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How to make a daily schedule that won't ruin your day - RescueTime
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Scheduling styles
- The Overscheduler: Their days are determined from the moment they wake up to their evening routine.
- The Minimalist: They’ve got one or two recurring events, but a whole lot of white space so they’re “free” (at least on paper) for long stretches of work.
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Scheduling your day
A good daily schedule is a blueprint for a successful life.
Knowing what we’re doing and when empowers us with a sense of purpose, meaning, and focus.
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Your most important work
The most successful people consistently get their most important work done first.
Build recurring time for your most important work in the morning, before you start anything else. Your energy levels are naturally higher in the morning, but completing a meaningful task first thing has also a domino effect that pushes you through the day.
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Ryan Holiday
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Be mindful of your flow
- Task flow: Our brains take time to get into the flow of a task. But once they’re warmed up, it’s easier to keep going and stay motivated. So chunk your day by activities.
- Energy flow: Our energy has a natural ebb and flow throughout the day, which we can use to our advantage. If we schedule it right.
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Do a calendar audit
Do this to clear out dead time and to find:
- The time you spend on each project
- How your time is divided between meetings
- The time you spend for each area of your work (for example, managing vs building).
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All your time commitments in one place
Bring all your commitments together on the same calendar (personal and professional) so you know how much time you’re actually working with.
You can use color coding to differentiate between activities if you’d like.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Time blocking
It's the practice of planning out every moment of your day in advance and dedicating specific time “blocks” for certain tasks and responsibilities.
When you fill your c...
Time blocking and focus
By scheduling every minute of your day you not only guard against distraction but also multiply your focus.
Also, focusing on one task at a time can make you up to 80% more productive than splitting your attention across multiple tasks.
Cons of the time blocking practice
- It takes a lot of time and effort.
- Few of us (if any) have the same schedule every day.
- We’re bad at estimating how long tasks will take to do.
- Constant interruptions and “urgent” tasks can destroy your system.
- Flexibility is key in most workplaces.
- You can lose sight of the bigger picture if you focus just on each day.
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Fighting For Our Focus
Scheduling of work falls into two broad categories: Makers and Managers. Most of us are either managing people and projects or making something, like documents, apps or other creat...
Different Jobs See Time Differently
- Managers can work in time blocks of 30 or 60 minutes, scheduling meetings or sending emails.
- Makers need almost half a day to get down and create something, requiring an uninterrupted focus mode that is nearly impossible.
What complicates matters is that many managers who are managing the makers think of time as short blocks and try to break the focused time of the makers, requesting them to juggle work or multitask, which kills any productivity or quality with the unending context switching.
Schedules And Productivity
None of us can get creative in short 15-minute bursts of work sandwiched between a mandatory meeting and a sales team call. It is also a myth that people work for 8 to 10 hours a day.
Most people are productive in sporadic periods of time, like 15 minutes, followed by an interruption, then for 20 minutes, followed by a commitment/obligation/meeting and so on.
We need to align our schedules with our goals and create a strategy that helps us focus on deep work.
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There is no perfect method for everyone
There is no "one size fits all schedule" for maximum productivity.
Because we all have particular strengths and weaknesses when it comes to time management and productivity, what works...
The Time Blocking Method
It involves planning out your day in advance and dedicating specific hours to accomplish specific tasks.
It’s important to block out both proactive blocks (when you focus on important tasks) and reactive blocks (when you allow time for requests and interruptions).
The Most Important Task Method (MIT)
Instead of writing a big to-do list and trying to get it all done, determine the 1-3 tasks that are absolutely essential and then focus on those tasks during the day.
You don’t do anything else until you’ve completed the three essential tasks.