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Want to know how to effectively plan your day? Below are 5 simple steps on how to plan your day that will get you immense results. This post is all about planning your day.

 

How to plan your day

 

“Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent Return on Energy!” – Brian Tracy

 

Planning is such a crucial step for every project yet a lot of people go through the day and the life without planning. When we don’t have plans for our day, the day plans for us and when we don’t have plans for our life, the Life plans for us. So it is of utmost importance that we plan our day. 

Planning is such a diverse practice – everyone does it differently. Below I am sharing steps that I have practiced and learnt over a period of time. This post will help you understand the simple steps  that you can take to get great results.

 

This post is all about how to plan your day.

daily routine schedule

 

Plan the night before

Most people leave Planning for the morning, some are very religious about it and plan without fail, while others drift away, and before long, the day takes over. Then they end up doing everything but the things that they should have been doing. 

While it may seem like a very productive day, they will have achieved very less in terms of THEIR dreams and goals as they end up putting aside the most important tasks and goals that matter the most to them. 

Therefore, I cannot stress enough how important it is to plan the night before. This does a couple things:

Firstly,  it makes it very clear what we need to work on the next day;

Secondly, it sets up expectations for us for the next day which helps us be motivated.

Lastly, it helps us achieve goals that matter to us the most.

Go ahead and incorporate this in your daily routine schedule and see for yourself.

 

Prioritize 

Again, this is so important!  I used to be so busy all day and realize at 4 pm that I haven’t even started my most important task, and then I used to end up working until late. Only if I had done  my priority tasks first, I could have had a work/life balance. 

It took me a long time to learn that not all tasks are equal, and that I don’t need to finish everything TODAY! Else you will be running on the hamster wheel everyday.

Instead, decide which 1 – 3  tasks are going to be high priority tasks tomorrow. If you have more than 3 priorities, you don’t have a priority list.  You will need to re-evaluate which ones are priority. Then do those tasks first thing tomorrow.

 

Plan to Fill your cup first

Tell me if you do this too. I used to get up, freshen up and jump to work and I could not figure out why I was so stressed all day until I changed my routine. I changed it to fill my cup first AKA  do what YOU need first before trying to do what everyone else needs. They say  ‘you can’t pour from an empty cup’ which is so true!

For me, this is meditation, quiet time and coffee – it might be something different for you. Once I have done these I am in a much calmer place to deal with what the day brings along. I do get up an hour earlier for this. This does not mean you have to wake up at 5 am, it might be 8 am for you, or maybe you need your cup filled in the afternoon or evening. Also, for me it is 1 hour, for you it might be 20 mins, so do what works for you.

Fill your own cup first!

 

Write them down

I swear by this, whenever I write down my tasks for the day, I get more done. The probability of me doing the task is so much higher when I write them down vs when I just plan it. Many studies have been conducted where they linked handwriting ‘To Do list’ with Getting things done.

Since I am a visual person, it provides me more clarity and helps me understand my goal better. It also provides clarity on if I need to break it down, or if I need to complete any pre- requisite task before starting that task. Therefore, it just makes sense to write them down DAILY so that it becomes a habit.

(Hint: keep your written list in the same place every day which will help you form this habit easily).

Need a Planner? Check our Daily Planner

 

Time block

Have you tried Time Block planning? Parkinson’s Law says that work expands to fill the time we have –  meaning we will take as much time as we have to complete a task. Let’s say I have two days to complete a task; most probably I will take two days to complete it. Now let’s say my boss told me that she needs it within 3 hours. Guess what? I will get it ready in 3 hrs!!!

To take advantage of this, we need to use Time blocking system. Time block simply means deciding how long each task would take and allocating a specific time of the day to get each of them done. One thing to note is to not completely fill your calendar but to give yourself breaks. 

I would luv to hear how you plan your day.

 

This post is all about how to plan your day.

 

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