How to Plan an Effective Schedule to Align with Your Priorities

If you’re anything like me, your schedule directly impacts how you feel.

Do you feel anxious and frazzled? Or do you feel accomplished and organized? Did something slip through the cracks or were you prepared ahead of time?

Though our success in life isn’t based on how much we do in a week, life certainly feels more peaceful when we aren’t constantly racing against the clock.

The best way to ensure that you feel organized is to plan an effective schedule.

Whether you have kids or not, whether you work outside the home or not, whether your kids are in school full time or not, we all have one thing in common: we only have 168 hours each week.

Those hours may look different depending on your current circumstances, but the key to feeling calm over chaotic is in how you use your time.

In her book, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, journalist Laura Vanderkam explains that when we don’t think about how we spend our time, we tend to spend it doing things that don’t really align with our priorities.

“We don’t think about how we want to spend our time, and so we spend massive amounts of time on things — television, Web surfing, housework, errands — that give a slight amount of pleasure or feeling of accomplishment, but do little for our careers, our families, or our personal lives.” — Laura Vanderkam

Vanderkam goes on to point out that even if you sleep 8 hours per night (56 hours per week) and work 50 hours per week (more than the average), you still have 62 hours left in the week.

After accounting for the time we spend eating and doing basic personal maintenance like showering, the point is clear: our problem is not lack of time; it’s what we do with our time.

Because we haven’t thought about how we want to fill our time, our hours are full of tasks ranging from vaguely important (like housework) to wholly unimportant (like haphazardly scrolling Instagram).

It’s not that we shouldn’t ever do things like run errands or watch tv, but we regularly do these things and then complain that we “don’t have the time” to accomplish the stuff that’s actually meaningful to us.

So how do we set up our schedule so that we’re running our lives and not the other way around?

Here are a few things to consider when planning your week.

Block out time for high priority tasks first

This is the opposite of what most people do.

Most people fill their calendars with items that seem necessary but don’t do much for making progress towards their goals or align with their priorities.

Meetings, appointments, and social obligations creep in until the only time left for those key performance tasks is the time when you don’t feel like doing much other than catching up on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

If you want to run a marathon, you have to block out time to train. Otherwise, your chances of crossing the finish line are practically zero.

If you want to spend more time with your family, you need to map out time in your schedule to do activities together. If you don’t, you’ll still end up together due to the simple fact of living in the same house, but it’s not necessarily the quality time you crave.

When you plan your schedule, block out time for your most important tasks before all the other stuff steals the available time.

Pick a time to map out your week in advance

By looking ahead at what the week holds in terms of time commitments, you’re jogging your own memory. When you see your aunt’s birthday on the calendar, it’s like a refresher for your brain. It reminds you of any related tasks, such as sending a card or remembering to call.

You’re also forming a picture of whether the coming week will be busy or slow-paced. You can allocate bigger tasks to days that have fewer commitments.

Sunday evening is an ideal time to look ahead at the week. You’ll wake up Monday with a clear picture of how the week will go.

Obviously life isn’t entirely predictable, but at least you’ve got a fighting chance when you know what to expect outside of a fluke sickness or flat tire.

Batch your tasks

Studies show that when our brain has to switch between activities frequently, we accomplish less. We get in the flow of one activity, and then disrupt this flow when we start doing something else.

For example, if I’m writing a blog post and stop to clean the kitchen, it takes my brain more energy to get back into the flow of writing than if I hadn’t stopped at all.

The solution to this problem is batching your tasks.

Some people like to batch by days, while others prefer a time blocking method each day. Either way, your goal is to focus on one type of task at a time before switching to a new activity.

If I’m cleaning, I don’t dust the living room, vacuum the living room, clean the kitchen counters, and then vacuum the kitchen. I wipe down all the surfaces and then vacuum.

Incorporate habits

We all have routines that are so ingrained in our daily life that we don’t even think about them. For instance, every time I shower, I follow the same steps in the same order.

Habits minimize the brainpower needed for a specific task. I don’t need to remember to put shampoo in my hair in the shower because I’ve done it so many times that it’s automatic.

Statistically, up to 40% of our daily activities are done out of habit. You can use the power of habit to your advantage.

By incorporating habits and routines into your schedule, you can eliminate roadblocks and increase your chances of success when trying to make a positive change.

Every day after my kids leave for school, I take our dog on a long walk around the hilly section of our neighborhood. One day I was pressed for time and decided not to follow our usual route.

I was listening to an interesting podcast and since my brain was occupied by what the interviewee was saying, habit took over, and I suddenly realized that we were already halfway down the hill I had intended to skip.

We had walked that route so many times that my brain was working on autopilot, just as it does when I’m washing my hair or putting on my pants.

The Bottom Line

Planning ahead is the key to a schedule that allows you time for what you value.

If you want to live a life that aligns with your top priorities, you have to make time for the things that matter.

You get to decide what those things are, but once you do, only you can ensure that your schedule reflects your priorities.