Managing your Day to its Greatest Potential

Making the most of your day, every day, requires a plan. While flexibility is usually one of the reasons people become their own boss, complete flexibility will not result in productivity.

If you want to break free of the overwhelm, you need to stop hustling. Just for a moment, even if it seems counterintuitive, and plan. Here are four steps to make the most of your day.

Step 1: Identify your work schedule

I will never again work the “40-hour week”. As business owners, we will at some point, work a 40 hour or more week but it will be on our schedule.

One of my biggest complaints about working in the corporate world was the requirement to work 8 (or more) hours per day, Monday through Friday. What does that accomplish? Employees taking naps at their desk, long bathroom breaks, chats with coworkers on non-work related topics, pointless meetings, lots of social media scrolling, and unnecessary overhead.

Identify the time each day, Sunday through Saturday, that you want to dedicate to work. This may change every week but identify it in advance. Here is an example:

Step 2: Identify Your Best Times

We all have a time of day where we just feel better or is easier to “get in the mood”. Identify the best time of day where you feel creative and schedule the work that requires the most brain power during that time.

For me, the morning isn’t where my juices are flowing so I use that time to knock off the easy things on my list. I check emails, verify my social media posts are setup correctly, organize documents, prep invoices, etc.

The afternoon is when I get into my groove and can write content, prepare proposals, plan out new offerings, and complete client work.

Step 3: Identify Priorities

What are your priorities? They should be related to your wallet or your goals (most likely both).

Once you’ve identified what work is a high priority, you’ll be able to arrange your to-do list in order of importance.

See this post on how to prioritize.

If you’ve identified your high energy time of day as directed in step 2, you can begin to plan out when you will complete different tasks on your to-do list based on the priorities. I recommend breaking your high priority tasks into 2 groups, work that should be completed during those high energy points of the day and tasks that don’t require as much brain power. This will help  you slot the work into your available hours each day.

Step 4: Block time

I am not suggesting you schedule every minute of the day but during those dedicated work hours, you should have a plan. Then block anywhere from 30 minutes to 90 minutes to focus on a specific task. This means turning your phone on silent and setting it aside (you could also use the Forest app), turning off email notifications, and closing those distracting extra tabs.

You’ll be surprised how fast you can complete a task when you give it 100% of your attention. Like I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, multi-tasking does not work.

Every 90 minutes take a break! This resets your mind and gives it a little boost to jump into the next time block.

Summary

The goal is to track your progress by results rather than hours. You don’t have to work 40 hours a week to complete a weeks’ worth of work. Make the hours you spend away from your family and behind a computer count! Make a plan, remove distractions, and focus on the priories.

Do you need help organizing and planning your creative business? I’d love to help! Download my services & pricing guide to learn more.