Who doesn’t love a good vision board?
It feels really good to set out those long-term plans and visions. You feel like you’re on top of the world. You can see it happening, as if it’s already in your grasp.
Then, you wake up the next day, and that magical feeling dissipates.
What are you going to do right now, in this moment?
How are you going to navigate all the little things you need to do in a day, and still make progress toward your goals?
How are you going to fit it all in?
In this article, I’m going to share 3 methods you can use to better organize your time each day and make sure everything important gets done.
Table of Contents
Do This First
Before you’re ready to plan out your day, you’ll need to have a few things laid out.
First, you want to have a basic ideas of all the goals, projects, and to-dos on your plate. Start by doing a brain dump of everything on your mind.
- What are the big goals you have for yourself?
- What are all the projects you’re working on or would like to tackle someday?
- What are all the little to-dos nagging you every day?
Get them all onto paper.
Then it’s time to organize the huge list into smaller, more organized lists:
- Projects (this includes everything that takes more than 1 step to complete, including long-term visions and goals)
- One-Off Tasks (these are things you can do with no preparation in just 1 step, like “Call Jessica” or “make a dinner reservation for Friday at Joe’s”
Once you’ve got clear on these things, you know the specific things you need to do every day to move a little closer to each goal (without letting your to-do list pile up).
(Pro Tip: I recommend also planning on a quarterly or monthly basis so you can see where you want to be with each goal by the end of the time period. I also recommend making a weekly plan where you decide roughly what you want to accomplish during the week. However, these are not necessary to start out with daily planning.)
3 Methods of Daily Planning
#1 – Time Blocking
Time Blocking is a way to block off your calendar every day with all of the things you plan to do in that way.
Why is it important to use a calendar? Because your calendar represents your life. Having things on your calendar means that they have a time to be done. (Versus a to-do list, which is floating in space without a clear time to do anything.)
To time block your day, prepare a blank schedule (in a planner, a blank page, or a spreadsheet), and fill out all of the things you want to do that day. Pre-scheduled appointments go first, and then you are free to fill it in with everything else you want to do (based on those lists you made beforehand).
(Don’t forget to schedule in sleep, down time, self-care, and time with family.)
Deep Work author Cal Newport uses this method, and he has great advice for deciding how much time to give each task: Take the amount of time you’re sure you need to finish the task, then double it. Plus, add a buffer of time (like an empty half hour or so) at the end of the day in case things don’t go as planned. (Because they never do.)
Anything that doesn’t get done? No sweat. Just move it ahead to another day.
#2 – Block Schedule
This method, which comes from Jordan Page of FunCheapOrFree.com, takes time block planning and puts it on autopilot.
Instead of starting every day with a blank schedule, you create a number of “blocks” at set times with specific rules: one may be for your morning routine and breakfast, another for work, and another for kid time.
For best results, it’s better to create longer blocks, like 2 or 3 hours, so you’re not always rushing to do the next thing.
If you have work hours, that’s one block, and then you can divide up the rest of the day.
I’ve been testing out this method recently, because I like the idea of knowing what kind of tasks I should do at each point of the day.
This is what I’m working with:
- 5am – 9:30am Morning Block (morning routine, get kids ready, eat breakfast, etc.)
- 9:30am – 12:30pm Client Work
- 12:30pm – 2:00pm Eat Lunch and Clean (also errands on Thursdays if I have them)
- 2:00pm – 2:30pm Blog Work
- 2:30pm – 3:30pm Other Projects (this is a buffer)
- 3:30pm – 5:00pm Kid Time (picking them up from daycare, playing together)
- 5:00pm – 7:00pm Dinner Block (cooking, eating, cleaning up)
- 7:00pm – 9:30pm Nighttime Block (getting kids to bed, relaxing for a bit, getting in bed by 9:30pm)
Now instead of looking at my to-do list and trying to figure out when I’m going to do everything, I just drop them into the appropriate bucket.
It takes some discipline to stick to your blocks every day, but it does make it easier to get into a flow each day and get all of the important things done.
#3 – Daily Objectives
This last method is one that I’ve used for a long time and suits my personality best.
Instead of assigning a strict time to get everything done, you look at all the things you want to accomplish, then write a list of objectives that you want to finish by the end of the day.
It also helps to know the priority or set an order for how you want to go through them. Then you can work on things in any order you like, or switch between different tasks like cleaning and writing to give yourself creative breaks.
If plotting everything on a calendar makes you uncomfortable, this might be a good method to try.
Over time, you’ll get a sense for how much you can finish in a given day.
I often go to this method because I don’t like having my whole day scheduled out as it makes me feel a little bit stuck and anxious after a while.
But the downside of this method is that you still need to do some thinking to decide when you’re going to do something and in which order you’ll do each task. Recently, I’ve wanted to reduce the number of decisions I make in a day, which is why I’m trying out Method #2 again.
Conclusion
I’ve shared 3 easy ways to better organize your day so that you can get more done. Everyone’s different, and what works for me might not work for you. That said, I hope this post has given you some ideas that you can try!
What do you think? Which method fits you best? Have you tried any, and how did it go? Let me know in the comments!
