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How to make a daily schedule that won't ruin your day - RescueTime
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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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.
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.
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.
Ryan Holiday
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.
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).
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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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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Using reminders
For ex...
Reminders and mental space
Reminders give us mental space for more important work. They make sense because we can't remember everything.
They keep our most important priorities top of mind. And studies show how reminders can help us save more money, keep up with medical treatments, and be more charitable.
Reminders: the bad side
- We’re bombarded by reminders and notifications every day and this can mess up our focus.
- Reminders cause context switching and distraction. They take our focus away from what we're doing.
- Good reminders lose their influence quickly. The sheer number of them means we’re more likely to miss the ones we do want to pay attention to.
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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.
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Take Stock and Track Your Time
You can’t really clean up your schedule if you don’t know what’s in it—and that includes all the things on your literal and official calendar and all the things that aren’t.
Purge Recurring Meetings and Tasks
Once you know what’s on your calendar, ask yourself: “What is the purpose of each thing on here? Are we accomplishing that or does something need to change?”
Question each task. Start with recurring meetings, which can very easily build up and take over your calendar.
Sort Things By Importance and Urgency
... and put them in one of four quadrants:
- Quadrant I: Important, Urgent (crises, last-minute meetings for important deadlines)
- Quadrant II: Important, Not Urgent (strategic planning, long-term goal setting)
- Quadrant III: Not Important, Urgent (certain emails, phone calls, meetings, and events)
- Quadrant IV: Not Important, Not Urgent (scrolling mindlessly through social media, binge-watching TV you don’t really care about).
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There isn’t enough time
A one size fits all solution
Instead of relying on a tool with all the bells and whistles, find out where you’re struggling and what’s essential for you.
For example, if scheduling is taking you away from product development, then you could use a scheduling tool that uses machine learning to automate most of your scheduling needs. If you’re wasting too much time on email, then consider using a tool to help tame your inbox.
Less anxiety
Time management is only useful when you’re aware of your limitations and don't let the system dictate your entire life.
In other words, when you don’t tread lightly (especially at first), time management can add more stress to your life.
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'Eat that Frog'
This is a productivity method developed by Brian Tracy. The 'frog' refers to the most important and most impactful task you have to complete.
If you work on it first thing e...
Clarify your goals
If you don't know what your goals are, most likely you won't be able to identify and prioritize the specific tasks you need to work on to achieve those goals.
Write your major goals down and break them into tasks. Your goal tasks are your frogs, the things you want to work on first thing every day for greater productivity and success.
Think long-term
... to make better short-term decisions.
If you question the consequences of doing/not doing a to-do before you start on it, it not only makes it easier to find your frogs, but it also makes it easier to find time-wasting tasks that are better deleted from your list or delegated to someone else.
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