Calendar Diagnosis (Atomic Essay Day 09)
Every other day, someone or the other at work is amused (or scared) by my calendar. For context -
Colours
The different colours on my calendar represent the kind of activity - yellow is asynchronous work, blue is meetings and orange is personal tasks/ projects.
Emojis
Emojis are icons for different projects I'm working on. Each project I work on has a fun name and has an emoji icon/logo. I believe projects are living and breathing entities and deserve some respect.
Um, but why?
The colours and the emojis, helps me quickly assess how my day/week has been. Over time for example, I have realised that more than 4 hours of meetings in a day and I am pooped. Now I try to actively plan my days in a way that doesn’t happen.
What have I spent the most amount of time on? Did that project need it? Am I happy with that? I ask myself these questions as I look back on the day/week gone by - and usually this is enough to help me course correct & plan better the next time.
And, why it is so packed?
I pretty much put my entire life - both personal & professional on my calendar. Birthday parties, reminders to eat medicines, dates with my partner (yes I’m crazy) - all make their way into it. There is SO much to do - I feel its the only way I can plan efficiently & without losing my head.
Do you really end up doing it all?
I usually plan out my week on a Sunday evening. At the end of each day, I move stuff around to accommodate new things that might have come up. At the end of the week it looks quite different that what it looked like at the beginning.
Moral of the story, look back to look ahead. More than anything, my calendar is a reflection tool. In a quick glance, it helps me understand how my day/week went. I look at, try and correlate it to my mood, use it to track progress and diagnose issues.
So all in all, as crazy as it looks - it works for me!