Natural energy cycles

Planning for a year leads to a lax attitude throughout the start of the year, leading to a burst of frantic activity as the end of the year approaches. Forget about your annual plan and accomplish the same goals in just 12 weeks.

• When you have just 12 weeks to reach your g...

This works well for the over-promiser: those who overestimate how much they can do in a day.

To prevent starting the day unplanned, plan your day the night before.

This works for seasonal workers.

Make a list of your annual commitments including work events and personal events. Plan your tasks around these events.

The method involves identifying your big rocks (i.e. your priorities) then planning your day around them.

This is for the constantly over-committed - those who struggle to fit everything into a single day cycle. 

Eating the frog means taking the biggest job you need to do and tackling it at the very start of the day, getting it over and done with.

Check out your to-do list. Pick the task you’ve been putting off.

When you have a plan for the month, it gives you a sense of what you can realistically get done.

Experiment with monthly planning and see whether or not it fits in with your productivity cycles.

Rather than planning your time, plan your goals. Ignore specific timelines and instead focus on progressing toward your key goals.

For example, if you want to be President, you might choose to volunteer for local political activities, as opposed to taking a high-paying job in the private...

Theme each individual day of your week to a specific type of task.

For example:

• Mon: Research
• Tues: Client work
• Wed: Marketing
• Thurs: Client work
• Fri: Bookkeeping

This method involves literally planning out each of your next hours, rather than your whole day.

Start the day by writing a list of what you intend to do over the next hour. Top up the list throughout the day so it always contains approximately one hour’s work.

The 2-minute rule is a strategy for quickly assessing and taking action on small tasks so they don’t take up too much mental energy.

Ask yourself if a task is going to take you 2 minutes or less. If so, just do it.

This is good for the big dreamer because it helps with starting making progress on long-term goals.

Rather than trying to work flat-out, break down your day into a series of work-sprints with a short rest period after each session.

Set a timer for 25 min and focus exclusively on your work for that time, take a 5 min break, and repeat.

Some people find that taking a 5 min break destr...

Assign every hour of your day to a specific task.

Take your day’s to-do list and estimate how long each task will take. Plan your day out by assigning each task to your calendar. Include all related tasks such as commuting, breaks and admin tasks.