Planning During Tough Times: What to do with your planners and goals during difficult seasons

This year has been tough for so many people. And, it’s only a little more than halfway over!

While I find the practice of planning—setting goals, keeping myself organized, and using planner accessories—to be a fun and relaxing way to stay on top of my obligations, I know that it is hard to keep up our planning routines when we are hurting or facing major life changes.

Change, even good change, often means the end of one thing as something new begins. So, no matter what change we might be experiencing, it will almost always involve some sort of loss.

That is especially so when the change is not one that we see as being for the better (at least not at first). When we experience a negative change, it may leave us feeling like our goals and plans have been thrown into chaos.

Many times, life is about dealing with things we have not and could not have planned for. And, these changes can come in many different forms: death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, loss of a job or livelihood, a scary health diagnosis for us or someone we love, learning about a betrayal, or even a pandemic that changes how we live.

How we choose to plan our days, set our goals, and keep track of things depends on the season we are currently living in. And, when we have suffered a personal setback, it might leave us feeling unhinged.

For those of us who love to plan, it can produce feelings of regret (why did I buy a goal planner when all of my goals seem meaningless?) or like we were just naïve to every hope for something better by planning for the future. Difficult seasons might also leave us feeling lost and unmotivated.

I have seen many posts on different planner sites and Facebook pages from people who have suffered a terrible loss or devastating change and are wondering what they should be planning next. This post is for them.

Tough Times Require Less Planning

When we are going through a difficult season in our lives, the best thing to do is to pare down the planning. I speak from personal experience when I say that we need to plan less during these times.

When my daughter was diagnosed a few years ago with a rare disease, I was shocked. We had taken her to a doctor as a precaution- to see if she had a genetic illness that runs in our family. Instead, we learned that she had a condition that was much more complicated and difficult to treat.

The situation left me so sad and disheartened. I spent my time learning about the disease (frightening myself, to be honest) and trying to navigate the seemingly contradictory information I got from each specialist who worked with my little girl. It was overwhelming and, frankly, depressing.

I often went to bed and cried myself to sleep. And, it was all I could do to get up each day, go to work, and put on a brave face for the kids. I shifted my focus away from outside activities and unnecessary tasks, and I put the focus back on what I needed to do for me and my daughter.

Looking back, I did exactly what I needed to do. I scaled down my schedule to just the important things that had to get done. Everything that could wait or be rescheduled was. It was that simple.

When we are enduring difficult, sometimes unimaginable situations, we have one main job: to give ourselves grace. As I said before, change brings loss, and negative change brings a sense of overwhelming loss.

Loss leads to one main emotion for most of us, which we can express in many ways: grief. However, we can sometimes forget to care for ourselves in a compassionate way when we are grieving. The important thing to do when we are experiencing grief is to show ourselves some self-compassion.

Think about it. When a friend or loved one is grieving, we tend to be more considerate of their feelings and give them time. This is what we must do for ourselves when we are in the midst of grief due to a significant change in our lives.

What to Do with Your Planner(s) When You’re Overwhelmed

As I’ve said in prior posts, planning is a sign of hope. If done in a healthy way, it helps to keep us organized while paving the way for us to create a life that we can enjoy.

However, when we are in a state of grief or are overwhelmed by the changes in our lives, our planners may seem like more of a burden than a blessing. This is especially so if we purchased them with certain goals in mind.

We may have invested in a fancy planner to help with our fitness goals, only to learn that we are suffering from a condition that will prevent us from engaging in the exercises we had planned to make routine. Or, we might have purchased goal setting planner that now serves as a reminder of all the happy goals we once thought possible, but which now seem like an impossible dream.

That said, all seasons pass. During the time we are weathering the storm, there are things we can do to take the pressure off of ourselves where planning is concerned.

Here are some tips for what do with your planners if they aren’t serving you in your current season:

Shelve your planner. It’s as simple as that. If you are living through a difficult season, there is no need to regret your planners or toss them out, but you have permission to set them aside. Paper is paper. It will wait for you, even if that means picking it up later and whiting out the dates so the book works for another year.

Pare down to just one planner. For those of us who love using multiple planners, which can be a fun hobby to keep up in good times, they can be an unnecessary burden during stressful times. If you have a daily planner that makes you feel like you’re failing if it’s empty, or you have a household chore planner that keeps you on a cleaning schedule, it is okay to set those aside for the time being in favor of one basic planner. I recommend having a monthly or weekly planner that is used to keep up with just the necessities- appointments, work obligations, and family obligations. Everything else (house projects, vacation planning, long-term goal setting, etc.) can wait.

Keep the planner simple. If you used to have fun decorating your pretty planner but now see all that stickering and washi tape as a chore, don’t decorate it. If you were color coding, and now feel that is an overwhelming task, put the highlighters and colored pens away. The only thing you need to do is make sure you’re meeting your basic obligations.

Schedule time for you. Leave time in your schedule open for things that feel right for you to do during this season. That may include taking naps, going on walks, getting a massage, having coffee with a good friend, or anything else that feels nurturing and comforting to you. If keeping busy helps you feel better, then fill your days with things that bring you peace and enjoyment: reading, watching TV or movies, listening to music, spending time with supportive friends, art and crafts, or finding a support group for your situation. This is what planners should be used for anyway.

Use the planner for journaling. Many planners have notes pages, open spaces, and even simple layouts that lend themselves to journaling. You can always use the planner to chronicle what you are going through during the time you are not really using it for planning. This can be therapeutic and provide you with some insight into the situation later. Here are some areas where journaling might be helpful during tough times:

• Gratitude. Even identifying one thing you’re grateful for each day can help you develop a more balanced perspective when you are living through a troubling time. For more on gratitude journaling, see this post.
• Feelings. Our planners usually have space for planning as well as tracking habits or other routines. Gauge your feelings as you navigate your way through a difficult time. Identify what you are feeling and note it in your planner the way you might note the weather or the number of steps you take in a day. It can help you process those feelings and make sure you are not sinking into unhealthy state.
  • (As I noted in this prior post, if you are struggling with depression or anxiety, seek help from a professional. This blog post is meant to provide some ideas about how planners can be used during difficult times; it is not meant to substitute for professional counseling. I have had a great experience working with my therapist and believe everyone could benefit from having a person to talk to who specializes in helping people work through their problems and feelings.).
• Worries. Sometimes naming our fears or anxieties can remove their power over us. Just placing them in writing might just put them into a better perspective and help us to see that they are more manageable and less menacing than we once thought. It also helps to pair this with this:
• Hopes. Things are difficult now. That is a fact. However, nothing ever stays the same. You can journal about your hopes for the future and create the writing equivalent of a vision board with your words. Imagine things getting better, and then see yourself being happy again. Describe in detail what that looks and feels like.

Monitor your health. You can use your planner to help track your meals or medications, and or to make time for movement or just going outside. Making sure that you are keeping up with your health and self-care is just as important as monitoring your emotions.

Repurpose goal-setting pages. As you move through this difficult time, you can use your goal planner to keep up with self-care tasks and month-in-review sections. Nearly every goal-setting planner, and certainly the PowerSheets planner (link) I use, has habit-tracking sections that you can use to monitor how you are caring for yourself. The review sections provide space where you can reflect on how you have been doing during this tough time while helping you figure out what you might need going forward. Ask yourself: What worked and did not work for you during your difficult season? Did you need more support? Did you need less time looking up situations on the internet? A goal-setting planner can help answer those questions.

A planner is a tool, and we can make it work for us in any season, if we’re even up to writing in one. There is no need to feel pressure to use a planner in any particular way and certainly not if it contributes to the stress of an already stressful time.

Allow yourself to grieve and process the situation. There is no need to plan too far ahead during tough times.

How to Approach Goals and Long-Term Planning During Difficult Times

If you feel the need to keep using your planner and want to keep up the practice of goal-setting, there are things you can do even when you are in a state of grief or feeling overwhelmed.

Practice acceptance. Take a deep breath. We need to accept our situations for what they are before we can even begin to process them. What has happened is our new reality, and that reality means that the goals and plans we had before may not serve us during this time. Remind yourself that this is okay. It is natural for big life changes to alter what you were planning or hoping to manifest in your life. Also accept that things will work out at some point in the future. No situation ever stays the same, and you will find yourself on the other side of this eventually.

Reevaluate your priorities. Determine how this loss or change has impacted your life and see if there are any plans you can make to help move you forward. Perhaps a goal would be to start getting dressed in the morning. If you lost a loved one, you may decide to reach out to others and spend time with those you love. If you have a new diagnosis, your goals may include finding a support group and starting a new diet or treatment regimen. Essentially, any challenge we face can motivate us to make changes that help us take back some of what we feel we’ve lost or to help us get to a better place.

Give yourself permission to take a break. It is okay to take a detour from our goals and plans, even if it feels painful to do so. This is why I always emphasize that goal planning has to be done with a focus on hope for the future, and not absolute control over outcomes (because we cannot control the future, no matter how much we plan). This is also where the word “grace” comes into play. Putting our goals on hold gives us the space to deal with our current situation without the pressure of also having to continue working toward the goals we set. Some of our goals take a lot of time and attention (daily and weekly tasks might be needed to attain them), and challenging times usually leave us with little time or energy for non-essential tasks. Ask yourself what can be put aside for the time being and rest assured you will have the option to get back to those goals (if they still appeal to you) later.

Set easy goals. Sometimes we just need to experience some wins to feel good about ourselves or our situation. If you set some easy, nurturing goals for yourself, that can help foster a more positive mindset. Depending on the difficulty of the situation, it may be a victory to get out of bed and fully dressed. Make the very basics of self-care your goal and give yourself a gold star for each day you accomplish something. If you are dealing with a tough health condition, perhaps just tracking your compliance with treatments or therapy will help you feel like you are making progress in your situation. Tracking your wins can motivate you to keep going.

Using Your Planner to Move Forward

As you make your way through this difficult time, your planner may have more of a role in getting you back to a more regular routine. Here are some ideas for how to use a planner to help move you forward:

Start with the basics. When getting back to planning, the most important thing to do is to make sure you are keeping up with self-care tasks and to-do’s. These can include getting a haircut, dealing with bills that need to be paid, or scheduling a doctor’s appointment. There’s no need to fill your schedule back up with all the extra activities you used to do, unless you are really happy and excited to get back to them. Take your time and go slow.

Track your wins. As I noted above, keeping up with the small victories you experience each day or week can be motivating. Be proud of yourself for anything you do that counts as progress in your situation. Fill your calendar with check marks or gold stars.

Continue making time for yourself. For many of us, challenging times offer an opportunity to reset our priorities and schedules. If you found that a daily walk helped to lift your spirits, see if you can maintain that as a habit moving forward, and plan it into your day like an appointment. You may also determine that some things you used to do no longer hold a place of importance. Feel free to let them go.

Difficult times can leave us feeling like we don’t know what to do next or how to get started. By showing ourselves grace and giving ourselves time, we can move forward with our lives and perhaps end up in a more positive place than when we started.

We each need to decide whether our planners even have a place in our lives during those types of situations. But, if they do, I hope the suggestions listed above help you to find ways your planner that are helpful without adding to the stress of your situation.

How do you feel about planning during times of stress or grief? Any suggestions or words of advice for others? Leave a comment below.

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**Image credits-all images featured in this post were found on Pixabay.