Do you often feel like the day gets away from you and you didn’t accomplish what you wanted to? Do you feel you are procrastinating and wasting so much time? Are you sometimes overwhelmed when it comes to time management for family and business? Here is a great strategy to use by creating “Your Ideal Day” to plan and structure your day, your life, for maximum productivity.
Structure Your Day in Five Major Time Blocks
Block #1: Start of the Day: How you start your day is vitally important to how you ground your day. A chaotic start to the day brings with it a frenetic energy that transfer to the rest of your day. Instead, start your day with calm, avoiding social media, and quiet time for yourself.
Block #2: Work: This is where most of your time will be spent during the day. Stay focused on work-related, business-building tasks. Stay off social media unless you are posting/checking in for work or your business. Avoid unnecessary meetings, phone calls and time-wasting activities. Use this block of time to be focused on your work/business priorities.
Block #3: End of Work Day: Before heading off to dinner every day, measure your day’s success by what you accomplished during your work time block, and plan for the next day. What are your top priorities? Are they scheduled in your work block? What will you do to ensure they are completed?
Block #4: Evening: For many, this is family time mixed with work, especially for busy professionals and entrepreneurs. If it’s family time, be focused on your loved ones. If it’s work time, let your family know you need the time to complete major projects or tasks. Be sure to use open communication and do not over-extend your work hours if they take away from precious family time. You can do both; just be clear and structure it properly.
Block #5: End of Day: The way you start your day is as important as the way you end your day. If you end in chaos, stress, and overwhelm, that is what you will carry forward with you as you head to bed. Instead, turn off work, social media and all other stress related activities, and ensure you have quiet time, alone time if you need it, to unwind, relax and be focused on having a good night’s sleep. A restful night’s sleep comes from going to be relaxed, at peace and feeling grateful.
Have additional productivity tips to add? Please post them in the comments below.
Remember, by setting your priorities and knowing your goals and vision, you will have a far easier time saying no to the things that are not important, while making time and space for what is.
