Writing: How to Use a Vertical Planner and JS Diary

I am bad at managing my time.
Or rather than bad, maybe my sense of time is a bit buggy?
I have recently started to become aware of that.

Everyone is given an equal 24 hours in a day.

How do those people who get everything done perfectly use their time?
How do those people who always seem to act with ease use their time?
How do those people who are precise with time use their time?

About the planner method that allowed me, someone bad at time management, to change my life.

What is needed is not a self-axis, but a time-axis.

I didn't really want to carry two planners, but I have no choice.

My sense of time is buggy, so I am bad at managing time (probably).
If so, I cannot improve unless I analyze what kind of day I am spending.

I cannot complete tasks as I would like.
My to-do list keeps piling up.
I cannot do the things I 'want to do'.
I am barely managing just to finish the things I 'have to do'.

For such people, what is needed first is not a self-axis, but a planner with a time-axis.

To balance desires and obligations, I must first review how I am using my time.
For that purpose, I will prepare a vertical planner with a time-axis.

What I write is not my schedule.

Instead of a schedule, I write a reflection of the day.

I write my schedule in the SUNNY weekly planner.
The time-axisin the JS planner is used towrite down my actions.At the end of the day, I write out an action record, a log.

When I write down what I did from what time to what time while remembering, 'time where I don't know what I did' appears.
In such time, I am almost always doing things of low importance.

I touch my smartphone intending to look something up for a moment, and though I intended it to be 3 minutes, before I know it, I have opened social media and spent 30 minutes. And that happens multiple times a day—

'Just 5 minutes,' 'only 15 minutes,' 'I intended to check something for a moment before using the hair dryer, but 30 minutes had passed.'

Such time swells up,not knowing what I was doing,and while I find 1 or 3 hours of such time, I haven't touched the things I 'wanted to do' at all.

I must first face that reality.

What if I could redo a day?

I try to think about what I would do if I could redo just one day out of the week.

For example, those 15 minutes you spent looking at social media in bed after turning off your alarm.
If you had used that time for makeup, you could have left the house in a great mood without rushing.

Before using a hair dryer after a bath, you spent 30 minutes watching short videos.
If you had used that time for stretching and strength training, the areas you are concerned about might have felt toned, and you might have started the next morning in a better mood.
With 30 minutes, you could even enjoy reading to your heart's content.

When you review how you allocated your work hours, you might realize things like, 'I should have allocated this time to a different task,' or 'It's strange that this task took so long; perhaps there was a lot of waste.'

If you could redo today, what would you change?
Look back on your actions and identify areas for improvement.

You should be able to see what you need to do and what you need to stop doing to get closer to your ideal way of spending time.

To get closer to an ideal life with more breathing room

Even though it felt like a day with no breathing room, the total time spent looking at your smartphone was one hour—

If you had used that 'smartphone time spent doing who knows what' properly.
If you had used it for things you want to do or need to do.
If you had been able to act ahead of schedule.
It might have been a wonderful, fulfilling time with room to spare.

Before setting a schedule for an 'ideal day,' identify areas for improvement in your life.
Try turning the 5 minutes you spend idly using your smartphone into time to review how you spend your time.

It only takes 5 minutes to write down your activity log in a planner with a time axis and review it.
These 5 minutes might change your entire future life.

The only person who can change you is yourself.

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