Blog Series: Everyday Mental Health: Universal Truth #1 Planning Your Life is Essential to Mental Health

Dr. Amanda Beaman, C.Psych

In articles 1 and 2, we reviewed some of the unhelpful assumptions that may stop you from getting started planning your life, as well as some questions to help you articulate the changes/goals that will help you feel better.  These articles helped set the stage for the steps in this article, where we start planning!

Step Three: Writing down all of your goals and tasks

Now that you have articulated your goals some more, we can get on with planning how you’ll achieve them! Pick a day and time that you will plan your week (e.g. every Sunday after dinner), and use that time to plan your schedule.  It is important to set aside enough time each week to go through your tasks for the week.

First, write down all of the fixed items in your schedule and put them directly into your scheduling tool right away.  For example, if you have to pick your kids up from school every day, or you know that you have meetings or tasks at work at specific times, account for that in your schedule first.  By the way, the more that healthy habits are fixed in your schedule the better.  Once you’ve accounted for fixed items in your schedule, get a separate piece of paper and make a list of the other tasks/goals- we will be doing some problem-solving on this list before transferring it into your schedule.  When you first write out the list it might feel overwhelming… I promise that as you start breaking it down and putting it into your schedule you will likely feel better.  It can be helpful to write work items down in one column and personal items in the other.   Some of the things on the list will be big or complex goals that have many steps and take longer than a week, but that is ok because we will break it down to a weekly or daily step.  Once everything is written down, it is time to problem-solve: this involves breaking big goals down, estimating how long each item on your list will take, and prioritizing the list.

Step Four: Problem-solving Ahead

Now that you have a list of everything you have to do, you will exercise your problem-solving abilities to break down the tasks and plan them into your schedule.  The general rule of breaking down large goals is to apply the acronym SMART.  This stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.  Often we have big tasks on our list that when we think it through, actually have many more specific steps that may need to be done in a specific order. When we don’t break down big tasks into steps we are more likely to procrastinate on them because they can feel vague and overwhelming.  Anyone who has ever had “clean the basement” on their list knows what I’m talking about!  It is best to illustrate with an example.

See below on the personal list example, the goal of planning a birthday party. The vague goal of “plan birthday party” has been broken down into specific steps.  Yet there is still the problem of deciding when to do the steps.  This is where estimating the time each step takes and assigning priority levels are helpful.  You’ll note that each step has a time estimation and priority level added to it.  These act as a guide in the scheduling of steps into the calendar.  To estimate the time, think roughly how much time it usually takes you to do that task.  Priority can be denoted by Low (L), Medium (M) and High (H).  Priority can be decided along different parameters.  Usually priority is determined by deadlines.  For example, carrying out some steps of birthday party planning are higher priority (i.e. sending out e-vites, ordering the cake) than others depending on how far away the party is, or how long the task will take to be completed.  Another way of deciding priority could be along the lines of how meaningful the goal is to you, for example, is it important to you to take care of your health (we hope to convince you it is!)?  If the answer is yes, health related goals would be given a high priority.

The practices outlined above may feel like more effort than you’re used to.  However, doing this upfront will prevent wasted time and doing things that are low, instead of high priority first.  These habits therefore go a long way to preventing us from setting unrealistic or unattainable goals. They do this by matching our time appropriately to the goal, therefore increasing the chance we will attain the goal.  When we don’t think about a time frame we are prone to under or overestimate how much time something takes and this can cause stress or waste time, respectively.  Estimating a time and writing it down can also help us learn if we tend to over or under-estimate time in a habitual way.  Finally, being able to measure our progress is very important for motivation, especially with big goals.  Breaking things down into smaller steps ensures we are able to measure whether we did it.  This allows us to experience a feeling of accomplishment as we go, rather than only at the very end.  If we can feel a sense of accomplishment at each step it leads to greater motivation to continue to plug through to the end of a big or complex task.

 

Example: To-do list for 1 week

Personal (hours/minutes) (H) Call to change doctors appointment – 5min (M) Send email to friend about get together- 3min (H) Grocery shopping- 1.5 hrs (M) Plan birthday party 1 hr 5 min –        (H) Send e-vites- 15 min –        (H) Plan menu 1 hr –        (M) Shop for groceries 1 hr –        (H) Order cake- 10 min –        (M) Pick up party supplies- 45 min   (L) Clean house- 1 hr 35 min –        Vacuum – 30 min –        Bathrooms- 20 min x2 –        Dusting – 25 min   (M) Laundry 3hrs– 1 hr x 3 (L) Do research for vacation- 2hr (H) Call Mom- 30 min (H) Yoga class-  30 min (H) Walk 30 min x 2 (H) Meditation 30 min x 3 (H) Pay bills 30 min (M) Call Friends x 2 (1 hr)

Work (hours/min) (H) Meeting about new course- 1hr (H) Send 5 emails re schedule changes- 15 min (M) Work on reports for insurance- 4hr – Report 1 (1 hr 45 min) – Report 2  (1.5 hr) – Report 3 (30 min) – Invoicing for reports ( 15 min)   (H) Send out meeting invites for the week- 20 min (L) Add new content to website – 2hrs –        Contact info page- 10 min –        New staff member – 25 min –        Change information about services-                           25 min   Filing Misc- 1 hr (H) Payroll- 1.5 hours –        Review time sheets- 30 min –        Enter information into bank portal-                          30 min –        Follow up on discrepancies- 30 min

Now that you have broken down the goals, and estimated the time and priority for items that are not fixed in your schedule, it is time to add them into your schedule. You’ll see in the example of one week below, the fixed items are shaded.  In this schedule, the evenings are left open for the most part unless there is something high priority to complete.  However, it can be helpful to plan your evenings too if you find it is a time that bad habits occur (e.g. staying up too late, spending too much time on screens).  It is also helpful to leave space for unanticipated items and to build in some rewards.

Day/Time	M	T	W	T	F	S	S
8	Send out online invites for week/emails re schedule changes	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Pilates and walk	Breakfast and read	Breakfast and read
9	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Yoga	Read
10	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Work Meetings	Vacuum Upstairs Bathroom	Dust Downstairs Bathroom
11	Notes and follow up emails	Notes and follow up emails	Notes and follow up emails	Notes and follow up emails	Notes and follow up emails	Time with friends	Family time
12	Meditation  lunch	Meditation  lunch	30 min walk/lunch	Meditation lunch	Walk 30 min	Time with friends	Family Time
1	Work Meetings	Meeting about new course	Work Meetings	Pay Bills	Website All steps	Time with friends	Family Time
2	Work Meetings	Insurance report	Work Meetings	Groceries	Website All steps	Time with friends	Family Time
3	Notes and follow up emails	Payroll All steps	Notes and follow up emails	Groceries	Call Mom	Insurance Report	Family Time
4	Call dr, email friend, Order cake, send e-vites	Payroll All steps	Insurance Report	Work Meetings	Filing	Insurance Report	Dinner prep
5	Commute home and dinner prep	Commute home and dinner prep	Commute home and dinner prep	Work Meetings	Commute home and dinner prep	Dinner prep	Dinner prep
6	Dinner and clean up	Dinner and clean up	Dinner and clean up	Notes and follow up emails	Dinner and clean up	Dinner and clean up	Dinner and clean up
7	Kids activities	Kids activities	Research Vacation	Commute home and eat dinner	Kids activities	Time with kids	Call Friends
8	Get kids ready for bedtime	Get kids ready for bed	Get kids ready for bed	Get kids ready for bed	Get kids ready for bed	Get kids ready for bed/babysitter	Get kids ready for bed
9	Lunch Prep Reward: favourite show for 1 hr	Lunch Prep Reward: Bath with new bath salts	Lunch Prep Reward: Read new magazine	Lunch Prep Reward: favourite tv series	Movie night with family	Reward: Night out with spouse	Plan Schedule for week Lunch prep

Now, I know what you might be thinking…. This is a lot of planning! Do I really need to write such detailed plans? Surely I can remember the things I need to do. What if something comes up and I need to change my plans?  These are responses that often come up in therapy when I go through this process with clients.  When these reactions come up I encourage my clients to give it a try.  Usually they come back the next week surprised at how much of a difference it made- especially if they had been struggling with feeling overwhelmed by all that they needed to do, or they had struggled with low motivation. In fact when we do this planning together in the session, clients’ almost always say they feel better.  At the very least, doing this exercise allows most clients learn a lot about:

• How much time they actually have
• The ways they waste time
• Whether they under or overestimate how long things take
• What is important to them
• What they want to change/delegate in their schedule
• What is missing from their life and why

Happy Planning!  The next article will review the final steps of planning and discuss some of the common questions our clients come back with after trying this detailed planning for a week or two.