Do you have complaints regarding the time you spend on individual activities in a day? Do you feel that you can do more with life but you do not have time? Well, you are not alone in this, for sure!
When I was going through a time crunch like this, a lot of people suggested me a lot of ways, to go about it. However, after reading a book, I realized starting the day early is one of the most important takeaways to make more out of the day.
However, waking up early might help us with a lot of time, but making it productive is on us. Hence, it is better that we go for an Organized Planner and schedule our day. And, when I talk about this, I don’t mean hiring someone professional to do the same. You can do it on your own.
But first,
Let’s look at the benefits of having a Planner
Having a planner for the day works wonders when it comes to getting the work done. If you have the planner sorted for the week, you will realize you have a lot of time in hand to delegate to other activities.
- Getting Your life sorted: This will help you in planning everything, which you do, each day. It will consist of all your appointments, deadlines, tasks, and all other little reminders, in a single chart, helping you to track everything.
- Loss in Stress: Are you one of those who feels anxiety when a job is not done? Then, a planner is the best thing for you as it will help you in removing the uncertainty of work.
- Makes You More Productive: The planner will help you allot your tasks with ease, helping you achieve more in the given time period.
- Adding elements of Entertainment: The planner will help you to get rid of idle time and will help you to add things, which you like for fun. You can easily find some alone time, family time, and also attend social parties.
- Not missing out on deadlines: The planner helps you to identify the priority task-listṣ so that you don’t miss out on a deadline.
- Preserves your Memories: From birthdays to client meetings, or anything else that you are afraid of forgetting – your planner will remind you.
Now that you have found out about the benefits of a Planner, let’s look at the ways in which you can make a planner.
1. Grouping and Segregation of Tasks
The first and most important part of the exercise is to break your work into various segments. This is important as this will help you in identifying the kind of tasks, you perform on a daily basis. Once you know the tasks in hand according to their categories, it will be easier for you to allocate them in the planner.
Post-allocation, all you have to do is ensure that the tasks are performed as allocated. Otherwise, the planner will fall apart.
2. Break Your task into smaller batches
The tasks, which you perform, have to be broken into smaller batches of an hour and a half each, or two hours each. If you stick to long hours with the same task, you will tend to drain a lot of energy, and at times, it might frustrate you as well.
Hence, always remember to stick to smaller timelines for stressful works.
3. Colour-coding the Tasks help a Lot
Instead of making the planner boring, make it colorful and bright, and ensure that all your tasks are color-coded in the right way. Assign colors to each priority, and apply the same on the planner.
This will help you identify the top priority work at a glance, and perform them swiftly and efficiently.
4. Vacant Hours are important
You should not keep your entire day packed even if it’s with a planner. Emergency situations don’t come knocking at your door.
Hence, it is always advisable that you keep yourself free at times, in anticipation of work. You would not find yourself occupied in these hours every day but still, always keep some vacant hours in your day. Pick up a thing that you wanted to do but could not make time for and fit that right into the schedule. This will ensure that you are being productive while also enjoying some free time.
5. The monotony of the Planner works
Are you not able to make deadlines? This is a common problem, which all of us face in our day to day lives, right! When you start with a planner, in the initial days, you will still not be able to make certain deadlines.
What is the way out, then? It is simple, you have to be monotonous with the tasks at a given hour of the day and make sure that you repeat the same nature of task the following day, as well, at the same time. When you do this, you will automatically scale your speed and start getting the work done on time!
6. Do not become a boring character
Although making a planner and following it may sound like a grown-up and your friends may start calling you a rule-following robot, the onus is on you to make the planner interesting. If you have certain activities in mind, which bring a lot of leisure and pleasure, make space for that, too.
The idea of the planner is to organize your life, but not to make it boring in any way. Start with including these activities in the intervals between strenuous work, and this will help you to focus more on the work, as you have already got enough pleasure before its start.
7. Looking for more unique ways, online
You can also search the internet for unique websites, where you can find more ideas for an awesome planner. Search for the best planners and organizers on expert websites like Uncluttered Simplicity that provide honest reviews about each one of them. This will help you decide which will work the best for you and also save individual research.
Over to you…
These are some of the ways in which a planner helps to sort your life and make it easier for you. You only have to do one thing, follow it to the T and make it a daily habit. Trust me, this habit will take you to a lot of places, and make your life consistent and more satisfactory.
