Achieve Your Goals by Meticulously Planning Part of Your Day
Every minute, of every day, must be planned out, must be optimized. If there’s an unscheduled minute during your day, your entire day is ruined in unsuccessful procrastination and all your goals and dreams will be left unachieved and in the dust!
Actually, no, none of the above is true. At least not for most of us.
We have a lot on our plates and are probably juggling some very different priorities all at once (or at least are trying to). We have responsibilities to our spouses, family, friends, work, personal goals, and ambitions. And all those things are constantly vying for our attention and time.
So, what is the solution? Meticulously plan your day — just not all of it.
I’ve definitely heard lots of intense productivity advice in articles and blogs describing how to squeeze out the most productivity possible each day. Often times, this advice uses famous CEO’s and entrepreneurs of popular companies as examples of this kind of regimented day and how beneficial it can be. Although that kind of hyper-scheduled day has its benefits and might be necessary for them because of their unique circumstance, they are certainly not the norm.
At one point I tried going to this extreme and planning nearly every minute of each day, but it just wasn’t realistic for me. That overly rigorous schedule didn’t allow time for things that came up that were outside of my initial plan. Plus, it ended up being so challenging to follow the strict schedule that it sapped away my motivation to follow through with it for very long. In an ironic twist, it took so much energy to make and follow the schedule that I hardly had any left to perform the tasks it was made for.
Now sure there are some folks out there for whom scheduling every minute works which is fantastic and I’m not trying to discourage them from following that sort of plan (try lots things and stick with what works). But for a lot of us, the most effective method, especially when starting out with self-scheduling, is to meticulously plan only part of your day and leave the rest open or loosely scheduled.
A meticulously planned couple of hours is a great method for achieving goals. It helps you to focus on the specific things that you want or need to get done with little or no distraction. It can be planned out around your attention span and the time of day your focus is strongest (especially if what is meticulously planned is knowledge-based work). It allows for flexibility throughout the other parts of your day so you can manage other things that may come up. And, it helps you to deliberately and consistently work towards your goals whether they are work or personal.
For example, I prefer to wake up somewhat early to get a few things done before work so that I can make progress towards particular goals. I have them planned to the minute so that I can do each of these tasks before I go to work where I have to follow a schedule that is generally not my own. This whole routine is about two or three hours, depending on when I have to get ready to go to work.
My average morning looks something like:
- 5:30 get out of bed
- 5:30 to 6:00 coffee and reading (a specific book and number of pages)
- 6:00 to 7:00: write (preplanned to the number of words needed)
- 7:00 to 7:30: exercise (specific routine or distance)
- 7:30: get ready for work (including making a lunch)
- 8:00: leave for work
The rest of my day tends to be more free-flowing due to the requirements of my job. But having this kind of schedule for my personal goals and well-being somewhere in my day really helps to provide just enough structure that I am making progress toward my goals without burning myself out in the process. Having a relatively set routine like this allows me to only spend a few minutes the night before planning the specific details because the routine categories are already set.
Now, your meticulously scheduled part of the day will probably be much different, it may occur at a different time of the day or night, it may be one hour or four hours. It may take a little experimenting to find the right combination of things to do and times in which to do them. And all of that is great. This does take some practice and experimentation to find what and when works best for you.
The beauty of meticulously planning only part of your day and strictly adhering to that plan is that it allows you to get a lot done in that amount of time. As you are focused on the specific task at hand it can prompt you into a flow state during which you can make significant and deliberate progress towards your goal. This state of flow is a point in doing either mental or physical work in which the difficulty matches our ability and effort and we become fully absorbed into what we’re doing (for more about flow, see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Flow). It’s this state of flow that allows us to get a lot of good work done in a relatively short amount of time.
Additionally, specific schedules for only a short part of the day provides a routine structure that our minds crave and reduces the number of decisions we have to make in a day (yes, this remains true even for creative work as well. See Cal Newport’s Deep Work for reference). The structure combined with the psychological benefit we get when following through with our plans is invaluable for our mental health and well-being. The reduced number of decisions you have to make that day about whether or not to do the task means you have reserved will-power for other decisions. Plus, if part of your meticulous schedule includes some form of exercise then you’re getting an all-encompassing benefit to your mind and body as well.
The other beautiful thing about meticulously planning only part of the day is that it gives you plenty of unstructured time. We’re not robots after all. We need unstructured time to relax physically and mentally. Even if unstructured time is part of your meticulous plan, we still need that time to do whatever hobby or restful thing we enjoy doing and spend time with our friends or family. It provides space for us to reset and prevents us from feeling burnt out by trying to pack too much into each day.
A little more clarification is needed here: I’m not saying that the whole rest of your day is completely unplanned and unstructured. That would be unrealistic. You will still have a deadline at work or with school to meet. You will still have that meeting at 2 pm, or that person to call in the morning, or the number of things to build. Those are all normal things and I’m not saying to try to ditch having plans and schedules for the times of each day that are not part of your meticulous plan.
The point of meticulously planning a couple of hours of your day is so that you can do or work on things that are most important for you, your job, your school, or your family. Having a plan like this in which you are spending dedicated and deliberate time doing your workout, coding, or studying helps you to get into a state of flow and deep work which will enhance your ability to make real progress towards those goals.
And that’s it. Meticulously planning only part of your day helps you to be deliberate with your time and energy without the plan being overwhelming. Having a specific and consistent plan for a relatively short amount of time allows you to focus on the process that gets you to your goal. The short but precise plan allows you to be laser-focused on certain things while maintaining flexibility with the rest of your day.
So, let’s meticulously plan our day…. Just not all of it.
