Do you find yourself drifting off during the day or going from one browser tab open to five or six open at a time? If this sounds like you, don’t worry. You’re not alone! It happens to the best of us. The good news is there are tips and tools on how you can manage your time better, resulting in more productivity, and hopefully some more spare time in your day. There’s no right way or wrong way to manage your time so mold these processes together for a system that works best for you.
AM or PM?
Are you most productive in the morning or at night? If you find that you have the most energy in the morning, use that time to get your work done. If you know you work better in the afternoon or evenings, or if that’s when your schedule allows, get your work done then. Making a schedule around your natural patterns helps you be more efficient and productive.
Block it Out
Now that you’ve picked being a morning or night person, let’s make a time blocking schedule. Do you like to deep-focus on items? If so, add high-priority items to the first part of your day when you are the most focused. Then make smaller time blocks throughout the rest of the day to accomplish your other tasks. Here’s an example for an early riser:
8 – 10 a.m. – deep focus tasks
10 – 11 a.m. – answer emails
11 a.m. – 12 p.m. – return calls
12 – 1 p.m. – lunch
1 – 2 p.m. – catch up
2 – 4 p.m. – personal tasks, emails
Next, take it one step further by breaking your schedule up by day. Do most emails come in on Monday’s and Friday’s? Carve out some extra time on those days for emails. You can adjust your time blocks to appropriately reflect each day of the week.
Where Are Your Priorities?
So now you know you’re a morning person who gets a lot of emails on Monday’s. Now let’s add weekly and/or monthly priorities to make our schedule even more productive. Start by making two lists of tasks that must get done – one for the week and one for the month. Next, take your daily schedules for the week and insert these tasks where they best fit. The schedule should now have specifics tied to each hour. Instead of “deep focus tasks”, add bullets under what the includes such as writing a blog, sending a detailed report, etc. Additionally, if it’s a week a monthly task needs to get done, add that in as well. Now your daily schedule should look like this:
8 – 10 a.m. – deep focus tasks: 1,000 word blog and weekly SEO report
10 – 11 a.m. – answer emails
11 a.m. – 12 p.m. – return calls
12 – 1 p.m. – lunch
1 – 2 p.m. – catch up: invoicing, analytics
2 – 4 p.m. – personal tasks, emails, plan next day
Lists help you stay organized for the day, week, and month ahead. It also helps you feel accomplished and plan better for the following days. As you use a time block schedule, you may even find you have more time in your day for yourself than you did before. Staying focused and organized is essential to balancing running a business and taking care of yourself.
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