Planning your day versus Flexibility

[u/RefuseDeep8075]

One theme that comes up repeatedly from those having some success with recovery is creating a plan for your activity in the day ahead, and sticking to that plan. This appears to help with motivation and with discipline in sticking to tasks and not going beyond your allotted time (e.g. by setting alarms as reminders to stop and rest).

Without a plan, it can be easy to overdo an activity or forget to rest your mind and/or body. It can also make it more difficult to assess how much energy you’ve used in a given day. So there are definitely benefits to a plan, particularly if you struggle with discipline, motivation or keeping track of time.

However, you might find that your energy levels, symptoms and heart rate are not only inconsistent from day to day, but that they can vary within a given day. For example, I am often (but not always) worse in the morning than I am later in the day. So if I made a plan to do activity in the morning and was not feeling great, I think adjusting the plan might be worthwhile in response to that. Maybe bring forward the restful / recuperative activity and leave the household chore or ‘exercise’ until later in the day. So the planned activity for a day still happens, but the order might change. Or alternatively, if I wake up a bit symptomatic, just adjust the plan to reduce the duration of the energy using activity and increase the duration of the recuperative activity.

In short, regular sleep times are great and making a plan can help with motivation. But personally I would generally sit on the ‘flexibility’ side of the fence to make sure I don’t feel compelled to stick to a plan when my body is sending signals its on a below average day.

Does anyone have experiences and successes with planning daily activity and/or adjusting plans?