My long-life best friend is my endless, stressful though Me-loving to-do-list, who managed to kept me sane ever since I started it to plan surviving homelessness, and to this day still always reminds me to keep promising myself a better future, because thanks to homelessness, I started a to-do-list, and it turned me into an excellent Thought Administer, and now I am much happier and peaceful.
When I was going homeless back in 2018 due to misfortune upon graduating from university (my story HERE), I made myself a survival list or manual that included things like where I could hide my bags safely, the safest and warmest spots to sleep, or where I could shower every night, all that made that cruel chapter of my life less painful... and that stretched and developed into a To-Do-List eventually and I've been hooked that it became somehting I just can't live another day without to this day. So important that I feel like everybody has a To-Do-List of their own otherwise I don't understand how can one simply accomplish anything or take care of their mental state, how can they wake up hte next day without checking a To-Do-List of some sort to manage their time to find free time? Anyhow! Here is what you need: a Free app called Notion.
There are some videos on Youtube on how to use Notion's features such their journal and the like, but I'm more of a subtle person, not the drama type, so I'll share with you what I got to find quite sufficient, the basics you need to build your future that will make your experience super fun and wholesome, memorable and personal, very precious, maybe too precious... and you'll understand what I mean after going through this excercise with me—
So go get the app now and let's start building your digital cocoon!
1. Sign-up to Notion so you can log-in anytime on any device and never lose your life progress, and set up your profile to feel like home whenever on the app, because this will be your little digital room from today on. I made myself a new account for you and called it Biscuit to help me take you through it from the start! :) Choose 'For Personal Use' option next and continue. You can add more than one account on the app anytime, too, and decide whether youwant to make them visible to the public as well or certain people.
Simply follow the welcome prompts which should tell you about the app's most quirky features such as how you can to touch and hold to rearrange tasks etc. It will then end you up on the sample page 'Getting Started on Mobile' to welcome you :) Feel free to read or play with it, but I'll be giving you a much simpler excercise anyway that includes these and a little more.
Tap the list icon on the bottom left. That's your Home.
On your Home screen, you'll now see all the pages you've got so far, which should be only two, the Getting Started page and the Sub (example) page in it all in view. Let's delete the subpage with touch and hold and click delete; You can also see from the drop-menu that you can also Copy the given link to it if you wish to share it, Favoutire it, or Move it to other pages.
Tap Delete.
2. Adding your first page by clicking the plus icon in the right corner at the bottom, you're met with the title (Untitled), so type-in the present month adding a fun emoji of your choice; this can describe your emotion or something you look forward to or wish for, or main goal on this month.
Press enter/return to start your tasks— Congratulations! This is the start of this month's To-Do-List! :)
Personally, I leave a top section wherein I usually keep key points or future reminders or even self-affirmations because as you open the list, you're always met with the start of it at the top here then you have to scroll down anyway, so this way if you do the same, you'll never miss an oppointment or forget an encouraging thought; see example photo.
The reason I include certain reminders in this section is because before you know it, your to do list will grow bigger and bigger and such important tasks WILL DO GET LOST IN TRANSLATION, so you've got to be careful. For example, I'd leave a reminder about the NYE party both at the top here (so I wouldn't forget) as well as later when I scroll all the way down to the 31st of December when the day comes, so when the party ends I simply check that box down there, but if your list wouldn't get as massive as mine (check my highlights on instagram and you'll be blown away on how endless my to do lists are), then you should be fine. By the end of the week, you'll find out that you've already discovered your own preferred style that makes your To-Do-List speaks to you and you alone :) If you have a snoop on mine from my Instagram, I guarantee you that you won't understand anything at all because all you'll see is an endless ocean of words and sentences and paragraphs that are either ticked and unticked!
Now, add whatever symbol easy and quick for you to make a section break. What I do is random three dots down as shown.
3. Now to the most exciting part!! Start with today's date :)
As shown from the picture below, type-in from your keyboard the two opposing closed box brackets [ ] without a space inbetween, then tap space afterwards and pop!! This automatically created a little ticking box for you. How cool is that? Type-in today's date, ex. 18th, then jump down (pressing enter/return) and it will autmatically understand that you're making a ticking list! How fun.
4. Start your very first task excercise!! 👏🏻 Make the note shown in the video:
[ ] Make a to do list! (clapping emoji)
Then tick that task by simply tapping the box.
How great that felt!
Now, to feel even better, do the same by adding somethings you want to do, spoil yourself with nail polish for example or even add something you already did like Laundry, or Groc (abbriviation for Grocery). My three must do ticks at night are as shown, 'Meds' at (because I sometimes forget whether I took my medicaions when I stay up late), 'Today I forgive self' and 'Proud lf self for'; the more you work with your to do list the more you'll abbraviate things to save time typing because you will actually get so busy by next week or even the day after tomorrow, I hope!
Now, select a whole line, say the last line you created, by tapping on it three times at the middle of it and it should select it whole, which will naturally give you the Cut, Copy, Paste etc options, but what I want you to do instead, is ignore these and select something from the horizantal menu below (above the keyboard) as shown.
Excercise: Change the text colour.
Tap the A in the square and scroll down to Red, the colour of passion and drive :)
Next, tap B to make it Bold, then scroll the horizantal menu to the left to reveal the other options and tap the underlined U to underline it.
You can otherwise highlight the text with a colour instead by tapping the A in the square again and choosing the background colour, ex. Yellow background/highlight.
Tap anywhere and admire your little creation :)
NOTE: There's some three dots on the top right corner that if you tap, you can find some more helpful options such as Font and Undo/Redo if you made any mistakes. You can also simply shake your phone if you wish to Undo anything while typing. You can also find deleted pages etc.
The more you toy with this app the easier it gets, for example the plus icon on the horizantal menu helps you add all sort of things like a table or an audio file (perfect for learning a language!), or adding pitures if you want or even related documents, or sub pages on the same page, or how I found out that the alignment icon (shown) pushes the text forward in case I wanted to make another list in the list. Which is your next excercise.
5. Go back to every text you made so far except the 18th line (as shown) and push them all forward so ONLY when you finish every single one of them today and just before bed when you turn off the phone to seal the day, you would tick that 18th box finally to let yourself know that you made it!! And know that you're ready to have a great sleep or chill with a film and to start the next day, entering your sleeping phase feeling so fulfilled already, see? ;)
If interested, this blog HERE I made can help you have a better sleep.
6. For homework, add all what you wish or aim to do date by date if you want and not only that, but also extra and random or even silly things that make you smile, the way you would when you skribble to write or draw something. For example, as the picture above shows, just type in a new box:
[] Got myself to start a to do list ugh so excited hsdbkshklshs and insert partying emojies with tears or whatever anything of that sort that makes your heart feel happy :)
In the picture above there are also other examples of ideas you can type in for today's to do list.
Now, you're free to leave the nest, my child. Go wind your way up and fly out of your coccoon, oh, butterfly of the future!
WARNING: Please always remind yourself that you don't have to do everything otherwise you'll turn into a perfectionist like I did and then you start to stress out instead. A To-Do-List is something that makes your life easier and helps you progress quicker, but it is also a reminder that it's okay to leave this world without having to achieve everything in the end, so take your time to reach your goals at your own leaisure and you'll find out that you actually have lots of free time and you can be so much happier in your journey to success.
You're already successful, baby :)
Go be wise, take care of yourself, be happy, and shine like a Superstar.
I love you.
Check out my other inspirational blogs HERE or I hope that you can share this blog to encourage more people with me to stay active, support what I do, and help others remember they’re really not alone and that life is actually so much more fun that they think. Will be seeing you on my next blog which teaches you how to self publish your own book! :)
Til' then, be proud and forgive yourself for everything.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me: sir.musawi@gmail.com
Follow me on instagram: @yokoshima.diary where I post everything inspirational on my highlights.