On Tuesday I talked about how I’ve upped my productivity and dropped my procrastination by taking on more work instead of cutting back.
Many people thought this counter-intuitive and hard to visualize. So, as explanation, here’s how I plan my day.
As a tracking tool I use an MS Excel file with the month’s dates (minus weekends and statutory holidays) across the top and my tasks in the first column, listed in the order I plan to accomplish them each day. For me, the tasks are:
Breaking my day into half-hour blocks, I run through the list, with a few exceptions on time. Exercise takes three to four blocks depending on the activity for the day and Comments on Blogs takes two to three blocks. Eating Well is a reminder to take time to prepare a decent lunch rather than grabbing whatever’s at hand (usually between an hour to an hour and a half). And my Tweeting happens in between the other tasks.
You’ll notice that I’ve loaded up the first part of my day with business related stuff and have left the purely creative for the afternoon. With the long-ish lunch break between, I actually feel like I end one day at lunch time and start a new day afterwards. I emphasize this feeling by leaving the house in the afternoon to do my creative writing. Too many things distract me at home and by always going to the library to write, I create a physical habit - when I’m there I’m fiction-focused, while at home, I’m more business-focused.
If you take the time to count all the blocks you’ll come up with a maximum of 23. That’s an 11.5 hour day. While there are many days I do get it all done, there are just as many others I don’t.
That’s why I use the MS Excel tracking sheet. By putting a “Y” (for yes) under the day’s date I can see what I always work on and what falls through the cracks. For example I’ve had a hard time keeping up with my writing workshops (3 days out of 14 work days), but I can attribute that directly to the acclimatization that Raul and I are going through as he adjusts to unemployment.
For me the greatest advantage of this system is the removal of importance from any one task. Tasks have their designated timeslots and I work on each one because my list tells me so. There’s no prioritizing and no desire to run away from any particular task.
Plus everything moves forward bit by bit. For some the progress might be too slow, but for me I’d much rather see slow steady progress than giant leaps followed by large gaps of nothing.
Edit: You can download a copy of my Sample timeblocking worksheet to play with.
27 Responses to “How I Get So Much Done Each Day”
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Hi Alex,
For me, I would forget to put eating well and exercise into my daily schedule. This is a great reminder to add those. If we don’t take care of ourselves, pretty soon we can’t accomplish anything on our list.
Barbara Swafford´s last blog post..What If…
Alex: this looks like an excellent way to get organized and threw tasks. Even if their done bit by bit, hey, it all helps. I have a legal pad where I set my To Do’s and I do pretty well with my Calendar (I have pop ups that remind me of things to do). If not for the pop-ups, I might get a little lost and forget to complete certain tasks.
Ricardo Bueno´s last blog post..Gizapage: The Social Network Organizer
This is a very similar approach to the structured living one we learned in my pain management program. Apply structured planning techniques to you personal and well being tasks not just work, was part of there model too.
In my pain management course we were taught to plan realistically and then do what we’d said we’d do everyday regardless of how we felt. That by doing so we’d remove the power that pain had in our lives. The use of half our blocks is the same and the measuring success based on having done things, is too.
I like the use of excel for this very much, the planning sheets we used were cumbersome and time consuming and I gave up on them after a few months. I think I’ll give the spreadsheet a go, I like the idea of being able to refer back to it, keep me honest.
I really like that you measure success by whether you worked on the task Y rather than against a completion milestone of any sort. I think this is really nice for long running activities, that simply take dedication and long term commitment to see results. It also works great for the pain model, where on really bad days the quality of your work can be poor, and even though you work really hard on tasks you might make a fraction of normal progress. It is great to still be able to tick off your boxes and feel good about your day and that you’ve had a victory.
Ouch 23 tasks. I would spend all day procrastinating on the format of the excel file.
I’m learning a lot at the moment, I’m into week 3 of being self-employed and have slowly been developing ways to manage the time. The approach you outline here is how I would imagine my clumsy attempts to be after months of refinement - thanks for giving me a glimpse into the future! Maybe I can cut out a few weeks of awkward evolution as a result…
Emma Newman´s last blog post..The rule of three
Hehehehe Graham, me too… *hangs head guiltily*
Alex, I’m having trouble visualising how the spreadsheet works. Would it be possible for you to put up a screenshot or an actual spreadsheet for us to see? I like the idea, just not sure how it works.
Melinda´s last blog post..How to Increase Repeat Readers
Can I second Melinda’s request? I have been sketching some things out and I’m sure I am missing something!
Emma Newman´s last blog post..The rule of three
I’ve been playing with a spreadsheet too and would be very interested in seeing what your version looks like.
First thing I realised is the items on your task list feel more like categories than individual tasks. I can see that being useful in making value judgments on how must time to allocate to each. I’ve now gone through my tasks lists and rolled them into categories or mini projects. Do you maintain detailed task lists that sit beneath some of those categories?
I love your idea of categorizing tasks Alex. I SO wish I had 11 hours in my day. I’ve only got 6.5 hrs a day M-F while the kids are in school to do everything including exercising. While the kids are home, nothing productive (work related) gets done so that’s when I do housework.
Someday……
@All
I’ve just added my worksheet for May at the end of the post to download.
You can see that most days I don’t actually get it all done, but there are enough days that I get enough done to be happy about.
The times listed down the side indicate the time by which I generally like to finish a block of time - however I’m flexible depending on what other stuff I have going on.
I like this. I’ve implemented the timeboxing when you blogged about it a couple of weeks ago. I actually have the categories to the far left, and then I actually write in what I’m going to do that day for the project.
Reason being that way I know how much of the day it is going to absorb. For example, when I was doing my walking guide, I had a publisher deadline so I had to kick up to about 4 hours to make my dates. So a few other things had to slide, but I had a good reason why.
In any case - timeboxing is a MUST HAVE to avoid parkinson’s law…
Andy Hayes´s last blog post..An Insider’s View: Mallorca
Thank you! Alex, you’re my hero!
Sooooo, what do you do if you notice that you’re regularly missing one task? Say you don’t work on your novel for five days? Do you just make sure you do work on it, or do you have a catch up or priority system as well?
Melinda´s last blog post..How to Increase Repeat Readers
How frequently do you redo your time allocations and schedule, to deal with changed priorities or activities that are not getting the time assignment that they need?
Really interesting idea about breaking the day into blocks. I’ve heard of this before but I’ve never tried it myself. I find that the best way to get a lot done in one day is to be really organized. If you’re organized, you’re not wasting time looking for things or cleaning up messes. You can be 100% focused on what you need to get done. Thanks for sharing these thoughts. They’re great!
Positively Present´s last blog post..5 things happy people do
Ooh you lovely man, thank you! I really appreciate this x
Emma Newman´s last blog post..The rule of three
I tried timeboxing, but it didn’t really work for me (something about little hands and feet about . . . ). On the other hand, my to-do list is generally structured the same way as your list: I write things down in the order I want to tackle them each day.
Erin Hartshorn´s last blog post..on goals
I’ve gone with a variant that is closer to the one that Andy uses as this works better with the other things which cut into my days. I’ve decided I’ll color the backgrounds of completed tasks so that I can get a good feel for which categories of task I’m getting finished and which ones I consistently let drop.
My other thought having now spent a couple of hours looking at it, is that when I look at your schedule Alex I can’t see any scheduled downtime. For me scheduling time for meals and breaks makes it much more likely I’ll be able to achieve my afternoon goals not run out of energy part way through the day.
@Barbara
I’m the sort that if I don’t put these things into my schedule I forget to do them - especially the lunch part - I get working and suddenly I have to get ready to go teach an English class and I haven’t eaten, so I end up grabbing something very unhealthy for me.
@Ricardo
That’s why there are so many tools out there for time management - I’m the sort who hates pop-ups reminding me. It feels like an external authority figure and my inner-teenager gets all rebellious when it spies authority figures, even ones I’ve created myself.
@Maree
You’ve really inspired me to do more work even on days that I don’t feel like it. Because of diet issues, I have days where I’m at a total loss energy-wise and so don’t do more than half my list, but if I focus on just doing something each day on each task and make it a habit then regardless of how I feel physically I’ll still move things forward. Thanks!
@Graham
LOL - I’m a bit Excel geek, so I like to create formulas and get all fancy, but I purposely made this sheet super-simple so that I couldn’t use it as a procrastination tool
@Emma
Week 3 - wow, that’s a tough spot to be in. The shininess has worn off and the amount of work required to build a successful business has really begun to sink it. This tool should help you because at this point almost everything you do has a slow, long build to it.
@Melinda
Thanks for the idea of posting the sample worksheet!
@Maree (again)
I hate details, so when I plan I do it at a high level, giving me the opportunity to choose exactly what to work on in the moment. When I get too detailed with my planning I rebel and Toddler-Alex just starts saying “nonononononononono!” for no reason other than to be a trouble-maker. Much better to give myself some freedom within the structure.
@Jacki
Yes, not having kids allows me more time to be productive, perhaps you could have a two-day schedule where you move each task-category forward once every two days.
@Andy
That’s a good way to work for people who (unlike me) like details. And as you say, it’s especially good for noting when you have something looming that needs special attention.
@Melinda (again)
When I start falling behind on something, I don’t min-marathon it forward. I acknowledge that I’m slipping on the task and ask myself why I’m letting it slide. Often it’s because I’m just not that interested in the task - for example right now in my workshops I’m supposed to be doing worldbuilding for a novel and as worldbuilding bores me, when I let something go, it’s the boring stuff.
To get myself working on it again, I pull out the “Just Do It”, remind myself of the goal (another novel written - and I LOVE writing) and then just get it done.
@Maree (x3)
At the end of each month I look at what’s not working and what needs to change, but that’s not written in stone. If something new comes up or I shift direction mid-month then I’ll make the change in the moment of the decision. I don’t let myself do that often however because then I’d always be planning instead of doing.
@Positively Present
That’s why I go write my fiction outside of the house - at home there are too many distractions in terms of laundry, tidying, cleaning, organizing…
@Erin
Because everyone works differently we all need different ways of building our schedules. Some people work really well picking the daily Top 3 and going from there. And for others (like you), limiting the time something is worked on limits rather than increases productivity.
Yes, when you box with time, you know it’s going to outlast you no matter how well you box, so I can see why you avoid doing so.
@Maree (x4)
Motivation through success is a great way of moving forward and colour coding things works well for that. As for scheduled downtime, between blog comments and starting to write my fiction, I always give myself two hours off and then my day ends at 7:30 or 8pm every day. Plus I consider my exercise as downtime - it totally relaxes me. And then on weekends I do nothing work or writing wise. Plus if some tasks take less time than planned, I add them up and sneak in an episode of Next Top Model mid-morning.
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Hi Alex. I’ve learned something similar about a year ago but never implemented it and as a result many things I do (or want to) suffer.
Thanks for the example Excel file, I downloaded it today, plugged in my schedule, and plan to use it starting Thursday. Thanks and I’ll let you know how things go.
@John
Good luck with it and I hope it goes well for you. I look forward to hearing about your progress.
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Thanks for including the actual list with the post. Brings it all together for me.
I fail at the first step of actually scheduling my day outside of work office hours.
Although I don’t have as much time outside of work, this will certainly help with accomplishing the things I need to do.
Finally, I love the fact that the list is the same for everyday. Super-simple. Simple is good.
Peter´s last blog post..My English Class
@Peter
Simple is very good. I’ve tried complex and it just doesn’t work. Projects, steps, plans, goals, tasks - gack! All I need is to know what tasks to work on each day to move everything forward.
Getting things done outside of an already busy day can be a challenge. When I worked 9-to-5 I spent pretty much all my time outside of work relaxing and trying not to think, so congratulations if you get done even a fraction of the (likely many) plans you have on your plate!