In my last post, I talked about how the phrase "we all have the same 24 hours in the day" is a sound bite with no substance, after which I then broke down how many hours people in general will have. One concept I talked about was acting like you work your for your own company for a set amount of hours so that you can better organise what you want to do.
Off the back of that blog post, I started learning Flutter. My original idea was to build an app which would allow you to first plan your week and then update it based on what actually happened, allowing you to see where your time was spent via reporting tools. That app still hasn't been completed, but I still wanted a nice way to organise my time and see where I differed from my original plan.
Over the past few days in some spare hours, I've been modifying a google sheets schedule template to allow me to plan, and then update as I go through my week to see how I differed from my schedule. Time is broken down into 30 minute blocks (which I feel is granular enough, but you can modify the template to work in 15 minute blocks instead), and when filling out the actuals sheet, you get highlighting on the cell where you differ from the planned. I chose this approach because I liked being able to scan the actuals sheet and visually see where and when I differed. If this approach doesn't work for you, you can add a reporting sheet to the template and add in your own comparisons.
The schedule template can be found here. It is set to read only from that link, but you can make a clone of it, after which you can make a clone for each week.
So why plan in the first place? Quite simply, time is the most valuable currency we have. As such, we should spend it how we choose. I personally don't care how people spend their time as long as they spend it doing something they enjoy, and that they chose. I've had plenty of people in my life comment on things being a waste of time, and it only takes 10 minutes of scrolling on Instagram/Facebook/Reddit/Twitter to see people preaching "if you're not hustling all the time, you're wasting your time" - but I'm not for any of that. The only thing I am for is being able to see where your time goes, and dedicating as much of it as you can to what you enjoy.
I ultimately want to write more. Writing is something I enjoy. I also enjoy reading and gaming. I'm also in the process of buying a house so I'm having the joy of packing up my flat in preperation of the move. I want to be able to balance all of that around my work, and still have time to relax. So I plan. Plans are never set in stone though and they can ultimately change - but it gives you starting point so you have a fighting chance.