Plan Your Work… Work Your Plan
The endless sea of post-it notes!
The to-do list as long as I don’t know what!
The constant feeling of failure and overwhelm!
Do these things sound familiar? Is something that I constantly was struggling with over my years in business?
After attending a class and heard this saying “plan your work, work your plan”. At that very moment, my whole world opened up. What do you mean to plan your day? I slightly felt attacked and liberated at the same time. LOL. I’m not sure if you can relate to that feeling.
I thought I was pretty organized. I like to write things down to get them out of my head. Yet, I found myself not actually planning on when to accomplish these tasks.
There’s one thing to actually create a list. It’s a whole other conversation to actually accomplish those tasks. I want to share some tips with you on how I actually get things done.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being productive. As an entrepreneur, the list doesn’t stop and the demands don’t go away. It’s all about how I adjust to what is required. Plus protecting my sanity and improving my efficiency.
Sunday Planning Structure
First things first, there has to be a day of planning. Now don’t freak out! It’s not an entire day of planning. It’s actually dedicating a day that you create your plan. For me, I love to do Sunday as my planning day.
Why do I like Sundays, it’s the only day that no one is looking for me or needs anything of me.
I can flow and get things done! Your day may be Fridays or Monday nights. Saturday that you set your life up for a powerful start. My planning day is usually only 1 to 2 hours. I allow myself to focus without any interruptions and clear out all that is jammed up in my head.
Yes! At any given time, I feel like I have 20,000 tabs open up in my mind. The planning day helps with closing those tabs and focusing on the necessary task ahead.
Throughout the week, I do use apps like Google tasks and notebook to keep track of my to-do list. My to-do list art for things that need to get done right now. They are things that need to be scheduled to get done at another time. The key to productivity is reducing the amount of time you are in reactivity. It’s easy to feel like we’re always busy, yet are you doing things that help you grow and move forward or stay stagnant and busy.
Now Get It On Your Calendar
Once you have your day selected, the next step is crucial. It’s time actually to put things in your calendar. I find that is hard to work a plan, when you don’t have a plan.
Over the years, I have tried a lot of different things. I have wanted to just write up a to-do list with general things to get done on a specific day. I’ve also tried color blocking a schedule blocking. I find my efficiency is better with schedule blocking.
What is schedule blocking? Schedule blocking is when you time block certain activities in your day with correlating times. For example, markdown phone calls from 1 to 3 PM. You are only going to focus on those tasks during that time. There is an excellent article on time blocking on Rescue Time (https://blog.rescuetime.com/time-blocking-101/).
Personally, I like to time block to avoid feeling overwhelmed with this long to-do list. I love my Erin Condren day planner for scheduling out 1 to 2-hour time blocks. I do not schedule any tasks for longer than two hours outside of a class. It helps with keeping me fired up and focused during that time block.
The important thing about a calendar is making sure you’re honest with yourself on the amount of time it takes to get tasks done, your actual commitments and your life demands. Most people fail at planning due to a lack of honesty with these things. Saying that it will take 30 minutes to complete something when it actually will take you longer is not going to work. It will create a possible breakdown, and you will feel defeated. So let’s get real with our calendar and ourselves.
Finding Your Best Structure (paper versus electronic)
Don’t get so wrapped up on it be in a paper planner! If you are an electronic person, use your Calendar apps instead. I do not do well with Calendar apps. I find that I often overbooked my calendar. I do love electronic calendars for business appointments not for my day to day and time blocking. It may be different for you. You can apply the same structure to planning your work electronically or through paper. The key is just getting started.
When doing electronic booking appointments, make sure you are aligning it properly with your time blocking. You don’t want to find out someone scheduled an appointment with you during a time that is not available on your calendar.
The reason for planning your work is to be productive and collecting your wins. I’ve had conversations with plenty of people on feeling overwhelmed with their schedule and life demands. We are often trying to achieve this nirvana of balance in our lives without the structure to have it.
Want to stop feeling overwhelmed? It’s time to get real with yourself, your life, your commitments, and your schedule! I don’t have it all figured out. Yet, I am staying on the court and staying present to what is really important to me and not allowing the day to run me! I get to run my day!
My Favorite Day Planners
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