How To Prioritize and Organize Your Life
Most of us wish there were more hours in the day. I’ve done the math and if I could function well for about 20 hours and still get eight hours of sleep, I’d want a day with about 33.5 hours in it. Unfortunately, time doesn’t work like that. We’re all given the same 24, but arguably, between social media, constant notifications on our phone and computers, traffic, unplanned reroutes on commutes, general staring off into space when we’re supposed to be writing, we don’t use the 24 to the best of our ability. In fact, some of us constantly squander our time and then bemoan the end of day and the ever long to-do list.
What if there was a few simple tactics that helped us to prioritize and organize our day to get the most fulfillment out of it? Each of us values different things based on how we were raised and the way our worldview was shaped. But if you could fill your day with the things that bring you the most joy, why not?
Are you ready to take the next step?
Let’s begin.
Find Your Categories
We all hold different aspects of our lives in different regards. To one woman, her career, her education, her three best friends, and her dog are the foundation of her daily existence. Each of those aspects of her life bring her joy. It is important to note that while they bring her joy, there can still be moments surrounding these concepts that are stressful. Nonetheless, her life would feel empty without them. She knows that she must have contact with these four elements of her life daily to make her feel fulfilled, purposeful.
Your Turn: What are the three to five major categories in your life that are important to you? Family, Religion, Education, Career, Art, Pets, Friends. These are all great places to start.
Matchmaking
This is my favorite part of prioritizing because it’s like a scheduling puzzle. I love scheduling puzzles. Essentially, the premise here is to look at the large categories you’ve created. How much time, realistically, do you need to spend on each category? Are there specific practices or activities that need to be included in the time allotted to the category?
Then think about energy needs: the things that take up the most mental energy or will power must match up to the times in your day when you feel the most awake and alive. The things that require little mental energy can be scheduled during the times when your brain is exhausted or might need a bit of a break from heavy cognition.
Example: I run first thing in the morning because my body feels the most energetic as soon as I wake up. Any other time of the day, I feel like it takes 30 percent more energy to do the same amount of work. Directly preceding my run, I’m the most mentally sharp so I do all of the tasks that take a ton of mental energy after I workout. I teach the best in the afternoon and evening so I try to schedule my large group classes for later in the day.
Your Turn: Decide what time of day would be best suited to focusing on each category. Match energy needs with perceived energy levels. Get specific on time allotments.
Schedule
By far the hardest part is creating a schedule that will work consistently for 30 days. I know that sounds like quite a lot, but I’m writing a Medium article every day for 90 days, so I think we can commit to one schedule for 30 days. I get it. Schedules are variable. I am never in the same physical location for work twice in a row. I move around the city more than most people. However, what I try to do with my schedule is create a general outline that I can follow to the T every day.
That might look like:
run in the morning (1.5hrs)
journal (30 mins)
Drive to work (30mins)
Answer emails (1hr)
Admin work (2hrs)
Teach (2.5 hrs)
The brain loves patterns. It loves routine. It loves when things can go on autopilot, when it can use shortcuts to make things happen. Giving yourself a schedule you follow every single day helps take some of the mental effort you put into figuring out your schedule and redistributing it to more meaningful activities.
Create Action Items
When all else fails and you find yourself sloughing through the pristine schedule you’ve created for yourself, you have to find a way to reignite the spark. Create a list of activities that engage each of your larger categorical concepts. Logic follows that if these four things make you feel wonderful, if you have tiny ways to incorporate them into the fabric of your day, you are more like to have a positive affect throughout your day. Examples for our woman above might look like reading a book about psychology, writing a new article to pitch for a publication, dissecting recent research studies. For her friends she might text them a good morning, tag them in a funny meme, email them an article she just read that was really interesting.
Your Turn: create small, feasible tasks that you can incorporate into your day when it seems like the day is losing its shine.
Get a planner. Spend a rainy weekend plotting out this week and trying to find a schedule that is repeatable and devoted to the pillars of you, whatever they may be. All of the time you put into the prep work for productivity will pay off.
