Confinement Day 9 in France: finding rhythm and calendar blocking

It's Day 9 of confinement in France. It was another beautiful day: sunny and not too cold. I woke up around 6:30 am as usual. Then I made my bed, ate breakfast, changed the air, and planned my day. I habitually use Google calendar and a notebook to plan what I should do. 

Calendar Blocking Method

I use a method called "calendar blocking" by Amy Landino introduced on her YouTube channel, Amy Landino. It consists of blocking a block of time for doing a category of tasks, you will have your own time table of your work and your daily tasks, like when you are back in school. Whatever you do will be on your calendar: shopping, eating, exercise, work, study, cleaning, ... She recommends in her video using a digital calendar because it gives more flexibility to your day (because nothing goes according to plan, right?). 

Here's an example of mine from today. You get the idea. 

I reserved time for a couple of my courses today to work on the course materials that my professors sent us. I will not be tested on it soon but it will be included in the final exams so I started to work on them as early as possible. 

To-do list

Another method I use is a to-do list. I use a small notebook to keep my to-do list. I usually plan for the week on my journal by keeping all the assignments and their deadlines, but for daily tasks, I break down the tasks into even smaller tasks and steps on one page of my small notebook dedicated to the day (but this step may vary. Sometimes I just jog down tasks on a piece of paper not bothering wasting a page if I don't have many different tasks). 

I would eventually like to keep all my plans in my Google calendar and my journal but, for now, I'm trying to use up all the small notebooks in order to minimize my belongings so, I'm using the pages as much as I can.

I do like physically crossing off tasks from my lists rather than having a digital to-do list so I don't think I'll ever go full digital in my planning department. 

Organization and Finding Work Rhythm

Planning makes your day organized and keeps it that way. Especially when you are working from home, it is easy to mix up your work and private life to a point that you continue working even when you need to rest or when you should be prioritizing your family. For me, planning is more for knowing when to stop working rather than knowing when to work.

For the last week or so, I have been having a hard time finding my working rhythm due to of course confinement and also due to the fact that my professors were sending us emails separately and whenever they were ready to do so. Thus, we were receiving instructions and assignments non-stop for a couple days. It was mentally exhausting for me personally. However, I'm slowly getting used to the confinement as well as how to organize my day through journaling and planning.

Thank you always for reading. I hope you are all well and coping well with the situation that you are in. If you have difficulty adjusting to this "working from home", I recommend making a time table for your work and breaking your work into small tasks. I might give you a little help to get yourself back on track.

But the most important thing is your health. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones. See you again soon.