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There’s a lot to keep track of in everyday life, and most of it lives as a jumbled mess in our heads. I don’t have a photographic memory, nor do I know how to create a memory palace, so I rely on systems to keep my life in order. Systems aren’t just for productivity (although it’s a nice side effect), they also help me de-stress and keep track of important things, so I have more brain space for other stuff.
Why do we need systems?
Systems are frameworks or tools that help us organize tasks, allocate resources (like money, energy, time), and reach our goals. Without some systems in place, you’d forget half the tasks that need to get done or lie awake at night trying to remember when you scheduled a dentist appointment.
You need to get all the tasks, appointments, chores, and activities out of your head before your brain explodes! Which is why you need some systems in place for planning your life.
Systems can get a bad rap for making life too rigid or restrictive, but systems allow us to mentally go on autopilot and free up energy to be more present with our family and/or more focused on other tasks. When you actually implement systems in your life, you realize they are the things that keep life running more smoothly.
What are the systems?
There are a lot of frameworks and tools you can use to organize your life and your thoughts. You might be familiar with systems like the Eisenhower Matrix, brain dumping, and habit trackers, but I’m going to share the four planning systems I use to keep my life organized, so you can see how simple it is to stay organized and plan ahead.
- Planner and calendar
I love my paper planner. I write down all the weekly meetings, obligations, reminders, and tasks in my paper planner because it’s my go-to resource for my life.
I prefer a weekly vertical planner so I can write down what I need to do each day, but can also look at my entire week at once.
My system for the planner is a bit messy, but it works for me. Each week, I review what I have going on from my digital work calendar and add it to my paper planner. Then I write in any other obligations or appointments I haven’t already written down, and finally, I write down work tasks to be done each day to plan out my week. It’s a mix of scheduling and task management, but it keeps everything in one place.
I like to highlight appointments and meetings, so they pop on the page if my list of tasks gets a bit chaotic. As I accomplish tasks, I cross them off, and at the end of the week, I can see if there’s anything lingering that needs to be pushed out to the next week.
One thing about the planner that saves me is writing down appointments, get-togethers, travel, or anything that is scheduled in advance. It saves me from having a “oh my gosh, I completely forgot about that” moment. When I flip the page over to a new week and see I have a dentist appointment or friends coming over on Saturday, I can start to schedule my week around those events and plan accordingly.
- To-do lists
I live and die by creating to-do lists because if something needs to get done and I don’t write it down, it’s lost forever. And keeping a running list of random things in my head is exhausting and anxiety-inducing because I’m constantly worried I’m going to forget something.
My planner acts partially as a to-do list, but I also write lists for everything in my life: chores to be done, errands to run, things I need to remember to tell my husband, etc. My to-do list system isn’t foolproof, as I mostly use sticky notes, but just getting those things out of my head and onto paper relieves so much brain drain.
- Meal planning
Planning ahead for dinner has been a complete game-changer in my life. Meal planning has helped me de-stress and save so much money. Before I started meal planning, I was bogged down by the idea of dinner every single day. There was a lot of looking through the fridge and cupboards for what I could make, but I rarely had all the ingredients to make a full recipe, so I ended up at the grocery store 3-4 times a week.
Now I have a weekly system for meal planning where I plan out four dinners for the week, which helps account for leftovers and spontaneous eating out, and then I go grocery shopping once for the week. I also keep a few “pantry” recipes on hand for nights where we want something different or the meal plan hasn’t been made yet. This system saves me a lot of time because dinner is already figured out and I don’t have to make multiple trips to the store. And it saves money because I’m not buying at random and hoping stuff gets used.
I use Plan to Eat to keep all my recipes in one place, plan the meals, and then the app makes my shopping list. The shopping list is incredible! Not only does it show me everything I need for my weekly meals, but I can add anything extra to it. I no longer have to keep a paper list of “things to buy” (which 100% of the time got left at home when I went to the store) because it’s all in the app on my phone.
If you plan other areas of your life, but don’t meal plan yet, you will be amazed at how much it improves your quality of life.
- Journals
I’m not sure why more people don’t journal. Is it the fear of our own thoughts? Does it seem too time-consuming? Whatever it is, I believe everyone needs to journal. It’s THE thing that keeps my brain functioning properly. Journaling helps me work through problems and see the faults in my own logic. When I get done journaling, it feels like a streetsweeper has come through and cleaned up all the junk in my head.
There are a lot of different ways you can journal, but I like to either dump journal or simply free write about my life. Dump journaling is great when it feels like there are too many thoughts competing for space, and I just need to get them all down on paper. Then I can organize the thoughts and ideas into my planner, to-do lists, or as a starter for a longer journaling session. That’s where free writing comes into play. I take something I’m worried or excited about and just write whatever comes to mind. It’s a very cathartic process and, as I said, makes me feel lighter and less bogged down by my thoughts.
Make the most out of planning.
Planning isn’t only about looking forward or figuring out what the next move is. To make the most out of planning, it helps to take time to reflect, too. An obvious time to do this is at the beginning of a new year, when you can look back on the last 365 days and figure out what went right, what didn’t work, and what you would like to do differently next year. But I also like to do monthly reflections because looking back at an entire year can be overwhelming.
When a new month starts, I look back on the past month and do a couple of things:
1) I make sure there’s nothing on my lists or in my planner that never got done. We all have those tasks that we put off week after week, and if one of those pops up, I make sure it gets done right away.
2) I check in with how the month felt. Was it too busy and stressful? Okay, let’s change some things to make this month feel calmer. Did it lack connection and time with friends? Okay, let’s plan some get-togethers.
I try to create more of what I want in my life, and I can only do that by reflecting and then planning.
To wrap up.
Planning doesn’t have to be about productivity and making sure you’re loaded up with more things to do. It can reduce mental load and stress, create more joy, and support the life you want to create. And you don’t need to do all the planning systems and frameworks; you just need to find the few that work for you. Keep it simple and get back some of your brain power!
