As a busy person, it is easy to fall into the trap of trying to do everything at once, but both science and experience agree in stating it’s very far from being the best approach when it comes to reaching goals. Both in business and in life. In fact, in order to get the best results, you should plan ahead and make planning a consistent habit of yours. One of the most important parts of getting things done is indeed planning. If you plan your schedule, you can set yourself up for success and you’ll soon find that, by creating a habit of setting aside time for advanced planning, you’ll increase your focus, your efficacy and your commitment.
Follow along these steps to see how you can easily start incorporating planning in your routines and come up with a successful schedule.
1. How to divide your time wisely
To be effective, you need to divide your time wisely, and that means you need to know what your priorities are and what you should focus on. To help you figure out what to focus on, you shall start by considering what you want to achieve and what is the priority that needs to be taken care of in order to reach your goal. Once you figure out what this priority is, you can start by reserving a central spot to it in your schedule. Ideally, you should be dedicating quality time to this important part of your schedule, so make sure you allocate to it the slots of time you feel more productive in. For some people, that may be the early mornings, for others it might be late afternoons, anyway you should find out pretty quickly which is the right time slot for you if you answer to the following questions:
- When do I feel more focused and undistracted?
- When do I feel more energised and ready to take on challenging tasks?
- When does it feel naturally easy to dedicate myself entirely to the task at hand?
After you realise what your pivotal slot of time is and you set it up in your planner as a non-negotiable slot, then you’re ready to start scheduling the other portions of your time. Once again, we suggest that you ask yourself what is the next most important thing that you need or want to do and use the same criteria we described before to know exactly when to schedule it in. Is it something that requires sharp attention? Then plan to do it in a time slot where you’re more likely to be fresh and alert. Is it something relaxing that helps you wind down after tackling a big task? Then plan to do it right after something that requires a considerable effort on your part. Proceed this way and you’ll build for yourself a pro schedule that enhances your peak moments and gently absorbs the lows to provide you one key element: consistency.
2. How to avoid procrastination and distractions
Procrastination is nothing more than a bad habit. If you are the type of person who is always putting off your work, you need to know why you are doing it. Are you afraid of your work? Are you feeling overwhelmed or unable to prioritize? If you are afraid of your work or feeling overwhelmed, you are more likely to put it off. However, distractions are another reason why people procrastinate. If you are constantly distracted either by social media, TV, talking to friends and family, or any other forms of internal distractions such as ruminating thoughts, you are not laser focused on what you need to do to achieve your goals. This can lead to you not achieving the goals you set out to achieve, and it can also lead to you not being able to enjoy life as much as you would like. Ask yourself a simple question: is it worth it? If you decide it’s not, act accordingly. You can use the following suggestions:
- See yourself as driven and committed
- Affirm to yourself that you are capable and determined
- Remind yourself of your goals and feel the excitement in the anticipation
- Finally, practice getting into a flow state starting with 30 minutes, then an hour, then two and so on until you’re comfortably getting in flow state for as long as you wish.
3. What is the best planning tool for you?
When trying to work towards your goals, it’s also important to know what tools you can use to help you get things done. There are many tools available to help you with scheduling and planning, such as:
- digital planners
- paper planners
- agendas
- bullet journals
What you use is completely up to you and what you are comfortable with. In general though, when you need to plan and create a schedule to achieve specific and important results, it can be overwhelming to try and do the planning part from scratch and on your own. If you’re trying to decide which tool to use, consider these factors before making your decision: your work flow, your work style, the number of projects you have and how much time you want to spend on planning. For instance, hand-written bullet journals are spectacular for personal use, but may end up resulting in a quite time-consuming and frustrating planning experience if you need to move along quickly and stay focused on your objectives. We might be biased on this, but we find that using a digital planner that has been designed to enhance productivity and that it’s visually appealing can really bring your ability to make things happen to another level. You might be surprised at how effortless planning is when you choose the perfect planning tool, so don’t underestimate this aspect.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed our article about how to plan your schedule and sticking to it by organise your time wisely, acting in spite of procrastination and using the perfect planner for you. It’s no secret that time is a precious resource, so you it’s worth making sure you are spending it wisely. We hope that this blog post has given you some new ideas about how you can better create and organise your schedule and that it’s prompting you to make planning a successful habit of yours. We’re sure you’ll see great results if you acquire the planning and scheduling mindset. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us anytime. We would love to hear from you!