How My Self-Made Planner Has Made My Days More Fulfilling | Clearing Mental Burden | Panic Disorder

Have you ever experienced things like this?

"I picked up my phone to look something up, but ended up watching something else entirely."
"I feel chased by all the things I need to do."
"Days where things don't go as planned keep happening, which increases my stress."

For several years, I felt like this, and my mind was constantly clouded.

Stress is also bad for panic disorder. I decided to clear my mind while taking care of both my body and soul.

I started becoming conscious of "clearing my mental burden" in this way, and it became one of the panic countermeasures I am working on.

One of my challenges is time management. I am still going through trial and error, but I would like to talk about my current method. The number of days where I can feel that "it was a fulfilling day" has been gradually increasing.

The most important point of a planner is reflection

For the past two years, I have preferred using a vertical planner. It is a planner that allows you to manage your day by dividing it into a vertical time axis.

I divide and write down what I want to do and my To-Dos by time. There are days when things go well as planned, and days when they don't.

As you can see in the photo, there were days when I didn't write anything at all. I'm quite whimsical.

In the midst of that, I happened to watch a video on "Time Management Techniques" by someone named Mio Umezawa on YouTube (I will post the video at the end).

Important points for time management were discussed.

It seems most people just make a plan and stop there. I was the same.

Specifically, she said, "you must question why you couldn't do it".

Was it because it was troublesome and you didn't want to do it? Is it impossible because it's difficult? Is it impossible due to the influence of a third party?

Reflect on the day, find the cause, and improve. I found two methods for this flow.

・Toyota Motor Corporation's method: "5 Whys Analysis"

Since I found it interesting that repeating "Why?" leads to the root cause, I looked it up and learned thatthere is a method called "5 Whys Analysis" used at Toyota Motor Corporation, where factors are repeatedly analyzed to solve problems.

It is said that most problems can be traced to their root cause by digging down about 5 times.

I immediately dug into one of my sources of mental cloudiness: "I hate that the morning preparations for lunch and breakfast are so hectic."

Why is it hectic? → Because I am busy for 45 minutes straight.
Why am I busy? → Because I sleep until the last minute. I haven't thought of ways to shorten the process.
Why until the last minute? → Because I stay up late at night.
Why am I up? → Because I end up watching my phone before going to sleep.

In this way, two root causes became visible. You might say I should have realized this before digging, but I couldn't even do that, and I was just wishing someone would do something about it.

From the next day, I was able to make improvements: "stick to a bedtime and set aside time to watch my phone during the day" and "do the preparations I can the night before."

If I still end up going to bed late, I will dig into it again.

I will continue to challenge and improve upon things that I can resolve on my own like this.

・The C (Check: Evaluation) and A (Action: Improvement) of the PDCA cycle are important

I happened to be learning about the PDCA cycle in a web marketing lecture. The PDCA cycle is a framework for improving business or projects by repeating the four stages of

Plan, Do, Check, and Action.

I realized that the left half of this diagram (evaluation and improvement) is exactly the same as reviewing my planner.

I haven't been doing this for many things, not just with my planner.

Like leaving mistakes on test papers unaddressed, or giving up when something didn't go well.

I realized once again that this is perhaps what Konosuke Matsushita, known as the god of management, meant when he said, “It becomes a failure because you stop at the point where you failed.”

I tried making a planner in a spreadsheet

After watching the video, I felt I had to start doing reviews. I tried it with my physical planner, but there wasn't enough space.

I wanted a new planner. But since it hadn't even been half a year since I bought this year's planner, and I'm currently unemployed, I felt hesitant. So, I decided to make my own planner for reviewing my day using Google Sheets.

🍀 Contents included
・One sheet per day, with a 15-minute time axis
・Checkboxes for each time slot
・A column dedicated to reviews (notes for when plans go awry)
・Things I want to do, To-Do list
・Space to write down the good things and negative things of the day (to vent them out without carrying them over to the next day)
・Reasons for not being able to achieve something and what I can apply to tomorrow
・A column to write down quotes I want to remember

🍀 Points I like
・I can check it anytime on my smartphone app
・Since it's in 15-minute increments, I can get back on track even if I get sidetracked by something else
・I've been getting presbyopia, so I can zoom in to see it (lol)
・I can grasp the times when I shouldn't be mindlessly looking at my phone
・The habit of saying “it’s a bad stopping point, so just a little more” has decreased

By the way, Golden Week just ended, but I didn't make any plans for it.

I had given up, thinking I wouldn't be able to do things for myself because I'd be called by my family or have to prepare meals, but I thought I should have at least made plans for the things I “really wanted to do” instead of giving up.

This is because I realized that having even a little time to do something for myself changes my mood.

I want to manage my time well, such as by creating separate versions of plans for weekdays and holidays.

The most important thing is to keep the promises you make to yourself.

Umezawa-san's video is here. She talked about how she was able to balance housework, childcare, and work as a result of thoroughly managing her time.

Umezawa-san sells her own planner, but she shared several things that even people who don't have that planner can do.

Even though I am not working like you, Ms. Umezawa, I felt that time management is an important practice for learning to value oneself.

It sounds like Ms. Umezawa's planner is structured in a way that also helps you realize the things you want to achieve in the future. I thought I would like to try using it someday.

I am tackling my panic disorder from five different angles. As part of 'organizing my mental load,' which is one of those angles, I talked about time management techniques to make having a better day a habit.

I have written about the other four pillars in detail in this article.

If you found this helpful or relatable, I would be happy if you could press the 'Like' button. May we all be able to increase our calm moments, even just a little bit!