In my last two blogs, I explained why NOW is the time of year to be setting some big scary goals. I also showed you how to set “process goals” to take the big scary goal from something far out of reach, to something real, that you can actually achieve.
BUT.
I still don’t think that’s what most of us get hung up on. Because at this point, it still feels almost cerebral. It feels lovely. It feels like we have an aim, we’re excited, we’ve probably done a big multi-coloured mind-map about how our amazing successful pathway is going to work and what it will look like. We skip merrily off to bed ready to conquer the world the next day…
…and then, we awake. In reality. And we have another 24 hours ahead of us. But it slips through our fingers and when w look back, we’re no closer to those goals we set – the big one OR the vital process goals. Why? because we failed to plan the day-to-day nitty gritty. We failed to write the school drop-off and making the macaroni cheese in the diary as well as consider how long the gym would take us or what we would do when we got there. We failed to consider how much time we actually had at our desk and what we actually needed to prioritise. And so we live in the urgent zone, where we spend our waking hours drifting through life fire-fighting instead of sticking to a plan we created in advance, with our own success in mind.
Why? Because planning the day-to-day stuff like that SOUNDS BORING. We’re not interested. If that sounds like you, give me a moment of your time and sink your teeth into this blog where I’ll take you through the benefits AND the “how tos” of planning a week.
The Importance of Weekly Task Setting
Weekly task setting is the cornerstone of strategic planning. It’s a bridge between long-term objectives and daily hustle. Here’s why it’s crucial:
- Vision-to-Action: It transforms your process goals into MANAGEABLE actionable steps and visible tasks you can see as a reality, not just a cerebral thought.
- Focus: It narrows down your priorities, ensuring that critical tasks don’t slip through the cracks as well as forcing you to give your whole focus to the task at hand, meaning you’ll do a better job.
- Adaptability: A weekly view allows flexibility. If something doesn’t go as planned on Tuesday, you can adapt for Wednesday. It also means if you have a normal routine and something out-of-the-ordinary is happening, you can look in advance at where “flex” might need to occur.
Auditing Your Available Time
Before you can allocate time to tasks, you need to know how much time you truly have. This requires a brutally honest audit.
- Track Your Time: For one week, record everything you do, from work tasks to breaks. Apps like Toggl or RescueTime can be incredibly helpful to do this.
- Evaluate: At week’s end, review your log. Identify time sinks, unproductive habits and things you don’t like doing or aren’t worth your time that could be eradicated or delegated.
- Define Available Blocks: Now, determine how many hours each day you GENUINELY CAN (and want to) dedicate to work tasks.
Time auditing is usually a massive cause of consternation in my clients and results in “I tried it but there just isn’t enough time to do all the things I need to!” Precisely the point. You’re proving you’re not protecting your time enough, prioritising enough or indeed acknowledging that you simply can’t do everything! Do the audit. Be ruthless.
One thing that can help you decide what to ditch and what to keep in terms of tasks for the week if you’ve done your time audit and realised there’s too much, is to use the Eisenhower matrix. Find out more about that here.
Time Blocking: The What and How
Time blocking is the act of allocating specific blocks of time to specific activities. It’s a commitment to focus on a chosen task during a set period and it is the best way to inspire focus and organise your day. Knowing that everything you need to do has a specific block of time allocated to it will settle your mind as you realise you don’t need to actively worry about “how to fit it all in”, that hard part is done. Here’s how to do it…
- Grab Your List of Tasks for the Week/Day (which you’ve created after auditing your time and using the Eisenhower matrix as above)
- Estimate Task Time: Be realistic about how long tasks take. If you’re unsure, overestimate slightly. The main thing is not to try and cram too much into your carefully audited time.
- Schedule Blocks: Using your available time from your audit, start blocking out time for tasks. For larger tasks or projects, you may need to break them down into smaller daily chunks, but hopefully by this point, most things are in manageable time sized portions.
- Don’t Forget to Time Block “Life”: Making dinner, walking the dog, cleaning the toilet…if it’s not something you can delegate and it needs to be done, make sure you block out time for it!
- Self-Health Time: ALWAYS make time for self-health. That means not book-ending your entire day with back-to-back 10/10 hard tasks. Block out lunch breaks, walking breaks, headspace breaks, whatever you need, and above all, avoid the temptation to “just run over half an hour” and bleed out of your carefully audited time map you worked so hard to create. We did this for a reason…
The Focus Factor: Saying No to Multi-tasking
It’s tempting to juggle several tasks simultaneously, especially when every task feels urgent and you’re not prepared to face up to your time audit or be flexible with your week when things don’t go to plan. However, multitasking can significantly hamper productivity and the quality of your work.
- Quality Over Quantity: Dedicating singular focus to a task often means it’s completed more effectively and to a higher standard.
- Mental Energy Conservation: Constant task-switching drains mental energy. Preserve your cognitive resources by diving deep into one task at a time.
- Flow State: Immersion in a single task can lead to the coveted ‘flow’ state, where work feels effortless and productivity soars.
If you’re still struggling with being a “yes-man” and not getting things done because of it, check out this blog on “how to say no”.
In the end…
Having a busy life filled with things that inspire you and give you control of your own time is thrilling, but without a strategic approach to time management, it can become overwhelming. By setting weekly tasks, auditing your available time, time-blocking effectively, and dedicating focus, you’re setting yourself up for not just a productive week inside of work, but outside of it too. It’s about honesty, balance and accountability to yourself.