YOU GUYS . . . This month was kind of epic for me from a creative work perspective.
September ATE. (I will have to ask my kids if I used that term right, but I think so? Maybe “I ATE in September, work-wise” would be more correct?)
Anyway, I am really proud of myself!! I think this was truly the most productive month I’ve Eever had on my creative days, and they all felt quite full but there was still time for plenty of breaks — plus a 3 day family Keys vac and an epic friends trip to Truro.
In addition to lots of active podcast recording and course teaching (4 sessions of BLPA 2.0, 1 healthcare workshop, 1 BOBW Patreon session, and 1 Planning by Season check-in), my biggest accomplishments were finishing TWO big workbook projects — Planning By Season 2027 and the Nested Goals Workbook. I also managed to keep my inbox pretty under control, and hit the official zero every Wednesday.
Every fall, I tend to always have workbook deadlines just sort of hanging out there stressing me out. I never let them get to a dangerous point — I always know I need to finish before the designer’s deadline — but it’s just this chronic low-level nagging feeling that I’m just a little bit behind. This time I put these tasks on my monthly schedule ahead of time, and then I just . . . did them.
I honestly think that extra step of strategically scheduling them made all the difference. My method was a bit AI-assisted – I provided all of my hard landscape commitments, and all of the things I wanted to get done, and then asked CGPT to suggest possible schedule configurations. After some back-and-forth and editing, I ended up with the table above. (Important note: again, I do not use AI to generate any of my content OR tell me what to do; I was merely asking it to do the math problem of how things might fit into a fairly complicated schedule. I feel comfortable with this use case, and feel it did a pretty good job!).
I did feel pretty deadline-driven throughout the work days, but I did not feel stressed as a whole because I knew where I had slotted the work to fit and felt in my heart that it was reasonably realistic. Thankfully, I am a pretty good time estimator (I know that is not the case for everyone). I also did not struggle with distractions really . . . at all!? This is not to say I didn’t scroll blogs or anything, but I felt like I chose my breaks pretty mindfully. I don’t think I turned to Reddit even ONCE (!), aside from the (benign and lovely) Hobonichi section.
Anyway, I feel a little sheepish about this post, but I feel really good about what this last month held for me, work-wise. Maybe also it just takes a few years to get the gist of managing your own work time (my clinical days offer very little practice with this!).
SEPT RECAP & OCT GOALS posts up ahead soon!
5 Comments
You go, girl!!!
AI is great at math! And the less math that you have to do, the more creative work you get to do, so everyone wins!
(Sheepishly as a retired person I am having trouble getting everything done that I want to do when I’m not traveling, so I plan to copy you and see what AI can do for me).
Okay, new term for me. I can’t wait to use “ATE” on my daughter. No doubt I will use it wrong and she’ll end up in hysterics. Anyway, glad you had such a good month! I remember you saying previously you were struggling a little on Wednesdays- so great job identifying that problem and then FIXING IT.
Would you be willing to share some of the prompts you used with CGPT?
This was my literal prompt for the day, on a thread where I have asked it to generate daily schedules for me before (and I have provided feedback about what worked and didn’t):
Now until 6:30 – finish journaling, reading, etc. 6:30 drive to gym; leg day. home 8 AM. shower/BF. 9:30 – record BOBW with laura (~90 min). OTHER TO DO ITEMS: 2 hrs CME recording (takes 2.5 hrs; i would want a break probably vs going straight through). record BLP x 1 (60 min). send emails (JH reminder, lizzy, 2.0 reminder) – 30 min. errand: mail planners + clothing (can be end of day OR i can label everything for g. to mail tomorrow). quick more fun things: order new notebook and monthly calendar; buy IKON passes (can be evening); create sample itineraries for my parents for CA). plus (quick) schedule kids’ flu shots. somewhere in there planning on a walk ‘n’ talk with Kae (we had tentatively said 11:30 but potentially later in afternoon works too). aim to finish at latest w everything 6 pm.