If you’re like me then knowing how to plan your day and stick to it isn’t always the easiest thing to do.
It’s easy to intend to do this or do that, but before you know it, another day has passed and you’ve not done anything you planned to do.
By the end of this post, you’ll know how to plan your day like a boss and stick to it no matter what.
So first things first.
When planning your day you need to…
Be Clear On What You’re Planning Your Day For.
It’s so easy to create a great action list with loads of things that you can tick off and feel really good about doing.
But if you are not clear on the result you want,
You’ll just end up doing loads of things for sake of doing them.
Plus you’ll just get swept along in the current of life reacting to things as they crop up in your day to day life.
Here are two things to think about when deciding what you’re planning your day for.
- Are you planning your day with a purpose in mind?
- What do you want to achieve
If you’re are clear on what you want to achieve then you’ll be planning your day effectively.
Your purpose may be to be the greatest mother to your kids.
Or,
You may want to build a $50k per month passive business so you can travel with your family more.
Having Goals Will Help You Make Better Plans
You only have a limited amount of time each day.
So when you have to decide whether to spend 1.5 hours a day on a task that doesn’t bring you anywhere close to your goals or help you live your purpose.
Or a task that does.
You’ll then know what task to do.
I bet if most people closely analyzed last month’s tasks that they planned…
They’d be surprised to find lots of things they shouldn’t have wasted their time on as it didn’t really bring them closer to any of their goals or to live their purpose.
So,
Now you know you should plan your day around your goals and purpose,
Then …
When Should You Plan Your Day?
There are a few ways you can do this.
I like to have a combo of all three.
I feel it’s best to roughly plan your whole week on Sunday evening ready for the week ahead.
That way you will go into your week knowing what you want to achieve.
It’s good to use something like iCal if you are using a Mac or something similar if you use a Windows PC/Laptop.
Or you can go old school and use a daily planner.
Another thing you can use is a planner whiteboard (takes you to Amazon) to put your daily tasks down.
These are good as you can normally see them whilst you work as they are usually on the wall in front or near where you work.
Then once I know what I’m going to be doing in the week, I like to go over the next day’s plans and also mentally rehearse what I will be doing the next day.
This way I go to sleep with next days plans in my mind.
Then the morning before you do anything it’s good to briefly review the day’s tasks ahead so you are focused on that day’s plan of action.
Tips for planning your day
1. Don’t be a list ticker
Hmm…what shall I tick next?
It feels good to put loads of actions down and then start ticking them off. By the end of the day, you feel good because you’ve ticked loads of your list.
The only thing is when you sit down and analyze what you actually accomplished. It’s usually hardly a lot.
Just lots of tasks that didn’t amount to much.
Make sure when you plan your day you focus on tasks that will help you accomplish your goals.
Use the Pareto principle and work 80% on those and only 20% on the rest.
2. Work on the most important task first
Brian Tracy’s book Eat The Frog (takes you to Amazon) goes in this topic a lot.
To put it simply.
Work on the one task first that will give you the best results towards your goals.
Usually, it’s the most difficult task that we would normally like to put off.
But it’s those tasks that reward us the most.
The good thing is every task after that first task will seem easy to do.
Another thing that helps when working on tasks is to use the Pomodoro method. It basically means work in 25 min blocks with a 5 min break.
After 4 Pomodoro blocks, you take a longer 25 min break before you go again.
Super good for staying hyper-focused when working!
3. Create a not to do list
This next tip I got from a guy called Dean Graziosi. It was quite a novel concept as I never heard it before.
Most people create to-do lists but Dean said to create a not to list before you create your to-do list.
Here’s an example of how one would look.
Not to do list
- Do not look at the phone for the first hour of the day.
- Do not start working without blocking a set amount of time to work on each task.
- Do not work unless phone is on airplane mode.
- Do not have phone near me while working.
- Do not check email unless in the allotted time.
- Do not check social media while working.
- Do not…fill in the blank etc…
If you commit to using a NOT TO DO LIST and stick to it. Your productivity will go up massively.
Next tip that will help you in planning your day is…
4. Anticipate and Remove common distractions
I mentioned this before but it works wonders.
There are so many distractions that sap our time each day.
Whether it’s emails, social media, checking the news, phone calls, you name it, there are so many possible distractions.
If you can anticipate and minimize or remove those common distractions…
Then you’ll have a much more focused and productive day.
I like to spend a few minutes the night before or in the morning when mentally rehearsing my day and see any possible distractions and then how I will deal with them effectively.
For example,
It’s quite common for my phone to ring and it be some type of marketing call, or a friend ringing to see what I’m doing later.
So to combat that distraction, I now put my phone on airplane mode while I work.
Don’t worry, you can still turn your phone off airplane mode to see if you have any messages in between blocks of work if you have to.
Either way,
Spend some time mentally seeing the possible distractions and how you can remove or minimize them.
How Can I Organize My Day Better?
There are a few things that can help when it comes to organizing your day so you can get the most out of it.
Firstly…
– Use a calendar (or something similar)
iCal Example Week
I mentioned this before but it works wonders.
It really helps when it comes to allocating time to the tasks you have set out.
For instance, I gave myself 3hrs UNINTERRUPTED time to write the draft of this article.
If I didn’t complete it in that time I would find the time in my iCal to finish it tomorrow or where possible.
When you block uninterrupted time to complete a task you are much more likely to complete the task planned.
And don’t get me wrong,
If I get behind on my blocks of time because one task has taken me longer,
I then sometimes reschedule another task for another day so I can carry on and complete an important task I need to finish.
The Next thing when organizing your day is…
– Block similar tasks together (chunking)
I learned about chunking when I went through Tony Robbins course called Time Of Your Life.
Once I learned about this I got even more done in less time.
So how this works is most of the tasks you do can be chunked into groups. For instance, your daily tasks might look like this…
- Call advertising company about campaign.
- Write 3 promotional emails for business
- Call bank about loan
- Email Mark S about job proposal
- Reply to customers inquiry emails
- Work on new product I am creating
- Have a meeting with Linda about current project
- Go to grocery store for items for dinner.
- The list goes on.
Now if you look at that list you will see some tasks are related. For example, there’s some emails, some calls to be made, and some other tasks.
What you can do to maximize your time is chunk tasks together that are similar or makes sense to do.
For example, I would group my tasks like this…
Emails
- Write 3 promotional emails for business
- Reply to customers inquiry emails (or delegate to someone else if possible)
- Email Mark S about job proposal
Calls
- Call bank about loan
- Call advertising company about campaign.
Out of home tasks
- Have a meeting with Linda about current project
- Go to grocery store for items for dinner.
Product creation
- Work on new product I am creating
It makes sense to group your tasks so you can do them at the same time as a similar task.
What I would do is prioritize the chunks and put the most important task for each chunk first.
I might block 3 hrs for product creation. 1.5 hr for emails. 1 hour for calls. 1.5 hrs for meeting and shopping on the way home.
If you use chunking when you are planning your day,
You will see a big improvement in productivity in comparison to when just doing different tasks here and there.
Next thing to think about is…
What should I do daily?
If you want to know what’s the best thing you should be doing with your time each day then you need to understand two things.
- What’re your goals
- What’s your main focus at the minute
Hopefully, you should have some clear goals written down.
If you haven’t then I highly recommend you do so.
Napoleon Hills book Think And Grow Rich (takes you to Amazon) goes into detail on goal setting.
Defo worth reading if you don’t have any clear goals.
So let’s say you do have goals and you know what you want to achieve.
Then you may want to focus more on one goal than another.
For example, you want to write a book, learn a new language and you want to get in shape for a physique competition.
The physique competition may be a priority as it’s coming up in 12 weeks so you would want to make sure your daily plans have more tasks in relation to that goal.
Once that’s over you may want to focus more on your book and spend a little time learning a new language.
So in essence.
Focus On The Main Goal You Want To Accomplish
If you focus on too many things at once then you never really get moving on any of your goals.
When you prioritize your tasks to your most important goals at that moment in time then you will more likely achieve them.
Another thing to mention is,
If you get good at your planning and blocking tasks then you can work on a few main goals simultaneously and still get them done.
Just make sure your actions are not scattered all over the place with no real plan of action.
So you have it. How To Plan Your Day And Stick To It.
Summary
- Know what you’re planning your day for. (what do you want to achieve?)
- Plan and schedule the blocks of time to work on each task.
- Use chunking when planning your day’s tasks.
- Create a not to do list.
- Anticipate and remove any distractions.
Thanks, and please share or leave a comment if you have anything to add!
