How to Plan Your Day

You can choose how you want to proceed! Your day begins when you awaken, and it can take two paths.

The first is that you head straight into the office with your morning coffee.  Your phone is blowing up with text messages from friends and clients. Right away, you start putting out fires: sending an email to a client who needs one, checking in with your dad to see how his doc appointment went yesterday, and confirming details with the contractor about to begin work on your kitchen remodel.

Next thing you know, it's 8 am and the kids are up and hungry. It's time to make breakfast, get everyone ready, and take the kids to camp. You're back in the office at 10am, and there are a flood of emails to wade through. In about an hour, you pull your head out of email to take your client's call, eat a quick lunch at your desk and finally get some time to work on your big project before you have to pick up the kids.

In the next scenario, you wake up and begin your morning routine. Starting your morning with this 30 minute practice gets you centered and inspired. You shower and get dressed so that when the kids wake up your heart is filled with love to make them breakfast and deliver them to their camp for the day. 

When you get home, you're READY to start that next big project that will take your business to the next level. Your client conversations are inspiring, and you are excited to see your kids at the end of camp. While your kids are getting settled at home, you check your messages.

How are these two days different? In the second scenario, you spent only 15 minutes planning your day.

“Every minute spent planning saves ten in execution.” Brian Tracy

It's not that you should plan so much that you stop living. If anything, it's the opposite. By taking a few minutes to plan, you can decide how you want to live instead of reacting to everyone else's needs.

Are you convinced? Good, let me break down the steps for you to plan your day. If you execute even one part, I promise you will be living a life that is more intentional and less chaotic.

1. Start with a weekly preview (I like to do mine Sunday mornings). I look at my goals for the quarter and set 3 goals for the week that are in alignment with these goals. I block time in my calendar for these priorities. These are the big rocks and they go in before anything else.
2. I look at each day the night before and see what I have planned (appointments, meetings, etc.) this gives me an idea of what time I have available for what I want to accomplish. Next, I prioritize my task list for today (identifying my top 3). Finally, and this one is super important, identify how long each task will take.
3. Each morning I take a few moments to visualize my day. I project how the day could go off course and consider how I will handle it.  For example, this morning is quiet as I’m sitting here writing this blog post. However, in a few hours my son will come home from camp and my sleepy teen will be up and roaming. Ideally they will keep themselves occupied until I close down my work day in the afternoon. If not, I will take time to hang out with them until hubby finishes his work day.
4. Always build in buffer time. Resist the urge to schedule every moment. You need to give yourself space in your day for the last minute emergencies, time to process and yes even time to take care of yourself.

Here are a few things to consider when you are putting together your plan:

• Invest time in long-term responsibilities, goals, and projects each week. 
• Don’t expect perfection
• Don’t fall victim to sunk cost fallacies (pouring your time into something you need to walk away from)

Let’s go back to your choice at the beginning of this post. You may have been caught up in the ground hogs day version of that first bad scenario. Now that you know better, you can do better.