Here’s one way to make the most of your day:
Have a plan.
The trick here is to plan what you want from your day the night before (last thing) not at the start of the day. This is a powerful way to do it because your subconscious will get to work on what you’ve written down during the night as you sleep, so that when you wake up in the morning you’re “pre-programmed” and ready to go. Physically writing down what you intend to do is really important by the way.
So what we’re talking about here gets us into the world of “time and task management”. There’s a lot of stuff out there on all this. Some of it’s very good and some of it’s also complex!
Here’s something pretty simple which you can try right away:
- Make a list (the night before) of all the things you want to get done tomorrow : the things you want to do, must do, should do etc. Put down everything.
- Then go back over each item and label it with an A, B or C
- A’s are the things you absolutely have to do tomorrow. Critical. They can’t wait. If you don’t do them you’re in trouble!
- B’s are the things you should do. They’re important. You’d really like to get them done but it’s not critical that they’re actually done tomorrow.
- C’s are the things that it would be nice to do. Often these are thought of as the “if I have time” or “if I’ve done everything else” tasks. Big warning though : what you don’t want to happen is to have all your C’s as the “reward” type things. So balance out those tasks and be kind to yourself. Is that C task really a C? should it be a B? (and vice versa)
- Review your list and have a think about whether it’s realistic to get everything done tomorrow. Make sure you don’t have too many things on there – if you have, then look at your B’s and C’s and see if you can lose any. Can they keep till the next day?
- When tomorrow comes… do all your A tasks first, followed by the B’s and then the C’s (I know…you guessed this bit)
- Enjoy striking a line through each task as you get it done – feels good?
There’s a whole lot more on this but I promised to keep it simple, so why not just try the above for a few days and see if it helps you get more from your day – It’s a technique (and now a habit) which has helped me a lot. I hope it helps you too.
Hi Frank, I’m wondering if you feel it’s important to write the list ie in a notepad as opposed to using for example the calendar or to-do list on a mobile phone? Tnx.
Hi Annette! That’s a good question… I would say it varies from person to person.. Surprisingly for me (someone who actually loves the techie stuff… e.g. “todo” apps and all that), I find writing on paper seems to work better (and I love striking a line through too when it’s done).. although that might be because the pad is in a prominent place on my desk and gets looked at each day.. Might be worth trying your default method first and seeing how it works. Or maybe a week with the tech and a week with paper?