We all have the same 24 hours in a day, what you do with them determines where you end up in life. So what do you want to do? What do you want to be? You need to make sure you’re planning your day accordingly so you can do and be what you really want. The important word here is “plan”. You must take the time to plan.
Don’t let the hours control you. You control the hours.
I can’t tell you what is going to work best for you. I can tell you what has been working for me. I say “working for me” because everything changes based on needs and goals. So for now the following is my process for planning.
First I need to know what needs to get done. That is based on a few broad categories:
- Family
- Mental
- Physical
- Spiritual
- Financial
- Career
- Social
The goals I have fall into one of these categories. Tasks come from those goals, so keeping these in mind while planning your day is important. I try to keep things balanced. Not easy to do when work tasks seem to take over most of my day. It is good practice to keep these categories in mind though. I keep track of my tasks using a combination of Todoist and a notebook, but use whatever system works for you.
The following in a simple process I use to plan my day. I try to keep it simple and only spend 10-15 minutes at the beginning and end of each day – you’ll see “Start of day process” and “End of day process” below – planning my day. I also only plan 1 day at a time. For me planning more than that worked out.
The analog version:
Get a piece of paper and number it 1-12 & 1-12 again. Here is an example of week and weekend days:
Weekday
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep/Shower/Breakfast
- Aidan to school/Start of day process
- PM/Dev
- Meetings
- PM/Dev
- PM/Dev
- Lunch
- PM/Dev
- PM/Dev
- PM/Dev
- Pick up Aidan & Sports
- Sports
- Sports
- Dinner
- End of day process
- Relax/Entertainment
- Relax/Entertainment
- Sleep
- Sleep
Weekend
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep
- Sleep/Shower
- Read/Write
- Breakfast/Read/Write
- Read/Write
- Read/Write
- Work (if any)
- Work (if any)
- Free Time
- Free Time
- Free Time
- Free Time
- Dinner
- Relax/Entertainment
- Relax/Entertainment
- Relax/Entertainment
- Sleep
- Sleep
Each bullet point is one of the 24 hours you have in the day. Take 5 minutes and fill in each of hour with the things you do each weekday. I also do this for the weekend days, just so I’m consistent with the habit of planning my days. I also create some “Free Time” for anything that pops up or if I just want to do nothing.
You can also use an analog or digital calendar for this, I actually use a Google Calendar so I have it with me at all times on my phone. Don’t try to get too detailed, that is a waste of time and effort. Block out time for general things like “work” or “entertainment”. That way you’re not overthinking your day, but you are leaving room to do the things you need to and want to do. You can narrow the type of work that you need to do though. Something like “Easy Work” or “Hard Work” can help to identify those items that might take more energy or focus to complete. You can then place these in your schedule at the most appropriate time. Also notice the “(if any)” I have in the list above. You can qualify your time blocks of time to allow them to be more flexible. Remember, this is your schedule. It will change, but if you plan, you have more control over those changes and how you spend your time.
Another trick you can use is to track your actual day against your planned day. On your numbered piece of paper, or in your calendar, or even in another digital calendar track what you do each hour of the day. I like doing this for 2 reasons. One, it helps me plan future days, and two, it allows me to account for where my time went. I do have to remind myself to do this. So, I have an hourly alarm on my phone that beeps to remind me to create an entry for the previous hour. The Pomodoro Technique seems like it’d be a good fit here. I’ve never been able to keep to the practice, maybe someday.
At first, time scheduling may not be very accurate. Over time though, you will be become more accurate at scheduling the blocks of time to accomplish all the things you need to get done. So keep at it, plan and track your days, then do regular reviews to see where you’re at. Compare the plan to the actual. Note any discrepancies, unused or misused time, tasks that blew out their time blocks, anything that didn’t “fit” and use that information to plan better next time.
What do you think? What works for you? What doesn’t?