Tag Archives: Discipline

Organizer Problem or Personal Problem?

I have been exploring planners and date organizers lately, being dissatisfied with my current setup and wanting to find something that accommodates my preferences and limitations. In talking with my husband about my personal pros and cons of different systems, he brought up his struggles and said, “I don’t have an organizer problem, I have a personal problem.” I knew exactly what he meant. There are systems and organizers aplenty out there, yet they are not the answer to all our problems. Finding the perfect one is not going to solve the struggles we have in using them.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there are personal preferences and different ways that we all process and function, so there are organizer systems that will work better for some people than for others. Yet, some people can bounce from one organizer to another searching for the one that will somehow “fix” the ways we manage ourselves.

I could argue that most planners are all relatively the same concept with slight differences. The market continues to keep producing variations, offering more selections and in some ways propagating the idea that there is a perfect solution for everyone. The temptation is to try the newest, latest versions. This is further complicated by the ever-growing electronic choices. Now we need to choose between paper or electronic, or find a way to work with both.

When I was in high school, my dad was quite persistent about getting me to use a planner, and he was (and he still is) a huge advocate of the Franklin Covey system. Due to the price of getting started and possibly due to my resistance, I began with a DayTimer planner. After using the DayTimer and even liking it, he moved me to a Franklin planner. And for most of that time, it worked for me – in fact, for the past 20 years, I bought purses so I could carry that good-sized Franklin around with me, to the point I was getting shoulder and back pain.

In recent years, I found myself using aspects of the organizer, but there were facets of the system that I was resisting. I find the month at a view crucial for tracking my schedule and I use it consistently. Yet, the daily task list was either empty or it was overloaded with items. I was either significantly overestimating what I could accomplish in a day, or avoiding listing anything so I would not feel bad at the end of the day. In using the task list, I ended up doing the very things I encourage others to avoid: underestimating the time you think a task will take and overestimating how much you can get done.

Attempting to compensate for my resistances to daily task lists, I started making a general list of tasks on a blank sheet of paper, referring to it periodically where I would pick and choose what I was going to work on. The problem with that was it was a huge list, had varying degrees of importance, and could easily feel overwhelming just to look at.

Recently I have begun making weekly lists, working at keeping them relatively short and limited to the important tasks I want to accomplish in the next week. Finding myself processing things in this way I started thinking about the PlannerPad system. It has a two-spread page with a section at the top for the task list, under it the tasks can slide into specific days, and finally at the bottom is the schedule with time slots.

Despite my struggles with certain aspects of planning, I recognize that I have slipped in my own discipline. I was feeling overwhelmed with all the things I wanted to get done and overestimating how much I could do in a given day. This is the very reason I have talked about being careful in our thinking about how long things take us.

We need to stop looking outside ourselves for the answer to the difficulties we have.

As I have been looking at and considering different systems, I am focusing on what would benefit me, the aspects that will assist me in the areas where I am struggling. There is no telling how long the planner I choose will work for me and I will need to re-evaluate its functionality regularly. I have identified how the monthly view and concrete schedule continues to work, but the area where I have faltered is the tasks. Now considering where I slipped into being more lax, I want something that will help me strengthen those skills again. It will not happen overnight, and no organizer will cure that problem. Nevertheless, there is a system that will support me while I improve my techniques.

If you are struggling with a planner or day organizer, step back for a moment and consider: is this a planner problem or a personal problem? If it’s a planner problem, there’s plenty of alternatives to choose from and try out. However, if it’s a personal problem, no amount of money spent on planners can help. It takes discipline, attention to the areas where you are struggling, and most of all, a commitment inside yourself that, no matter what, you will work to be more organized.

I Don’t Wanna!

I was thinking the other day about how there are certain things that I just repeatedly procrastinate doing.  When clients talk to me of those same struggles, I recommend that they find a way to reward themselves for accomplishing the dreaded task.  Therefore, I had to ask myself why it was not working for me since I use that approach for myself as well.

Was it that the reward was not enough of an incentive to tackle the task?  Would it be more helpful instead to inflict a punishment for not doing those things?  According to modern psychology’s view on rewards versus punishment, rewards have been found to be more effective in the long run.

As I continued to ponder this dilemma, my thoughts kept returning to the idea that it all comes down to discipline.  If we do not discipline ourselves to accomplish those very things we dislike doing, they will not get done.  Whether you employ giving yourself a small reward for your finished tasks or take away a reward for not being able to check off some of your chores, the essential element is whether you have any discipline.

So how do you apply discipline to overcome procrastination?  First, let’s define discipline.  Bobby Knight, the famous Indiana Hoosiers basketball coach, has a definition that I’ve always respected: “Discipline is… 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it that way every time.”

We can all probably claim varying degrees of successful discipline in our lives, and the places we falter in our discipline need improvement.  At least when it connects with tasks that do need our attention, we need to have the ability to utilize our discipline to get things done.

When we cannot, it is like tantrum that a child throws because he/she does not want to do that.  Wah!  I DON’T WANNA!  Wah!  It is not fun, so I don’t want to do that.  It is boring, so I won’t do that.  To some extent, it is our inner child saying it is my way or no way.  The lack of our own discipline is our inner child rebelling against doing something that they do not want to do.

How would you treat a child facing the same situation?  How would you convince that child to do those tasks?  How did your parents handle your resistances and what would you do the same or differently?  You know better than anyone does how you can be motivated to accomplish things.  

There is another approach, if there is someone that you can turn to and count on.  As with other things in life, some people suggest having an “accountability partner,” someone who you know is keeping track of your progress and you can likewise monitor their progress with their own struggles. 

We need to recognize that we are behaving as adult size children.  We are resisting the logical and necessary tasks due to a stubbornness and counter-productive mentality.  No Mom or Dad is going to step and do it for us.  We have become adults and have all these responsibilities to take care of, so we need to face the situation and do those things we do not want to do.  Unfortunately the longer we put off doing those things, the bigger burden they become.  It magnifies how onerous those tasks feel and reinforces our detesting them in the first place.

What happens when you do not employ self-discipline on important tasks?