One-Page View
Demand Map
Seeing the total cost of a day honestly, so overload stops arriving by surprise.
A keep-close version. Read it here, or screenshot this page to have it on your phone — print and PDF copies will appear once final files are attached.
One page for one real day: every demand written out — visible and invisible — so the whole picture can be weighed before it's lived. The unit of planning is the day, not the task.
The day I'm mapping
Which day, and why
e.g. Thursday — hospital appointment + Ruby's parents' evening
Visible demands
- Work — paid or unpaid
- Appointments or errands
- Household tasks
- Caring — children, adults, pets
- Social plans
- Travel
Hidden demands
The costs that don't make it onto a to-do list but get paid all the same.
- Waiting for something — delivery, call, appointment
- Holding a plan in mind so it isn't forgotten
- Deciding — small choices, all day
- Monitoring how I'm doing against the plan
- Processing a difficult thing afterwards
- The anticipation of a hard thing beforehand
Background load already running
Open loops, sensory hum, worries on repeat — the spending that happens without events.
What's running in the background
e.g. Waiting on test results; the house is cluttered and loud
The honest verdict
The shape it needs
A trade-off made deliberately is a plan; the same trade-off made by collapse is a crash. Whatever you moved today, you chose it — and that's the skill.