Plan Your Day For Success

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Plan Your Day For Success

How many of you just can’t seem to get everything done that you need to in a day? I speak to so many people that always seem so tired, stressed, rushed, and unable to complete half the tasks they set out to do on a daily basis. They just don’t know how to manage their time in a way that would allow them to get everything done. They often say even if they had 48 hours in a day they still wouldn’t be able to get it all done. Do you ever feel like that?

Sometimes we become paralyzed by everything we have to deal with. There is always an endless list of projects that we want to work on or need to complete. If we don’t plan properly and build in time to work on these projects we can very quickly become overwhelmed, and in the end we don’t complete anything.

Do you get to the end of the week and wonder what you got done? None of the items on your list have been completed.

“The purpose of time management and getting more done in less time is to enable you to spend more face time with the people you care about and doing the things that give you the greatest amount of joy in life.” Brian Tracy

Time management skills are essential for anyone who wants to achieve success. It’s important to make the best use of your time to enable you to achieve everything you want in life, as well as establishing a healthy balance. It is so important for you to strive for a work/life balance. You need to use your time wisely. Allocating time for work, domestic responsibilities, rest, hobbies, family time, fitness, diet and other important activities.

You must structure and organise everything that you possibly can. Maintaining a good home/work life balance isn’t easy! Work and home can often make heavy demands on our time and it’s easy to end up juggling rather than managing. For our health, wellbeing and happiness, it’s important to maintain a good balance between home and work life.

“What’s the one thing you can do in five minutes or less that will help you succeed in life?”

Plan your day before you start it. Spend ten minutes and write down what 3 – 5 things are going to get done today, so you’re no longer just reacting to circumstances and treading water. You have to plan your day effectively so you’re not spinning your wheels. The most important thing you can do to improve your life is to spend 10 minutes the night before planning your most important priorities for the next day. It’s the key to success.

When you plan your day it is amazing how things just seem to work out right. You end up having one of those days where everything just seems to work out great. You just seem to be on a roll, accomplishing everything, knocking out the jobs on your to do list, getting things done and still having time to exercise your body and taking time out to spend with your family. It’s all because you did one thing, you spent 10 minutes doing one important task, planning your day.

So now lets tackle how to plan your day. My suggestion to you is to plan your activity in the evening for the next day. Take just 10 minutes. This small time investment will save you hours of time, making a dramatic difference in what you get done. It will give you direction, and focus. It means you increase your productivity eliminating time wasters. The more effective you manage to schedule each day of the week, the more focused you are going to become in getting done what you plan to do and this way you will see more done every day. By really focusing and making the best possible use of the limited time available to you, you can achieve so much more.

Doing this can actually be very simple. You don’t need an elaborate, sophisticated system.

Sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what activities you can do that will make your day the most successful it could be. Plan to do everything you realistically can that will leave you at the end of the day feeling like you’ve been productive and successful.

Decide when and where you are going to do each thing. Take your calendar and schedule these activities into a time frame.

That’s all there is to it.

Then here is a great safety net. One very easy step to make sure you keep on track every day.

Set your phones alarm clock to buzz every hour. When it goes off check your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

At the end of each day, review your progress. What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

Is 10 minutes of your time worth it? Of course it is. Planning your day is a crucial step for determining your daily priorities and for getting your important work done.

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About the author: Larry Lewis
My name is Larry Lewis, Health & Wellness Life Coach, Founder of Healthy Lifestyles Living, contributor to the Huffington Post, recently featured in the Sunday Mail Newspaper and somebody who went from being an owner of a chain of gyms and fitness fanatic, to a visually impaired overweight and incredibly sick person. Read about my illness to wellness story.
11 Comments
  1. melissa says:

    I always see to it that I make a list of my programs for the day…even for the years to come… detailed short term and long term goals…and I’d check every now and then if I’m on track. But most of the time, my schedules would just be thrown to trash when my bosses would turn my life around with a spontaneous schedule at hand. On my part, I allow certain values to evolve so as not to ruin my day. I could be flexible. This time around, I plan to be more loving to myself…and not to rush nor be so stressed at work. One thing I should really cut off is FB… 😛

    • LarryLewis says:

      Melissa – facebook can be a wonderful tool. Good for promoting your blog, excellent for finding new friendships, and people that can increase your knowledge. But too many people once in, find it so hard to leave, spending hour after hour doing nothing but chatting.Life is all about finding the right balance.

  2. Cathy Beebe says:

    So happy you covered this topic. Time management is a strong point, but ya; I always hear my friends with children saying that they didn’t have enough time during the day to get their things done.

    • LarryLewis says:

      Cathy, welcome, organising your day is one of the most important things we xan do. When we have no plan, then time just seems to go so fast and before we know it the day has gone. it takes time to learn to time manage, but it is something worth all the effort.

  3. Hey Larry –

    I believe my time management skills are excellent in many areas of my life but where there is sunshine, there is also rain soon to come. I seriously very much suck with my time management on the computer. I have improved so yes, that’s better than where I was previously at. A long long way to go here for me, Sir.

    You mentioned, “Sometimes we become paralyzed by everything we have to deal with.” Yes, I can very much feel and associate myself to your statement. Even during my brightest moments, hours, or days…time productivity-ceasing paralysis can jump up and bite my behind when I least expect it. I like your idea about planing our days. If I plan to cut the lawn and it rains, what do I fall back on. Sleep? Chatting on Yahoo? It does pass the time but usually in an unproductive way. Thank you for always a great post. 🙂

    • LarryLewis says:

      Charlie – when i plan, i always have my objectives in mind. So when circumstances arise that make me have to take a detour, i always aim to get back as quickly as i can on the right course. If the rain upsets my plan to do the gardening i’m sure i would have far more productive things to do than chat on yahoo. In fact when it comes to working on the computer, i set myself a time duration, and i will not go over that. it is to easy to lose yourself on line and get nothing else done.

  4. I have always tried to be a perfectionist…I do fail sometimes.What I also feel is that,if my time management is correct,I will be successful.What I waste time in..and makes me forget time…being on the phone..that is one place I will want to improve.
    Great post as usual,Larry.

    • LarryLewis says:

      Alpana – life is all about trial and error, to move forward we have to be prepared to make mistakes. In my mind, i strive for perfection, but know i sometimes have to just accept that as long as i do my best, my best is good enoughg.

  5. Jessica Brant says:

    Larry,
    Sir if I could just step out of my own way. I would be doing just fine…
    I think you need to do a post about throwing in monkey wrenches into the mix..
    xoxox
    Jess

  6. teecup says:

    Hi Larry,

    I’ve never put much thought to it, but using 10 minutes of my time to plan my day seems like a very good suggestion. I’m the type of person who tends to take things as they come. This easygoing attitude sometimes takes a toll on my productivity.

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