Here at J.W. Business Acquistions we believe that having a schedule is key to being successful! đź—ť Setting up a daily routing is a little bit art and a little bit of science. The art is figuring out the When and the science is figuring out the What and How.
1. Make a List
First, write down everything you need to get done daily, both in your personal life and at work. Do yourself a favor and don’t worry about how you organize this list. This is not a to-do list it’s a task brain dump. Take 30 minutes with a notebook to jot down everything you have to do today; down to “brush my teeth.”
2. Structure your Day
Early birds do their best most productive work before lunchtime whereas night owls perform best in the evenings. Know yourself. Think about when you do your BEST work, have the most energy, and are the most creative. Group your tasks into that specific time frame when you know you’ll perform at your best.
Tweet us! What will you do better to schedule your day?
Mornings tend to be about getting out of the door and your day started. Make time to eat breakfast, let your pets out if you have pets, get your lunch packed for work, leave on time for work… once you’ve got all of that out of the way, take on the tasks the require the most critical thinking.
Midday is a tricky time of the day because this is where things start to slow down. You’ve had lunch and now all you want to do is take a nap. NOPE! Time to zap the energy levels. Be proactive and pack a snack, something to fuel your body for the afternoon. Do a recap of your task list and your schedule.
Ask yourself, “Am I on schedule for the day?”
Evenings are the most productive when you use them to proactively plan for the next day. Lay out your work clothes for tomorrow. Take a look at what you already have on the schedule for tomorrow. If you know you’re not going to want to make lunch in the morning pack what you can at night. Pre plan to plan.
3. Schedule in Time for Flexibility
In a perfect world, everything would all go to plan down to the second. Well this isn’t a perfect world and things AREN’T always going to go as planned. The point is to focus on what you can control and let go of the things that you can’t. Use your most productive times for your most challenging tasks and your least productive times for mundane tasks. There might be times when life gets in the way, but practicing the art of having a daily routine will help things to flow despite any “fires” that may pop up.
A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.
Annie Dillard
4. Try it out!
Take it for a test drive. You wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a ride first, right? Test drive your routine.. how does it feel? How is it working? How is it impacting your life? Do you like the way it feels? Do you need to adjust things? Tweak anything that ISN’T working one thing at a time. If you change too many things at once you won’t know what is and what isn’t working. Whenever you try something new you have to give it time to work.
