How to Prioritize Your Day
Everyone wakes up feeling great some days and subpar other days. However, when you have a chronic illness that is magnified.
There is a spectrum from feeling on top of the world to not leaving the bed, and it varies from person to person. Someone’s subpar day may mean they’re zoning out from the couch whereas another person may prefer to do tasks that require brain power.
My Experience
Prior to this current relapse, I knew how to prioritize on a crappy feeling day vs a good feeling day. But now, the crappy feeling days take a whole new meaning and even on good days I can only do a fraction of what I am used to.
So naturally, I’ve been struggling to prioritize things - what’s more important down time or finishing up some work that I am behind on? Should I spend time and energy responding to comments on social media or would my health benefit more from watching a tv show? How do I fit a shower into the day since I need to get ready and run an errand too? Do I cook or do mobility work? I literally could go on forever…
The other night when I was setting up my planner for the week (yes, I am that girl), I had a light bulb moment and created something to help prioritize tasks. I want to share it with you in case you could benefit from it too!
Prioritizing your day
This magical document I created is called the prioritizer of tasks (okay, I haven’t thought of a legit name, but don’t focus on that part).
To start, I gotta say the point of this is to prioritize your tasks (hence the lame name). That said, I want to be super duper fucking clear that in no way is this saying…
You need to be productive and do stuff regardless of how you feel. You don’t. You can stare at a wall all day if you want and be just as worthy and valued if not more PERIODT
You can only do the fun stuff after you do the things you have to do. You are the captain of your ship and you choose your path.
This truly is meant to be a build-your-own-adventure activity. Personally, I have about 5 million things in my head and I purely wanted a way to organize them.
Behold, the prioritizer of tasks!
*Click the image below to access it on Google Drive, then you can download it from there.
How it works
The document is made up of three columns:
Top Priority: These are things that must get done - they are the non-negotiables like eating, brushing your teeth, taking kids to school, spending time on a hobby, whatever is abso-fucking-lutely required in your day for your health.
It Would Be Nice: These are tasks that need to be done but aren’t in the category of basic needs. Some examples are working, running errands, physical activity, cooking, hanging with a friend, reading, etc.
Bonus Round: These are things that you don’t necessarily have to do, but you could if you have extra energy, like that thing that has been on your to-do list for months, partaking in a hobby, making a meal, spending time with friends, etc.
*The examples of tasks provided are just that, examples. Maybe social time with friends is in the ‘Top Priority’ category because you need to have social connection everyday or perhaps partaking in a hobby is in the ‘It Would Be Nice’ category because it benefits your mental health, its all up to you!
How to use
The first step is to fill out the columns. You can go column by column or make a big list of all the things you do daily, stuff you do to take care of your mental and physical health, other obligations, etc and then go one by one and put them in the appropriate column.
Once that is done, you can use this as a guide.
For example, you know on a really hard health day you can only do two things from the ‘Top Priority’ column. Then when that day comes, you can pick the two things, put them on your to-do list for the day and ignore the rest. To me this is better than seeing a ton of shit on your planner and then feeling overwhelmed by what you were ‘supposed’ to do that day. No one needs that, especially on a hard health day.
Conversely, if you feel on top of the world and you know you can do everything in the ‘Top Priority’ column, two things in the ‘It Would Be Nice’ column and one thing in the ‘Bonus Round’ column. Cool, pick ‘em out and carpe diem!
Or maybe you wake up feeling like absolute shit and decide to do the one thing in the ‘Top Priority’ column and then one thing from the ‘Bonus Round’ column because your mental health would benefit from spending time with a friend. Awesome, go get ‘em!
Reminder
Again this template allows room for a lot of customization, so make it work for you.
I hope it helps you organize priorities and makes it easier to figure out what to do (if anything) based on how you are feeling.
Much love,
Sam
