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.

• 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.

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.

• 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.

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).

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.