Schedule vs to-do list

School Schedule

 

To-Do List

I've always had issues with scheduling versus to-do lists. To me, scheduling is when things are done at a specific time, like my classes at school. At home that would look like, walking Mavy at 6am, going to the gym at 9am, etc. Whereas to-do lists are just lists of things that need to be accomplished during the day/week/month. When they get done are not important only the fact that they do get done, sometimes before a certain date or time. I do really well with schedules during the school year but not so well during the summer. Which kind of makes sense since the summer hours are not near as structured and unless I have an appointment or something things can be done at any time. But I struggle with both. If I try to schedule things inevitably something will come up and throw my schedule off. Then perfectionism raises it's ugly head and I throw the whole plan out the window. I have been working on my perfectionist tendencies but that is a post for another day. So scheduling is difficult during the summer. To-do lists on the other hand seem to be so opened ended that I will procrastinate doing them. So I need to find a happy balance. Some sort of list that will keep me motivated to do things but at the same time allow the flexibility of summer. As I was typing this out I had an idea. What if I set goal dates for all the things I want to get done this summer and then build my to-do lists around the goal dates? Hmmmm....that might work. So first I need a master list of all the things I want to accomplish this summer. Then I need to decide when those things should get done, but they all have to be done by the beginning of school. And then work on them one at a time. I like that. I like that a lot. Gives me something to focus on each week and that is what I will work on when I do work on that. Also, I'm thinking of setting time limits on things. So if I decide that I'm going to work on my notebooks, I will set a time limit like an hour or two, to do that. Once that time is up I can put them away if I want to or continue working for another period of time. I like this. Going to sit and decide all the things I want to do and then figure out which order they need to be done in. This might actually have been a school post, but I'm going to leave it here.