A Chic Paris Lockdown – Day 20 – Planning for Calm & Success

 May 9, 2020

Day 20 is titled “Have A Daily Success Plan” in 30 More Chic Days by Fiona Ferris. When Fiona transitioned to a full-time-at-home-writer life, she found that her time management skills needed an update to suit her new environment. In her previous work environment, the structure of having a business location and regular business hours provided by default a structure to her overall life. Without the scaffolding of those out-of-home required hours, she found that she could all too easily drift from task to task and day to day without achieving what she wanted to achieve. The construct of a simple to-do list didn’t meet her needs. The idea of a daily success plan, however, did provide a support structure that allowed her to focus on her important tasks within the realistic rhythm of her day and week. She first filled in logical break times such as mealtimes and their associated prep times, household tasks, self-care, creative time and social time with her husband. What we see is that she included all her priorities into the plan – reflective, physical, creative, administrative, and social. Fiona writes that some of her household tasks are weekly tasks rather than daily tasks but she has that weekly vision already in her head so can just jot down what household tasks are due for that nest day without needing to go into detail for a weekly schedule.

Stephen Covey, in his books 7 Habits for Highly Effective People and First Things First, recommends creating a schedule or plan at the weekly level. He writes that a slightly longer-range view allows us to slot priorities and tasks into a week’s framework where only having a daily view may blind us to larger priorities/tasks – in effect, we might lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Hal Elrod uses a similar approach that Fiona does in his book, The Miracle Morning: The Not So Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life. Elrod recommends that we schedule our highest priority activities which are reflection, affirmation, visualization, exercise, read, & journal at the very beginning of our day (a nod to Covey’s First Things First habit.) We can see from Fiona’s first daily success plan that she included all of Elrod’s most important tasks in her day – just at a different rhythm and timing than what Elrod uses.

The past 2 months of lockdown here in Paris required an adjustment to my “daily” schedule. Happily for my sanity, I made the internal commitment to write a daily post based on Fiona’s books and I was busy with my volunteer group here. These two activities in addition to my regular daily commitments imposed a basic structure to my “lockdown” day. At the very least, they kept me from going completely by the wayside and trailing about in my jammies munching on Marks&Spencer Dark Chocolate Covered Digestive Cookies. (Some days it was only the Zoom video conference or Fiona’s chapters that gave me the motivation to tidy up the apartment and get myself up and moving. But whatever works is whatever works!)

The two things that I learned/relearned from Fiona’s approach:

1. Create the Daily Plan the night before. (I used to do this in my professional life. With the daily list already created, prioritized and sitting on my keyboard, I didn’t have to do any decision making the next morning when I walked in. I could just get my coffee and get right to work on the top item.)
2. Write down meal times and meal prep times. I like tasty, healthy meals so I need to plan & give myself the time to get them ready. (I’m not quite sure why this was an eye-opener but it was so from now on I will write in the prep activity and time required on my plan.)

I also like Covey’s recommendation to look at the upcoming week as a whole (he suggests using Sunday morning or afternoon to review for the week ahead.) My life is not so hectic that every week needs a thorough going over but some weeks (outside of lockdown) can get filled to the brim. My life and household would run more smoothly if I incorporated a weekly overview for those busy times. My morning gratitude walks are an instantiation of Elrods silent reflection/affirmations/visualization/exercise activities. (I do agree with Elrod – my day flows much more happily when I have my quiet gratitude walk.)

I like how Fiona took a time management issue and developed a structured but flexible approach that incorporated her whole day and all of her interests. The name “Daily Success Plan” definitely gives it a chic and upbeat spin!