Scheduling every part of my life has literally changed my life, not joking. I have never been a "scheduler" and generally abhor planning. But this past summer, my schedule was so hectic between lab, kids, and work, that I began forgetting to do things. Some of them were small (forgot to set out the trash, again!), but som
e of them were big: like forgetting to check that I had enough materials for my next big experiment. I felt awful when I had to look my PI in the eye and tell her that my experiment wasn't going to be 100% because I forgot. Things like this shouldn't happen! (Don't worry--I have the best boss in the world who knows I will beat myself up for it more than she ever would and so decided not to be too harsh on me :).
I knew I could not keep living this way (because hello major stress!). I was listening to a podcast on my way to work one day (HelloPhD, check it out because it has so many helpful tips for new graduate students), and they were interviewing Hugh Kearns who wrote several books on planning your PhD. He had free planner materials on his website, and so I thought it couldn't hurt to download them and see if they could work for me too.
I steered immediately away from the yearly and semi-yearly planner templates (let's not be too ambitious here), but the weekly planner looked feasible. It's separated by each day of the week, and you write what you're going to do for that day.
I thought to myself meh, I will probably only use it like once or twice, but despite my best intentions, it will probably never actually become a habit. Thankfully, I was SO WRONG! 6 months later, I still use the weekly planner, and have graduated to keeping up a giant to-do list of all the things I need to do for the semester.
My stress has become much more manageable. Not only have I never missed an assignment, I have completed about 50% of my assignments BEFORE they're due (absolutely unheard of for Queen Procrastinator me). And now, I can't imagine my life without my planner! It really has saved all my poor brain cells. Even though my brain oftentimes feels like an absolute dumpster fire, at least it's an organized one!
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