Weekly lessons I learned, with pictures of my actual week in Passion Planning.

Productivity-wise, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. After an amazing friend-cation in London and Oxford, I was ready to dive back into work when I returned – but I caught Monkey’s cold, and was bedridden instead. There’s always that tough balance: take care of yourself, but also don’t use “taking care of yourself” as an excuse for laziness.

What I learned this week:

I have a nice desk now. I should use it.

Monkey and I tried swapping desks at home, which means I have a permanent set-up with more space and better lighting. Sometimes getting started with work is as simple as sitting down at my desk. First tackle the sitting part. Then tackle the working part.

Always check if I’ve left something behind.

I had plenty of time to get to the train station in Liverpool. I was meandering, considering going on one more Wallpaper* adventure before catching it, when I realised that I left my umbrella at Leaf, the latest in my list of most inspiring cafés. There was still time to speedwalk to and from Bold Street, but if I had just glanced around before leaving I could have saved a lot of hassle.

Highlighting in my schedule is a treat for sticking to the plan.

I am always tweaking my highlighting system. This week I’ve treated myself to highlighting the scheduled activity if it happens on the day. This encourages me to stick to my personal goals, and to not cancel on commitments. It’s kind of sad and kind of amazing how motivated I am by highlighters.