How to Use a Planner Without Harming Your Mental Health
Using a planner isn't easy.
They’re often introduced in grade school, but chances are you've tried to use planners at least once.
It can be tricky - we can use planners to project our anxiety, insecurities, and try out best to prevent being a failure.
Planners can easily become pseudo-checklists, which also carry an emotional weight.
Your self-esteem might be rooted in productivity. If you have low self-esteem, checklists might just seem like a way to earn personal wroth.
Planners and checklists are not inherently bad or good - it all depends on what we use them for.
In this article, I’ll discuss the purpose of checklists and planners, common issues that arise when using them, how they can affect your mental health, and how you can start using them to improve your life.
The Purpose of Planners
The purpose of planners is to support yourself through organization.
A planner typically consists of daily, weekly, and monthly events, tasks, and responsibilities you need to keep track of.
Putting all your upcoming challenges on a planner can be a relief - putting them on paper rather than being responsible for remembering every little thing you need to do this week.
Planners are meant to assist you with keeping track of everything so you don’t have to juggle it all in your mind.
That way, you’re less likely to miss anything or let something fall through the cracks.
As part of a planner, there are tasks that usually need completion - these can transform into to-do lists.
If you make your way down a checklist of prioritized tasks, it might give you a clear sense of direction and keep you on-task.
There’s nothing wrong with having clear goals and methods of achieving them.
However, if a planner or checklist are used for anything beyond plain logistics, then they can become volatile to your mental health - especially if you miss something.
Common Issues with Using Planners
As a therapist, Its common to see individuals project their psychology onto their planners - especially self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and obsession.
In the most grounded and realistic sense, a missed task in a planner is nothing more than a missed task.
However, if your mind starts to layer it with meaning about you, your worth, or identity, then it easily becomes distressing.
Consequently, if you think judgmental thoughts of yourself, you might expect others to react in kind - anticipating that no one wants a “loser” as a friend.
Then, one small missed task can seem tied to personal value, catastrophe, and abandonment.
At this point, it’s important to reflect on the gravity of the grounded task versus the gravity of what it means.
If it means way more than what it logistically is, then you might be using your planner for more than scheduling.
You might be using a planner to “become someone” better or avoid “becoming someone” worse - either way, there are emotional consequences to failure.
Consequences that are not true to the actual effects of a simple mistake.
To be clear, a planner is not a measure of your value as a person, a reflection of your ability, or another thing to appease so you don’t fail.
It is a lifeless tool for you to use, plain and simple.
If you struggle with using a planner for what it means about you, I’m even more worried about how you use checklists.
Common Issues with Checklists
A similar issue arises with checklists - where you might manifest an emotional attachment to getting things done.
If you use checklists primarily to feel relief, you may not be using them to remind yourself, but to prove yourself.
The problem is that the relief only comes once everything is completed, holding your emotions hostage until every box is checked.
Again, a simple tool stimulates a dependency - your checklist might dictate how you feel until its complete.
Unfortunately, being held hostage by a checklist often eliminates necessary tasks that don’t feel “productive” - including rest and recovery.
Eliminating rest and recovery from your planner is like waiting to fuel your vehicle only after you’ve driven it 100 miles - you won’t make it, and if you do, at some point you had to get out and push.
A checklist is a simple tool for keeping track of prioritized tasks, not for finding relief from anxiety that might be based on a faulty beliefs.
When relief becomes more important than the work itself, you might be experiencing an obsession - a litany of distressing thoughts and emotions, only taken away by finishing your checklist.
The Role of OCD
If your thoughts about planners become intrusive, dominating your day and controlling your feelings, you may be experiencing obsessions.
If you’re compulsively completing tasks to quiet the discomfort from obsessive thoughts, that’s often a hallmark of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
While it’s important to manage responsibilities, you need to watch for when the drive to relieve distress becomes stronger than the actual purpose of completing a task.
OCD-related use of planners and checklists are rarely fulfilling or effective.
Managing your emotions and managing your productivity need to be two separate tasks - not one and the same.
If they’re tied together, it often leads to self-destructive loops that end in burnout, frustration, or abandoning planners altogether.
Let Your Planner Serve You
Instead of serving your planner, your planner should serve you.
Think of it like an administrative assistant, and you’re the CEO.
Your full attention is needed for high-priority tasks, so your assistant manages the little details.
Your planner can keep track of deadlines, events, and reminders to reduce your stress, not add to it.
When the pressure of missed tasks disappears, the planner becomes a supportive tool, not a judge.
If you feel dependent on it to be successful, the roles have flipped.
Don't serve your planner, let it serve you, the CEO of your life.
Let Your Planner Be Independent of Your Feelings
Planners are tools to help you stay on track - not to control your emotional state.
Picture it like a grocery list, you might stop to pick up something extra along the way, and that’s okay.
You might even miss something, which will be a pain in the rear, but it means nothing more than mild frustration.
A checklist isn’t a cage - it’s a guide.
Something that assists you with productivity, but doesn’t fix your emotions for you.
If you can break off your emotional dependence from planners, then you can use them for what they’re meant for.
At the same time, you get to manage your wellbeing in other days - ways that don’t wait for checklists to be finished to start making you feel better.
I encourage you to practice self-care - walk, journal, meditate, use breathing exercises while you're working away.
If you can feel better emotionally, you’ll function better and be more likely to complete most of your tasks.
If you don’t finish everything, that’s okay if your self-worth doesn’t depend on it anymore.
Remember, planners exist to serve you, not the other way around.
Final Thoughts
Using a planner isn’t easy, but it’s possible.
You can turn the page and try using a new planner in a way you never have.
You can see it for what it is and what it isn’t.
It is a tool that serves you by helping organize your time and responsibilities.
It isn’t a representation of your worth and ability, nor is it a way to manage your emotions or find peace.
If you can’t seem to prevent yourself from projecting onto your planners, therapy can help.
Planners and checklists can be powerful tools for organizing your life, but only if they’re used to empower you.
A new planner might require a new approach - and that’s something you’re capable of doing, so why not give it a try.
