These days it can be hard to organize your time, between the impact of COVID-19 on your regular routine, working from home, running a business and homeschooling (if you have children). However, keeping a schedule and organizing your time can help with your mental and physical health. There are a couple of ways you can organize your time: time blocking is where you have a daily calendar and time block each activity you would like to achieve that day. A second way to stay organized is to make a daily or weekly list of tasks, or activities, and rank them in order of importance.
Time Blocking
Let’s talk about time blocking. Time blocking means that you are blocking off a certain time (i.e. 7-8 AM: check emails) to accomplish each task that you would like to accomplish in that one day. When you are done with each task, check it off or scratch it out and celebrate the little wins (meaning you successfully completed that task — yay!). Time blocking helps with organizing your day by setting aside a certain amount of time to accomplish each task.
Here are some tips to help you get organized using a calendar:
- Get yourself a daily calendar (from anywhere they sell calendars)
- Fill out all the important dates that you don’t want to miss
- Assess what you do daily and write down what time you’ll do it at (time block your tasks!)
- Add all your appointments, assignments or project deadlines so you don’t miss any of these either
- Schedule a time that is good for you to review your daily and weekly activities
- When you have finished an activity, check it off — you did it!
You can go one step further in how you organize your time by organizing a week or month ahead. I usually sit down on Monday mornings to look at my week and time block all of the activities I want to achieve. At the start of every month, I’ll also sit down and do my budget (financials) for the month so that there are no surprises that might pop up that I have forgotten about.
Listing & Prioritizing Your Tasks
Stay organized by writing daily or weekly lists of activities:
- Buy or find your favorite notebook
- If you are doing a weekly list, write everything you want to get done that week
- From there, prioritize your list in the order of importance or urgency. Then rewrite the list out in that order, that way it makes it easier for you to follow and check off the activities you have accomplished
- If you are doing daily lists of activities, write everything you want to accomplish, and then organize your tasks into what day you want to accomplish them
When time blocking or making your lists, I recommend you use a pencil. Yes, I said a pencil. This is because life sometimes gets in the way, and you’ll need to erase that activity or reschedule it for another time. It will be easier to do that if you use a pencil, and will keep your calendar looking more organized and clean.
The reason I am encouraging you to use a paper calendar instead of your phone or tablet is because visually, this will help you to see the bigger picture. When you write things down, it helps you stay consistent and organized.
Get to Work
I know that some of you don’t like to write things down and would rather use your mobile device, but try it for at least a month to three months and see the results. If after three months it just doesn’t fit your lifestyle, then at least you can say you tried something new!
When you feel organized, your day runs smoother, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment, and you tend to be much happier. Remember to schedule some downtime and at least 30 minutes of physical activity to keep your body moving. If you need more help in organizing your schedule and would like to chat about it, please reach out, I’d be happy to help.