plan my work and work my plan

whats up guys?

I’ve developed two systems which have helped enormously, to the point where I am alsmost ready to mark this as done. My strength has always been long range planning, and my weakness has been planning the day and the week.
I now keep a piece of paper on the bulletin board over my desk with three colored boxes on it, one for each of the 3 main streams of work I am working on. Each week, I fill the boxes with the studd I specifically plan to do that week. The writing has to be large enough that I can read it while seated, thus keeping me from overcommitting.
The other part I carry with me in my case—3 by 5 index cards. I write the things I have to get sone for work on one side, and for other and the other. I write over a new card each week, and I am ruthless about not writing down things I’d like to do but won’t really.
I cannot think of the name now, but the first idea is from someone on 43 things, if someone figures out who, would they send me the link, so I can give credit?

I have been using Remember the Milk for planning lately and especially like how fast you can modify your lists, especially if you learn the keyboard shortcuts. It is the best “to-do” list software I have found, especially because you can get to it from any web browser.

I have one list called “Today” where I move all of the things from other lists that I want to accomplish that same day.

I have a white board on my office. A large section of it is now committed to a 2-week plan. There is a different color pen for each of my meta goals (there are 5) and every 2 weeks, I redo the board: writing out my 2 week plan for each meta goal. I stay late at night the nights before the board day, to get everything crossed out.
Meta Goals
1. research project #1
2. lectures, etc for the class I’m teaching (2nd job)
3. job applications to go out
4. Research project #2
5. stuff for my third job.

Ok, I have not worked less than 12 hours in a day this week. I think I see the tide turning in my favor though. I meet with a mentor tomorrow. He wants to know why I am not making better progress. Fair enough, he is right. How will I change the current pattern?

I got to work today and felt so much pressure and just sorta melted. I know that I am seriously hamstrung this week with a lack of child care, so the one day I have to work and I just blew it. I could not focus to save my life. Of course, it does not help that the a/c has been broken for a month.

it is quite difficult to figure out how much work I can actually get done in a week. I can figure out how much I want to get done, but these are not the same.

I am great in a crisis, and have successfully developed and implemented several multi-year plans, but my mid-level planning is just plain awful. So, I now declare to change. How, I am not sure.