Making Plans.

Anyone who knows me will know how important this item is to me:

Every year I have an A5 diary, with an entire page for each day, and it contains EVERYTHING.

The amount of to-do lists I make inside these pages is obscene.

You’ll see the spine is taped up; that’s because the cover fell off about four months into the year because of so much opening and closing and being thrown into every handbag.

I love knowing what’s coming up, noting down friend’s birthdays.

To-do lists.

To-buy lists.

To-visit lists.

To-read and to-watch lists.

I’d probably write lists of lists if I had the time and the space.

When I was struggling the most with my anxiety, these lists had got what you might call ‘out-of-hand’. I would obsess over their contents, and panic when things weren’t ticked off. I’d feel so overwhelmed by the contents that it would be hard to focus on anything or do anything. So things wouldn’t get ticked off. And so began a vicious circle.

Now I’ve learned how to handle my lists and planning differently. Because planning is in my nature. 

I’m an organiser, a thinker, I’m someone who works well from a list of set objectives.

I can now sort my tasks according to priority, whereas in the past everything would scream ‘urgent’.

I can recognise what MUST be done today, and what is a goal for over the coming days, weeks and months.

Lists are now helpful, rather than problematic.

To some people, the amount I write and the comfort I take from plans would still be extreme, but I have friends who function with their diaries in the same way I do (Rosie, I’m looking at you!)

And before you ask me why I don’t ‘just use my iphone calendar’…. Just no. That’s not going to happen. There’s something so lovely about a pen on paper, of seeing my plans and my tasks lying open on the table before me.

I’ve noticed this week images of people’s new 2016 diaries are creeping onto Twitter, and I know it won’t be long before I get my hands on my own…