I’m an enneagram 3, (The Achiever), and if you’re unfamiliar with the enneagram…..what are you waiting for?! Take the quiz!

Well anyway, I’ve tried to-do lists, every single planner (horizontal, vertical, monthly), washable to do lists, to-do bookmarks, Google tasks, etc etc etc. A couple months ago I realized how frustrated I was by all my methods of trying to keep up with tasks. I’d write them down, but never open the place I’d written them down (physical planner OR a notes app).

I had all these tasks piled up, but NO PLAN as to when I was going to complete each task. When that hit me, I started utilizing my phone alarm to complete tasks –
•2:37 PM print new rosters
•10:59 AM talk to Ms. ____ about student
•3:30 PM send text to parents

It has even become something the Teacher Squad laughs about when an alarm goes off, “Wow, whatcha gotta do, Decker? Where you headed?” (Ha, I appreciate the mutual accountability.) As dorky as it sounds, I’m loving the practice. I press snooze if I’m caught in the middle of something and my original plan to work on the task at that exact moment doesn’t work out. The idea is that it becomes annoying as heck until I actually complete it during the time I’d planned to focus my time in that particular thing and can press stop instead of snooze.

My only very enneagram 3 frustration is that swiping “STOP” on my alarm is not nearly as satisfying as crossing off a to-do. Oddly enough, one of my recommended articles over the weekend was Jay Shetty discussing the power of “timeboxing” (so, apparently, what I’ve been doing with the alarms has a name?! Okay fine, it’s a variation).

AND he provides a solution for those of us who like to cross things off… A “done” list. HAHA don’t judge me; I’m going to try it.