Running My Day, Part 1: Two Views of the Same Sunday
The same Sunday, twice.
This is part one of a series about how I actually use the Lists tool in BartBot. In each post I ask and answer one question.
The question: How do I turn an overwhelming day into one I can actually execute while staying present and relaxed?
My answer is that I keep a list in BartBot called Dailys, and under each day it holds only what's mine. The timed lines aren't the day's events. They're the things I have to do around them. Anything without a time is something I'll get to if the day opens up. When the day arrives I'm working from five time-stamped lines in Dailys instead of reading sixteen overlapping blocks on the calendar. This simplicity is what allows me to execute my day while remaining relaxed. Remaining relaxed is what allows me to be present where I am rather than being pulled into a stressful future that isn't here yet.
The calendar
Here is a complicated Sunday in September on the Google Calendar my family shares.
Sunday, September 13. Yellow is me; the other three colors are my wife and two kids. Names and places changed.
It's accurate. Sixteen blocks, stacked three and four deep in places. And most of it isn't mine. My wife is going with one kid to softball that afternoon and I'm going with the other. She's driving to choir; I'm picking up. Every time I look at the calendar I have to find my own day inside three other people's, and every time I feel a bit overwhelmed and just want to go back to bed.
The list
Here is the same Sunday in my Dailys list in BartBot.
The same day. Everything on it is mine.
You can open this day in the list and look at it yourself.
About a dozen items. Five of them have a time:
8am Pack for the day's activities
9:30am Drive to Basketball Tryouts
11am Drive to Family B-day party
12:45pm Drive to softball
8:30pm Pickup Kid from Choir
Two things about those five lines.
None of them is an event. Pack, drive, drive, drive, pick up. The list doesn't describe the tryout, the party, the two games where I'm the head coach, or choir, because once I'm there, I'm there. What goes wrong on a day like this is the seams between things: leaving late, arriving without the right bag. The timed lines hold the seams and nothing else.
The first line doesn't exist on the calendar. No app or integration put it there. I wrote it because I looked at that day ahead of time, saw I'd be out of the house from 9:30 in the morning until about 7 at night across three unrelated places, and realized everything I'd need for all of them had to leave with me in one load. That line is the product of actually planning the day rather than just knowing what's on it. It's probably the most important item there.
Two other things you might be thinking.
"Coaching two games doesn't sound relaxed." The drives, the party, and the choir pickup are easy. Coaching is the intense part, and it's where the overwhelm would come from. What makes it manageable doesn't happen on this day, and it's not on the calendar at all: the lineup and the fielding plan get finished the day before, on a "2pm Softball Coaching Prep" item on the 12th. By the time I go to bed Saturday, the hard thinking is done. Sunday's line is just "12:45pm Drive to softball", and I can show up and coach.
"I count more than five items." The other six don't have a time because they don't need one. They're things I'll get to if the day opens up, like checking a payout or prepping for an appointment. If it doesn't open up, they move to another day. The timed lines are the day's skeleton. The rest fits in around it, or doesn't.
What that buys me
At 11am I can be at a family birthday party without also holding two softball games and a choir pickup in my head. The calendar shows me my whole day, all the time, plus everyone else's. The list shows me only what's still ahead, because as I go, I delete. At 8:30 the packing is done and the line is gone. By the time I'm driving to softball, the whole morning has disappeared from the list. What's already happened doesn't get to take up space.
The morning of the 13th. At 8:30 the packing is done, so the line is deleted. By 10 the drive to tryouts is gone too.
My question for you
Pull up the worst day on your calendar this month. If you kept only what's yours, and only what you have to do around the events, how many lines would be left? What would you have to strip out to get there? Drop your answer in a comment. I'd love to learn how your most overwhelming day compares to mine.
You can look at my list yourself. This simplified public copy has the same shape with private details removed, and it's frozen at the state this post describes.
Next: How does something I write down in September reach me in November, and why is a Wednesday in September 2027 already on my list?