How to Plan & Schedule Your Time
Every year new books are written, more products are created, and promises are made that you can achieve optimal productivity and efficiency. “You CAN get it all done!” I used to be the ideal customer for those creative marketers. I would eat it up. A pretty new planner? Bought it. An app to keep everything organized? Purchased. A book with the latest tips? Add it to my collection. Time and time again I would try a new system, but ultimately ended up with the same dilemma. There are more things on my to do list than I have time to complete. As you can imagine, and maybe you feel the same way, this left me feeling exhausted. Our to-do list might be endless, but our time is not.
No system, no book, and no human being can solve this problem. So, why don’t we stop trying to solve an impossible equation?
Here at Wellness Refocused, we like to take a different approach to planning our time and to-do’s. While we cannot promise to help you “get it all done,” we CAN help you with how to plan and schedule in a way that will lead to more balanced and meaningful days. Leave the overwhelm and burnout behind. Let’s stop letting the to-do list dictate our lives, and (dare I say it?!) actually do what you want with your time.
Now, a shift in life or mindset always takes some time and practice. Real change is never accomplished overnight, but stick with it. With a little grace and patience, you can make lasting change and genuinely let go of the never ending cycle of so much to do and so little time…
A few thoughts to get started:
This post is not about goal setting, it is about time and to-do management (though you could apply the same principles to your goals since you are likely working on them day to day)
Not everything needs to be done RIGHT NOW
To-do lists are never complete. Think of them as cycles instead of a finish line. Just like laundry is never complete, to do lists are never complete. You are just somewhere in the cycle of laundry at any given time. Think of your to-do’s similarly.
If you are familiar with our Habit Course, Habits Refocused, you will recognize the same process here. We like to keep things simple.
Plan. Action. Reflect. Repeat.
Plan your priorities and when you will take action.
Take Action to execute those tasks.
Reflect on your process and progress.
Repeat what is working for you. Do not repeat what is not.
The whole point of a plan is to make taking action easier. By putting a little forethought into a plan, we can skip the overwhelm that often ensues from taking off with no direction.
Here are the four parts of the planning stage:
Master To-Do
Month Plan
Week Plan
Daily Plan.
We take the “to-do’s” and turn them into “do todays”.
Master To-Do:
Let’s start by dumping all the tasks you have in one place in order to get a picture of what you are up against. No need to organize into specific categories or high priority at this point. Just jot it down if it needs to be accomplished at some point. You will consistently be adding tasks here as life goes on, so do not worry if it is getting long. At no point will this list ever be fully complete, it is just a place to get the tasks out of your head and onto paper so you can save that precious headspace for something more important. On any given week, adding to my master list might look a little like this: Order diapers, meal plan, schedule dentist appointment, pull weeds, pay the water bill, buy a birthday gift, paint the dining room, etc. Not everything listed here is a priority, but they go on the master list nonetheless.
Month Plan:
Ok, you have your master list. (And will have for the rest of time, it’s a cycle remember.) The next step in the planning process is to organize those tasks. Starting with the months. In our monthly planner, we have a space for your top ten priorities, a fillable calendar, other to-do items, and a habit tracker. It is a clear snapshot of your month and what your focus is for the following weeks. I recommend having all twelve months in front of you, whether using our printable planner, or a digital calendar, it helps to get organized. Some tasks happen monthly, some annually, some every few years. By planning for some of those recurring tasks, they will not keep sneaking up on you. Using some of the tasks I mentioned above as examples, you can quickly decide which ones might be more of a priority. Water bill? Yes. Diapers? Yes. Upcoming birthday party to get a gift for? Yes. Painting my dining room? Not a high priority, but something I would like to complete in the near future. I could break that task down into something more specific, such as prep the room for paint by purchasing supplies and picking a paint color. As you begin this process of planning and scheduling, know that the plan does not need to be perfect, nor do you need to include every single possible task at the beginning of the month. Things come up, and that is why there is space for other to-dos. In fact, I encourage you to leave many of those to-do spaces open at the beginning of the month. Focus mostly on the time sensitive priorities when initially planning your month.
As you start this process of planning, be thinking of ways to offload some tasks as well. For example, instead of paying the water bill monthly, set up auto pay if that is an option. Household items, such as diapers and toothpaste, can be scheduled for delivery on a subscription or autoship option. Plan your next dentist appointment in advance before you leave the dentist office so you do not have to take the time to call back at another time. This is part of that reflection I mentioned earlier. How can you use less of your time to take care of your responsibilities?
Week Plan:
Now that you know what you need to accomplish for your month, break it down into weeks for execution. There are five weeks on our weekly planner. Again, there is space for priorities, as well as other to-dos. By only having space for five priorities a week, you force yourself to not make a list longer than any human could possibly complete in a week. This further clarifies for you what you need to take action on. The other important aspect of this week to week list is a process for reflection. Which tasks do you keep transferring week to week instead of completing. Guilty… but the more you know, the more you can improve. It is ok to push a task to next week. That is life. But the question should be which task(s) is being pushed? Are you procrastinating or was it simply not a priority? Maybe something came up and you just did not have the time and space to complete it. Also ok. Just take a minute to check in week to week.
Daily Plan:
Now for the daily plan, my personal favorite planning tool! The daily plan becomes really simple when it trickles down from the Master To Do to the Monthly Plan, to the Weekly Plan, and now to the Daily Plan. There are seven columns on this planner, one for each day of the week. Each day contains space for only three priorities, other to-dos, and time slots in half hour increments. It gives you a glance at your week, with the option of breaking it down as specifically as you want. What are your priorities each day, and when will you accomplish them? Maybe a priority cannot be completed in one day, but rather needs time each day dedicated towards its completion. Do not just fill in the time for tasks and work. Fill in when you sleep, morning or evening routines, exercise and movement, meals, rest, and play. However, when you do work on the time slots that you dedicate for work, include things like meetings, breaks, focused work time, etc. I like to be as specific as writing what task I will work on at what time. It helps to keep me personally accountable for actually doing what I said I would do.
We often think we can complete more in a week than we realistically can. Forcing yourself to look at the hours in a week and write in when you will work on a task very quickly gives perspective on what you actually have time for. Yet again, this planner gives ample feedback for reflection on how your planning is actually going. What is going well and according to your plan? What did you have time for? What did you overestimate? Understatement? What went well? What did not? Are you still putting too many items on your to-do list?
At the end of the day, this is still a plan, and things do not always go according to plan. It is important to adopt the mindset that when things do not go how you want them to, you have some grace and patience for yourself in order to keep moving forward instead of spiraling to a place of beating yourself up. This is a tool to help you, not hurt you. Progress over perfection. It is an opportunity for growth in more than one way. But we hope by using this plan for your time and schedule, you start to adopt a more balanced way of approaching life and the responsibilities that come with it. We challenge you to have a little less work time, and a little more time for the things you want to do in life.
Let this be a starting point in your life to do things a little differently from now on. You do not need to do it all. Take care of the things that ought to be taken care of, but make time for what is most important to you as well.
Plan. Action. Reflect. Repeat.
Those are the steps to take when using the Minimal Planner Method.
Plan your priorities and when you will take action.
Take Action to execute those tasks.
Reflect on your process and progress.
Repeat what is working for you. Do not repeat what is not.
Happy Planning!
W.R. Minimal Planner
Download our Minimal Planner below!
A note to parents:
Gone are the days when our time could be whatever we wanted to fill it with. Some days we are at the mercy of whatever nap time allows us to complete. Some days there are no naps…or we need a nap! A more traditional way of scheduling time may not work for you depending on your season. And that's ok. Time to pivot. Life is not about completing things anyways. Especially if you have littles relying on you for their every need. The most important thing to remember is that this precious time with them is limited. It will not last forever.
But the laundry still needs to be washed and dinner still needs to be made, so what do we do about that? How do we merge the two worlds of time management and feeling like we have no time?
My husband calls it “chipping away”.
Chipping away is exactly what it sounds like. Completing a little bit at a time. Walking away when work is not finished, and picking it up time and time again until it is complete.
I was not even aware that I was doing this until he pointed it out. It was my only option. At first I was frustrated with the slower process of executing my tasks. But at the end of the day, I was still completing the things I wanted to. AND with a lot less burnout than I was used to. While I am no expert in this area yet, I am learning a thing or two about my to-do list with littles.
Being able to walk away from work and pick it up later is truly a skill. It took becoming a parent for me to finally slow down and have a healthy relationship with work. Something I am now oh so grateful for.
Having children does not have to mean you no longer work towards your other dreams or goals, it just means how you approach them might be a little different than before them. And that truly is ok. You will find what works for you in this season. Stick with it.