Routines vs Calendars

I’ve tried out many systems over the years. There’s always something “new,” from bullet journals, Getting Thing Done, time blocking and so forth.

I would often find it very tempting to write the things that I should do, or intend to do, on my calendar. My thought process was that if I put it on the calendar it’s official! With a time and date next to it, it definitely will get done!

Life doesn’t often work like that, though, so I’d end up with a very confusing calendar – worse still, I’d risk missing important events because they are lost amongst the details of my idealised plan for the week.

Here’s an example. I was already having a busy week running round after the kids. When I added a few recurring routines to the calendar app I was trying, I just about had a panic attack.

I had to delete them really quickly and go have a nice cup of tea and a lie down!

Here’s the same calendar with “just” the locked in appointments and events:

That’s better – I can see more days on the calendar summary, and it now only shows my recurring events and appointments I really need to make sure happen on time.

Reduce notification fatigue

I’m also safe from having my phone ping me with a calendar alarm too often. If you have less important tasks alerting you on your calendar, you risk ignoring an alarm thinking it’s to say “Put some washing on!,” when actually it’s telling you that you are due at the vet in 15 minutes, and you need to lure the cat out from the back of the shed.

The HomeRoutines reminder chime can keep you on track, but you know it’s not a reminder for an event… it is its own thing.

Keeping tasks in their own context helps me lot.

What goes where?

• If it’s a one off task, put it in a to do list
• If it’s a recurring task, or group of tasks, put them in a routine
• If it’s an appointment or due date, or a recurring event, put it on your calendar