Secret Recipe

Beshr Al-Khateeb
Jul 20, 2017 · 6 min read

Own, Optimize and Leverage Your Time — the 3-steps solution.

Don’t you just hate it when you have a ton of looming responsibilities that make you feel so overwhelmed that you end up achieving almost none of them properly? How does one go about defining responsiblities, prioritizing them, scheduling them, and actually getting things done? I used to have that problem (and I usually ended up on Facebook or 9gag!). This is not a story about the problem, though, it’s a story about the solution that is 100% guaranteed to work magic for you if you apply it right (I mean it)!

Back in uni, I had a notorious reputation amongst my friends for being obnoxious, to say the least, when I was intent on a given task, even if it was a meager one like updating my Linkedin account. This personal trait did not only make me infamous for being obsessive though, it also made me famous for being the guy who always got his sh*t done! I was asked on many occasions about my strategy, and I’m finally putting it into clear, sequential writing for the first time in a simple 3-step solution.

Note: my strategy is basically a personal adaptation of Dr. Stephen Covey’s 3rd habit: Put First Things First, from his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I highly recommend that book.

1) Define your responsibilities

Your responsibilities will always come from the three or four key areas in your life which take up the majority of your time and mind. Usually, these will be quite similar from one person to another.

For example, as a university student my daily responsibilities where those coming from my roles as student, family member & friend, individual person, and member of a particular student association. Note how I grouped my roles into few overarching categories for simplicity’s sake. So, for instance, you can group your responsibilities as a daughter, sister, mother and wife under ‘family’.

2) Make your responsibilities actionable

This is the core part. Here you will elaborate on your roles, specifying the tasks you have to do in a given time period for each role. I can’t stress enough the importance of this part, because if you don’t consider all your responsibilities in a given time period here then we’re back to square one. By ‘all’ I don’t mean only appointments, assignments, outings and other must-do things; I mean considering both your short-term and long-term objectives that are truly relevant to your life purpose. Preparing for an exam, for instance, is a short-term objective that you’ll probably have to do anyway, but going to the gym or giving your auntie a call are things that people would usually forget due to their long-term nature; you won’t gain or achieve anything instantaneous from calling your aunt but you will be building family ties which will give you a more satisfying life in the long run…

So, the best way to organize tasks is using tables, and I would strongly suggest using spreadsheet software like MS Excel where you can easily input and modify your data, and sort and filter it in many different ways that suit you. For example, you might decide to sort your data by day so that a quick look at your spreadsheet in the morning will give you an overview of everything you will be doing on that day. Or you might want to apply a filter to show only your tasks for a chosen role, and so on. Your table should include the following.

  • Roles: see step 1.
  • Goals: these are all your objectives for each specified role within the spreadsheet’s period of validity (e.g. week).
  • Date: the date on which you will be carrying out the corresponding goal.
  • Check: a simple checkbox to track your progress.
  • Notes: mention any supporting details or remarks here such as time, people involved, stuff to bring to the meeting, ideas, etc.

For your convenience, I have uploaded an empty template plus example of this planner here.

Undoubtedly, with a growing number of tasks identified in your planner, you will wonder how to best optimize which task goes when. For me, the trick was to fill in pre-scheduled tasks first, because they usually take up a large proportion of your responsiblities, which will leave you with only a few remaining tasks to do. Here’s an example (also check out the sample spreadsheet).

Let’s say, for simplicity’s sake, that I have four tasks to carry out in two days. And let’s say these tasks are biochemistry test, Skype-calling family, some paperwork, and clothes shopping. And let’s say the biochemistry test was scheduled for Friday morning. In this case, I would prepare for the test on Wednesday starting after class until dinner time, then I would have dinner while Skyping my family and I’ll continue my test preparations afterwards until bedtime. I’d avoid paperwork on this day because I already have enough on my hand, and I’d avoid shopping because it requires relatively a lot of time. On Thursday, I’ll finish my paperwork early in the morning then go do my shopping after lunch, and so I’ll have the entire evening freed up to revise further for the biochemistry test.

3) Apply and refine as you go

It goes without saying, of course, that if you don’t commit yourself to your own plan then you might as well save your time and effort and not plan at all! Commitment is key, because it will give you the intensity and focus needed to say ‘yes’ to your plans and whatever better serves them, and ‘no’ to things that disrupt your flow even if they were awesome like going to watch Spider-Man Homecoming’s premier on the night just before your exam when you really should have been studying for that exam as per your plan. Or, as Steve Jobs put it:

“[focus] means saying no to the one hundred other good ideas there are. You have to pick carefully.”

But, and this is a big but (pun intended 😂), this doesn’t mean that you should become rigid as a rock. You see, the point of planning and scheduling is for you to achieve what matters and not simply feel the very real satisfaction of ticking-off tasks on your list. This means that as you progress you might find that one of your plans is becoming unfeasible or less effective or that an alternative idea can be better, so you should go for that without thinking twice. Be flexible. Also, don’t be like me; I still struggle to detect the fine line between recreation and wasting time — watching a movie can be either a waste of your precious time or a most needed refresh — , it all depends on your shrewd observation of the situation.

So there you have it. These three steps and your commitment are all you need to finally own your time. Here are a few more tips from my own experience with this kind of planner.

  • Plan the entire week ahead on every Sunday afternoon. This activity takes from one to two hours to do, but it liberates your mind from thinking about it for the rest of the week and you free yourself up just for execution.
  • You don’t have to specify each task’s time a week ahead. You can do that in detail for a given day in the previous night before sleep when you quickly glance at your planner.
  • This planner can be applied to specific tasks instead of overall weekly planning. For example, when I was applying for Masters I replaced my regular ‘roles’ with categories like ‘university docs’, ‘scholarship docs’ and ‘visa docs’ where I had things to do for my application.
  • These are all recommendations, do tweak them for personal optimum results.

Happy productivity and viel Glück :)

By Beshr Al-Khateeb

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Beshr Al-Khateeb

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I’m a human, a writer, thinker, photographer, former rapper and beat-maker, and an engineer, of course!

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