Schedule Essential Actions

Schedule in high-priority and urgent activities, as well as essential maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated or avoided.

Try to arrange the high-priority tasks for the times of day when you feel most productive.

The space you have left in your planner is "discretionary time". Use it to deliver your priorities and achieve your goals.

• Review your prioritized To-Do List and personal goals.
• Evaluate the time you need to achieve them.
• Schedule them in.

Schedule some extra time to cope with contingencies and emergencies.

Some interruptions will be hard to predict, but leaving some open space in your schedule gives you the flexibility you need to rearrange tasks and respond to important issues as they arise.

Set a regular time to do your scheduling.

Decide on a scheduling tool to use to organize your time. You can use pen and paper or choose an app.

Scheduling is the art of planning your activities so that you can achieve your goals and priorities in the time you have available. It helps you:

• Understand what you can realistically achieve with your time.
• Add contingency time for "the unexpected."
• Avoid ...

If you have little discretionary time available, question whether all of the tasks you've entered are necessary. Some tasks can be delegated or tackled in a more time-efficient way.

If you find that your discretionary time is still limited, then you may need to renegotiate your workl...