Finally a “To Do List” Method That Works for Chronic Illness

(But you don’t have to have chronic illness for this to be a good method for you!)

It’s called Loop Scheduling!  WOW, I love it.

You can learn more here and in Tauna’s other posts about this.

Many with chronic illness face limited energy and even harder to deal with for planning–unpredictable energy. Many of us never know whether we will be able to accomplish hours worth of things in a day or nearly nothing. Though I am healing tremendously, I still face days where my body just has to catch up with rest, make up for a bad night’s sleep, or make it through a simple virus which knocks me flat rather than just giving me a runny nose.

Loop scheduling allows one to save energy by not constantly re-writing things that didn’t get done on the next day’s list. It also helps save over-analyzing what to do next. This is extremely helpful on brain-foggy days.

The short explanation on Loop scheduling is this: Have several lists (Daily Dos, Weekly Loop de Loos, Monthly Loop de Loos). Do your daily list, then go to the top of each other list in turn. When the top thing is done, do the next one (no matter how many days or hours in between). When you get through a Loop de Loo list, start over!

If you find you are not getting through your Weekly Dos (for instance) in only a week, then either call it your Bi-Weekly Dos 🙂 or take some things off the list or re-prioritize knowing you could skip the last few things on the list if you need to.

I adapted the concept in several other ways also.

First, I react to printer ink & paper, so I put mine on my laptop. For each list, I have a different digital “sticky note.” I put everything needing to be done in bold and change to regular font when done. Every day, my Daily List gets to regular font. The bold on my other lists tells me where to start that day (since I changed the day-before’s accomplishments to regular font).

I put ALL my Daily Dos, Weekly Dos, etc. on each list, without separating out a separate Weekly Do list for the house, school, blogging. With limited energy, this works very well for me.

So my Daily List includes such tasks as school with each child using their lesson plans, wiping out bathroom sink, taking a walk (or sweeping etc. for exercise inside if cold outside), and possibly doing some mending (patching quilts or whatever).

My Weekly Loop de Loo Do List includes clean bathroom (twice), write blog post, clean out e-mail, plan school, listen to sermon with Alyssa.

My Monthly Loop de Loo List includes Black Hills Picture Books finances, some monthly cooking (stuff the kids like to have stocked in the freezer), and deep cleaning like the stove.

I also added another list called “One Time Tasks.” This is for things such as thank-you notes or projects. I do one a day or one every few days, whatever. If there is an urgency to the top few tasks, I might type the “due date” beside it.

I am so excited–I love this system. It is really helping me save time, energy, and frustration. I’m so glad Tauna posted about this!  🙂