just do the
creative planning as a way to do whatever.
And bullet journal is the Kleenex of tissue, right?
It's just what you call the thing where some people are
actually using, like myself, the bullet journal method, but I am
doing some creative planning inside of there.
And so I don't know. It's just, it was a very hard
thing for me to be like, well, how do you do this without using
it? I I just don't know, just it
hurts my brain to think about. It, I like your point of it
being the kind of like Kleenex of the journaling world.
I suppose we've just taken that term and started to apply it to
things that don't necessarily relate to the original method.
But I also like the idea of, you know, creative journaling versus
maybe bullet journaling or what I'm going to call like
functional journaling or functional planning.
And possibly that could be something that there's like a
difference point for people in terms of how they plan for home
versus how they plan for work. Like maybe one of those is more
of a creative space for them. The other one is more of just
like a purely functional stripped back kind of thing.
I know for me, I found that even when I was working as a teacher,
it still had to be kind of creative.
Otherwise I didn't like to look at it, I wouldn't use it.
And then there was number point to it.
But for your style you do tend towards the more like stripped
back functional esque kind of layout say.
I do and then every now and again I throw something in like
this week was distressed oxide. You know, I popped that out of
my stationary box and I was like, let's use this this week.
But it's actually honestly, if anyone wants to be like, Mark,
how does your brain work? I always talk about this idea of
having the foundation down 1st and then kind of adding to it.
So like this past week, for instance, in my bullet journal,
it's exactly it. I had laid it out for what I
needed, which was like a very small daily overview for each
day of the week and then room for notes and room for tasks and
capacity planning that I do for my team, right?
And once that was in set, then I laid kind of that creative, the
distress oxide over top of that because it's the icing to the
cake for me. I don't need the icing, but
icing is delicious. But it was that I had everything
kind of set there and ready to go.
And so that's exactly it. I think sometimes where I get
myself caught up where I'm like, no, I'm more functional
planning. But then I do add stickers and
stamps and distressed oxide and all this fun stuff to it.
But it's always in addition to a solid foundation that I have
first because when I've done it the other way around, you get
through and you're like, I have a bubble that's this big.
I can only write two things that I need to write 10 things inside
of it. It kind of threw me off a lot
where then I reset myself and said, always mark foundation
first, then icing on top. So just I'm actually curious,
like talking about that, right? This functionality and the kind
of adding the things on top of it.
I feel like you are the queen of themes.
You are the queen of also really smart, important techniques that
people can use. I'm curious of what techniques
you find yourself using. Whether this is for home, your
bullet journal, weeklies are kind of how you approach design
problem solving. Yeah, I think that when I was in
a more structured profession 1, where I had to stick literally
to a timetable because I was a teacher, I found that things
that were very much related to kind of like schedules, time
batching, that kind of stuff were really more necessary.
Nowadays when I'm working for myself and I'm a little bit more
flexible with my time is like, do I want to work at 10:00 PM?
Sure, why not? There's nobody here to stop me,
which is so dangerous. But I find that layouts that
really rely on tables, especially things like Alistair
method tables, whether that be kind of like workflows in terms
of, hey, here's a series of projects you need to do
spoilers, They're all videos. So here are all the videos you
need to do and here are all of the steps you need to take to
work on them. Those kind of structures I find
I'm very attached to, I'm very drawn to those ones and I use
them quite a lot at work. And now as we've kind of gotten
onto this topic, I'm thinking about like, how could I use them
at home as well in a way that would be, well, one, I'd
actually use it, That'd be nice so I can to be a better life
partner. And three, Vogel can stop
bitching at me. That'd be nice.
Yeah. In terms of the homework,
homework, the work around the house, that is very much more of
his kettle of fish rather than mine.
And I could do better at planning for those kind of
things. So I am starting to think more
about like, OK, well, what kind of layouts could I set up in
that space that I would find approachable because I've used
them previously, I found success with them in my work kind of
related life, bring those into the home space and actually make
better use of those. In terms of the home related
layouts that I have thus far, my main one would probably just be
my home projects list. And that's just a list like it's
literally in the title. So that one's kind of easy.
But outside of that, I don't think I have anything
specifically home like house related.
Do you have any kind of techniques in particular that
you're drawn towards often in either area?
I would say that it's definitely more leaning towards work, but I
can see how this could be very useful if you have a lot of home
things going on. So there's two techniques or
methods that I specifically use relatively often.
I would say the first is the Eisenhower method.
So that is the kind of the four quadrant box the do decide,
delegate and delete and plotting those things on there I will
bring out of the toolbox, especially when I feel like I
have a lot going on all at once. And so I'll do that for work a
lot where I'll just like brain dump all the things that I feel
like have to be done. And then I'll go ahead and like
take a moment and kind of plot them inside of that matrix to
help me just kind of understand and break it down and sometimes
prioritize. And then the other one is
probably my most favorite. I don't always use this exactly
as it is created, but it's called Ivy Lee Method.
And this is one that I learned a number of years ago, actually
from James Clearhead wrote about this in one of his books and
journals that he did with Baron Fig in the back.
And I was like, I really love this.
For anyone who doesn't know what the Ivy Lee Method is, is this
method created by Ivy Lee? He was hired by this big company
essentially to come in and like, help all of their executives be
more productive. There's also this really fun
story behind it where the owner of the company was like, how
much do I owe you? And Ivy Lee was like, like, I'm
going to teach everyone this method, and then you decide what
you're going to pay me afterwards, which is the
ballsiest baller move ever in the entire world, right?
But essentially what the method does is help you plan in advance
for your day. And what you're supposed to do
in this is every single day the day before it.
So like, let's say you are going to work on a Monday.
On Sunday night, you write down the six most important things
you have to do tomorrow and you actually list them out one
through 6. And that way when you come to
work on Monday, you know exactly what you have to get done.
And you don't change your list and you don't move on to the
next one until you accomplish the first task that you give for
yourself. And then by the end of the day
for Tuesday, before you leave on Monday night, you do the same
exact thing. And I love this for a number of
reasons. I think one, it kind of helps
with that bullet journal methodology of the daily log
because you set up your day, your six most important things
and then you kind of like rapid logging below that, your task
and your notes and whatever else.
But then you're taking a moment at the end of your day to
reflect on that day and set it up for the next day.
And so that's actually one I have brought into play a number
of times. Sometimes I won't do six.
I might do like my big three or something like that, I'll call
them. But it very much plays off of
like, these are the most important things you have to do
today, and they have to get done today in order.
Because I've thought about it and it's one that I've shared
with others. And the fun part of the story at
the end, essentially, is that he taught everyone how to do this.
And then he came and said, OK, what do you want to pay me?
And the owner was like, oh, I'm going to pay you.
I forget X amount of money, which ended up being like
$1,000,000 back in the day. At this time, there's probably a
lot more dates and specific things around that story that I
should know. But really the big idea here is
that you are setting yourself up for success the day before.
You're prioritizing yourself the day before.
So you come to work or come into whatever situation the next day
with a list of things you already have to do.
So there's no morning paralysis because you've already thought
through it and nothing is going to change this.
And I just really like that. And so often again, whenever I
feel like I'm all over the place, I going to bring a method
into place. I mean, technically I feel like
bullet journal is supposed to be doing this for us too.
It's in the method. So you don't feel that way.
But sometimes I need to bring in other things just to be like,
this is different, this is new and you're going to follow this
process for the week. And then I end up just going
back to just daily logging or weekly logging for my bullet
journal. And I feel OK.
But those are probably the two that I say I bring in most
often. Again, I don't necessarily use
them for home because the home tasks like we've already talked
about are not that urgent or important as much as the work
ones are for myself. I think that's really, it's very
good to say that kind of technique that like you very
much could use it in your home life, though it doesn't have to
just be in work life, even if it's kind of typically talked
about in that space. Like I don't really see myself
probably setting up an Eisenhower matrix for home
tasks. It's just not one that really
resonates with me. But the idea of setting up like
your top six and actually sequencing them, that is the
kind of thing that makes my brain happy.
I find that I kind of do a very soft version of this in the in
the days where I'm just like everything is everywhere.
I'm a scatterbrained mess. I have no idea what I need to
do. In fact, actually I do have a
really good idea of it and that's why I'm overwhelmed or
something like that. Whatever.
I find that just setting aside like this is the daily
highlight. This is the one thing that if I
get to the end of the day and I finished it, I will feel
accomplished often knowing that I will work on other things and
there will be other things that I make progress on in some way.
But just setting it aside is like this is the one thing, this
is the focus. And then if I finish that, OK,
let's pick the next focus. I guess in the idea of making it
a sequence of six, you've already got the next ones picked
out for yourself. But I also really like the idea
of setting it the day before or on a Friday if you're going to
work on a Monday because it's just doing future you a favor.
Like future you does not have to make the choice because current
you who has a better understanding of everything
that's going on or what is making that choice for you.
That's really cool. I like that.
What I think I like the most about, whether it's bullet
journaling or planning or really honestly, I DIY journal
altogether, just a Doc grid notebook, is that nothing is set
for you. I know some people like to have
those planners with the dates of the specific things in it that
they're looking for, and I think if that works for you, that's
fantastic. But what I have always loved
about the way that I've planned essentially with a blank
notebook is that I can pull in these tools when I need them and
then kind of take them out of my life when I don't go back to
what I need. Versus I feel like if every week
started with some type of a template where I did that, I
just don't know in practice that I would want to use that all the
time. Because sometimes I feel like
I've got it and I'm on top of it.
I know exactly what I have to do.
But it's those moments when I feel out of control where I'm
very thankful that I've educated myself around these different
methodologies so that I can kind of pick it off the shelf when I
need it and put it right back up there for when I don't.
I feel like we're definitely going to have to have an episode
which is just like favorite productivity and get shit done
kind of tips because like that's just a space that I could talk
for a very long time about. So we're not going to do it this
time. We already have a focus, but I
think that would be a fun topic for a future episode.
It would be, and I could get the details of my Ivy League story
like nailed down. So it probably makes a lot more
sense. But I guess just let me, you
know, let's give a little preview of what that episode
might look like, especially around work versus home.
Are there any like specific tips that you have, whether you've
learned or that you give to others or for all the other
planner pals that you think is like your top tip for the
difference or planning for work versus home or even combining
them or separating them? I think that one of the bigger
tips that I would have for this is if you are finding that you
cannot keep up with one journal, do not introduce another.
Like do not split things out to be like a home journal and a
work journal. If you can't even keep up with
one. That's not me trying to be mean
to you. All right?
I'm saying this with so much love.
Instead, what I would probably recommend would be to either
like section out your notebook so things are still all in the
one space. You know, you don't have to add
additional things into your lineup to keep track of.
One of the ways you can do this is literally just by having like
front half and back half. So you could have like a certain
section that you kind of start from to do your home or work,
whichever one you want to put in whichever space.
But what I have seen some people do is like they literally take
their notebook and the front half is work and then they start
working from the back to do home.
So you just start from the Backpage and go, I guess forward
from there backward. How would we describe that?
That would be one thing like, you know, don't add additional
notebooks into your lineup or plan is into your lineup.
If you're finding that you're struggling to just keep up with
one another thing that can be very useful is actually having
separate spaces for planning in either area in a more kind of
regular structure that you use. So for instance, if you're
setting up weekly logs for yourself or weekly layouts,
maybe having separate task lists for home versus work means that
then you don't have all of those things into disperse with each
other. Means that when you're in the
spaces to work on those things, like at work or at home, you can
just focus on the tasks that are relevant to that space.
That can be really helpful. Do you have any tips for people?
Yes, I do actually. I had I had to pull out this
example because what you said just resonated with me so much
about don't pull it out just if you don't need it.
So like, here's a visual example of my weekly bullet journal
spread for a week, right? Like everything going on, all my
notes and tasks, I decided that I'm going to take out kind of
those other things. Here's my weekly bullet journal
for just like at home, these this could fit in one journal.
I did not have to break this out necessarily.
So that's just a really good example, but I think in my mind
that I needed it and I made this choice because I kept it all
together first. So it's kind of a similar thing
to yours, Jess, which is if you're unsure, keep it all
together or keep it all in one notebook, because I think
there's a lot of ways and layouts that you can use to do
that. So I'd like that idea of working
front to back for work and back to front for home.
Now that would bother me, I feel like because, but something I
have done actually when I've been playing around with this
idea is also just taking your page and splitting it right down
the center and keeping tasks for work and notes for work on one
side and home on the other. Because what I've started to do
over time essentially was try to outgrow my notebook with a
topic. So that's a great example where
I was like, OK, I'm going to split my page in half task and
task. Now, if my home or social media
or whatever task outgrew that page, I was like, OK, let's make
a mental note of this, right? I can continue on a different
page. And if that happened
continuously over time, I would say, OK, it's definitely needs
its own space versus, you know, taking yourself out of this
other notebook and that flow and everything else to kind of keep
them together. I think for myself personally, I
know mentally that work and my social media stuff are separate
things. When I'm at work, I'm at work.
That's my job. When I'm not at work, if I'm on
lunch or after work or before work, that's when social media
happens for me. That's why I do scheduling.
That's where I make my contact. I do all those things.
So I think for myself even it's helpful for me not to mix those
two things because those are two essentially 2 full time jobs.
Obviously when you break it down, I work, you know, between
8:00 and 5:00 in my full time job and then before work and
after work, I'm doing the other full time job.
Social media, it's more fun, but you know what I'm saying?
So I think it's very much the same vein is that try to make it
work in one, give yourself separate spaces or ways to do
that. But once you feel that you've
actually outgrown that space, then maybe consider that second
notebook before starting off with two.
Because I think it would, and I know it would because I've been
there several times. It will make you more nervous
and anxious because you're like, oh, I have this idea for this
thing. Where is that?
Where is that notebook crap? Do I write it inside of the one
I'm using right now versus the other?
Or trying to make that mental switch I think is going to make
you a little bit more crazy. Yeah, I think that the hard part
about having them separated as well is like what if I'm in one
space or the other and I don't have access to the notebook that
I need? So if you've got a notebook
that's just for your home related life, home related
tasks, chores, personal projects, whatever, but you have
a thought about that while you're at work away from your
notebook. Now you either have to write it
in your work notebook, which kind of defeated the purpose of
splitting them, or you have to put it somewhere else to then
transfer into your notebook when you get home or it just gets a
little bit messy. And that's why I found that I
prefer to just have them together.
Also, kind of like you said, when you split them out and you
just don't have enough stuff to really warrant having another
notebook, or when you split them out and you realize, cool, the
only things I have going on for home are chores and that's
really demotivating. So I'm just not going to look at
my journal. I think another tip too, and
this just came to mind is maybe to start small and grow from
there. So a really great example is if
you have an A5 size notebook for yourself for work, this is the
size you're using and you're thinking you're slightly
outgrowing that, Maybe try something like the B6 size,
which you know, a lot of people are, are very popular now.
Or like, you know, I would have like your little tiny notebook
that again, all the tasks that I showed you in my A5 could have
fit on one of these little pages here and I would have been OK,
but start there and then slowly grow it.
So instead of go. Going from like an A5 to being
like, I need AB 5 for, for all my extra stuff at home.
And then suddenly you're like using this much space inside of
there, you know, start smaller and kind of grow from there.
I think that's another really great way that you could
approach it if you do want to separate it out to kind of try
it and see if it works. Yeah, I think that that idea of
doing what we call like an ooch. So it's like you're doing a test
run or a trial of something before you commit to getting all
of the, you know, expensive or better supplies or whatever to
make a full-fledged notebook or whatnot.
It can just give yourself off the opportunity to test run it
and say like, OK, is this actually going to work for me?
Maybe do a couple of trials to see like the layout that you
might need for it or anything like that before you go out and
buy a whole new notebook for something that might not
actually end up resonating with you at all.
Total sidetrack here. I just want to have to say that
someone told me that I should start a notebook for all the
Jessisms that you do. So I have two barrel of fish and
ooch are now two new words that I've learned from you that I
feel like I need to add to this index of fantastic words and
phrases that I've never used or heard of before in my life.
I literally have a section in my long term collections journal
that's just called shit I say. Perfect.
So things like good luck, other drivers, anytime I make a
slightly interesting or risque decision, it's like, well, have
fun with the choices that I made everybody else.
I also love that it's a future bee problem because I used that
one time after doing this podcast for so many weeks and
someone was like, Jess says that all the time.
I'm like, yeah, Jess. And I've been hanging out a lot
recently, so I'm starting to pick up on those.
The snickety biscuit is always going to be a favorite though.
I'm glad that we can. We can at least have that as one
of our shared lingo points now. It's one of my absolute
favorites. So something that I wanted to
kind of think about with those tips or ways for people to also
kind of bring things together or maybe some other ways that they
could approach things in a digital way.
So we've talked a lot about analog and notebooks in there.
Do you have anything that you think it would be helpful for
anyone that's maybe in that spot with trying to combine home,
whether it's just with themselves or another person?
I mean, we've talked a lot about that with like a spouse or a
roommate or anything else. We have shared information like.
What's a good way that you think people could utilize different
tools to make that happen better?
I think that the hardest part about a shared system is finding
something that works for both or however many parties.
Because I know for instance Vogel has a journal.
He pretty much only uses his bullet journal for home related
stuff. He doesn't write anything work
related in there. But it's not my journal so it's
not like I'm going to go and write down tasks for him and or
I to do in his notebook. That would feel a little bit
weird, but we do have a shared calendar when, when we both
check in with it, it works really well.
But when we don't both check in with it, it doesn't work quite
as well as it could. So it's finding tools that both
you and the people who you're trying to kind of collaborate
with going to be comfortable with using and actually make use
of, which can take a little bit of trading, I suppose, either
for yourself or for the other people to kind of check in with
that. So it's really, I guess about
the people that you're working with, what their preferences
are, whether or not you can get them on board with certain
tools. I know that some people have set
up things like shared calendars and shared kind of notebooks,
wall calendars in particular, because you can usually put them
in a space where people can actually see them, whether that
be on the front of the fridge or next to the fridge.
If you don't want to stick a calendar on your fridge
somewhere in a kind of like high traffic area where a lot of the
people in your home are going to frequent, rather than just in
your own personal space where it might be a bit weird for them to
come in to check on plans. Like I don't think I'd want a
family member flipping through my bullet journal to find out
when things were happening. That would feel a little bit
strange. Yeah, it reminds me actually,
when we talk about, you know, life influencing work and work
influencing life, it's, you know, work.
Whenever you're introducing a new tool or some type of change,
it's always about how can you be a good change agent?
And a lot of that has to do with influencing and educating and
getting people used to it. I actually just did this at work
recently where I introduced a new tool and a new method of how
we work to a team of 12. And I had to do that in a
process of saying, OK, first let me research to find out the
right tool that's going to work for the problem we're trying to
solve. Two, let me try it for myself to
see how well it works so that I can understand it.
And then three, let me educate and slowly get people into using
that. And I think that that could
definitely influence home for myself because I've tried a
number of things where I'm like, oh, I love this tool.
I think this is great. Let's all use it.
And then like everyone else is like, I have no interest in
that, like that. That's too hard for me to do.
I just like to do it this way. And so a lot of the times I
found that the shared calendar is a great idea, but like you
said, it has to work. I know that there's a number of
products out there that kind of take that team calendar or your
family calendar, I guess is a better way to talk about it and
puts in like a bigger screen. And I've seen it before.
I don't know if it works that way or not, but it's essentially
what you said. It's in a common place and
everyone sends things to the calendar.
It's kind of like a work calendar, right?
Like, here's what's going on and you see it all the time.
That's why I think, again, I love the analog calendar when
you write things down. We have that in my house.
I don't use it as much as I probably should, but I go there
whenever I'm like, oh, I remember someone said this
thing. Instead of bothering my wife,
asking her for the billionth time, what is that happening?
I know that it's there, so I can go there and do that.
So I think more than anything, I don't know if there's any kind
of new tools that that can be used.
I know I've tried to introduce Air table to social media
friends when I've been planning things and they're like, yeah, I
don't use this and I can't figure this out.
And I don't want to figure it out where I feel very
comfortable because I actually love that tool for collecting
ideas and doing things at work. I just don't think I have any
real need for it for home, just for myself personally, I use
that for myself. But if you find that you are
collaborating with other people, I think having a, a solid space
to do that, especially if you're in the applesphere, I feel like
they've made it very easy now with like shared notes.
I know this sounds very silly, but like our dog Walker, for
instance, I did this with, I just set up a note, I put all
the dates that I needed her to come to like let the dogs out
and take them for a walk. And I shared that with her.
And I said, hey, are you OK with using this?
And she said, yeah, absolutely. And she would check it off every
time we did. And I had a separate column for
when I paid her. And it just worked really well
that way. So I think that's a good example
of just finding a tool, saying, hey, does this work for you?
Can we try it? And then someone doing that is
another way of doing that. And then there's also, I think
it's called Freeform, right? I think, which is like Apple's
like shared idea notebook. My wife and I actually use that
just once we were going to purchase another home and we
were just taking notes and calls.
And I said, there's so much information, I can't write it
all in my notebook and you have it in yours.
And so we just agreed for that project that we were going to
use that. And it worked pretty well for
us. We just haven't had a need to go
back to it. But I think there are tools that
are kind of already on the devices and things that we're
using that are easy to use. So that's what I would say that
if I were to use them more probably utilize those tools.
Yeah, I think it can be very helpful in trying to find these
tools that multiple people can use is like how can we use the
ones we're already using or the ones we're already familiar with
rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, obviously within
reason. So for instance, one of the
tools that Bogle and I use is OneNote.
We have our like recipes on there.
We also have a home care notebook in there, mainly
because he really likes OneNote. And I look at it and go like,
this could be a Notion and it would be a lot better and we'd
actually be able to find things and all of this kind of thing.
I'm like, yeah, but then I have to teach Vogel how to use
Notion. So no, but I know that he is
comfortable with that and I can tolerate it.
So we use that, even though I think that there are other tools
that would be far superior. It's all good.
As long as the information is somewhere and we can both access
it and we can find the stuff we need to within a somewhat timely
manner, it's all good. I feel you on that.
I feel like if that that was me and I really despised using a
tool that I would do everything my power to do exactly what I
said. What's the what's the problem
I'm trying to solve? What tools are out there?
Let me try to use it and then use that as an example to be
like, look, this works better For these reasons.
I know that you like this. Here's how this is like this,
but better for all of us. I just think I'm always kind of
the early adopter when it comes to tools and technology.
So I feel like I'm always the one introducing new tools and
technology to people versus the opposite where they're like,
mark this new thing and I'm always like, no, let's do it
this way. I'm very open minded.
It was a hard thing for me to do for a long time whenever someone
approaches me because I'm so used to being the one with the
new ideas. But I think allowing yourself to
be open to it and this is advice for anyone who was like, no,
this is how I do it. Like let someone approach you
with an idea if you think it's going to work, especially if
it's at home and it's going to make your life a lot better.
But same thing for work as well. If there's just a better tool
that's going to help you be more efficient and effective, like be
open minded to it. And if it's not your cup of tea
to like go and look for those things, then I think you know
someone else is really excited. Let them be excited.
I think that's really good advice.
I mean, I know that I can get very particular about which
tools I'm using for different things and being open to trying
out new styles of planning, whether that be digital or
analog or whatever. It just helps us to kind of
improve our system over time, whether that be for kind of work
or home life. I suppose, like question for
you, Planner Powell, what does your planning system look like
in terms of home planning versus work?
Is it very balanced or do you find yourself kind of veering
into one area more than the other?
Do you use different tools for either your work or home
planning? Let us know more about your
system either in the comments or if you wanted to e-mail us at
Planner Powers podcast@gmail.com or hit us up on Instagram at
Planner of Health Podcast. We would love to hear from you.
In this episode, we talked a lot about finding the right solution
for what you're doing, whether it's at home or for work.
But in our next episode, we're going to be talking about the
next click down and talking specifically about layouts and
spreads that work for us inside of our planners and definitely
which ones we would recommend to others as well.
So very much looking forward to that episode.
Jess, like I said, you are the the queen of themes.
You always have 50 ideas for this certain idea, but I know
that inside of those fifty ideas, there's those tried and
truths that we have as well. So very much looking forward to
that episode. It's going to be a good one,
Mark. I'm very looking forward to that
conversation. And to you, planner pal, thank
you for watching.