A Lesson About Organizing Your Day

Rob Hill
Rob Hill
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

Organizing your day can be such a challenge sometimes. There have been times where I felt like I was on autopilot and moving from one thing to the next without accomplishing much.

There is a big difference between being busy and being productive. Busy work doesn’t move anything forward. Sure you feel like you are being effective because you are doing something; but busy work doesn’t take you any closer to fulfilling your vision. Productive work, however, moves the needle forward. When you are doing work that’s productive you are adding value and making progress towards realizing your goals.

To make sure you are doing productive work instead of busy work, you have to get clear about what your most essential tasks are and put a plan in place to execute on them.

Write it down

I’ve found it useful to write down my most important tasks for the day on a piece of paper. I usually do this the day before or first thing in the morning. There is something about the process of writing things down that help me to focus my mind on it.

We only have so many hours in a day to get things done. Most people I know always have competing priorities demanding their time. As such, they can only accomplish so much in a day. This is why it’s so important to identify your most important tasks.

Schedule your work

“If you don’t plan your day, someone else will plan it for you.”

I started using Google calendar to schedule out my work earlier this year. I’ve found it be a useful tool for ensuring that I complete tasks that are most essential, instead of just doing busy work. Again, we can‘t do everything we want to accomplish in a day. But by calendaring out our work, we can make sure that we are least focusing on the right things.

Commit to execution

Once we’ve scheduled out our work, we have to commit to execution. Distractions happen, and sometimes those distractions are emergencies that cause us to pivot. In most cases, though, distractions are nothing more than an excuse to take your mind away from the essential.

Control your environment

I am a big believer in controlling the controllable. In my manufacturing days, I used to preach it all of the time to my team.

To mitigate distractions at work, I often close my office door when I am working on something that requires my full attention. I have found it to be really helpful in keeping me on task and ensuring I am productive with my time.

I also set timers and track the hours I spend doing focused work. It keeps me accountable and enables me to limit self-imposed distractions as well. During each focused work session I turn off email, set my devices to ‘do not disturb’, and stay clear of social media.

It’s when we are able to practice self-discipline that we are able to make our greatest contributions.

Conclusion

Identifying your most important tasks, scheduling when you will complete them, committing to execution, and controlling the controllable is a simple process to follow. The act of committing yourself to following a plan you created is an essential element in increasing your productivity and having a strong work ethic. Give it a try.

The Ascent

A community of storytellers documenting the journey to happiness & fulfillment.

Rob Hill

Written by

Rob Hill

I make people feel included and valued, so that they can gain clarity, inspiration and new perspective. Denver,CO.

The Ascent

A community of storytellers documenting the journey to happiness & fulfillment.

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