Planning can make an enormous difference in your work efficiency. It improves the process of dealing with excessive workflow and allocating roles and responsibilities. Lack of planning leads to failure, incomplete tasks and a huge pile of tasks at the end of the day. It is essential for each and every individual whether in the professional environment or personal space to plan their day. I personally believe in using the SMART model (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound). We will discuss a few things in this article that can be done to creating a robust day plan.
Plan in advance: One of the differences between humans and computers is that humans forget things. If you want to plan your day, plan it a day before. If you plan your day once you begin it, there are chances that you might miss out on some tasks due to the overwhelming workload. This can be easily rectified by doing it a day prior. It will also help you mentally prepare for the day so you can wake up and start executing the plan instead of wasting time remembering what needs to be done.
Prioritize: One of the biggest mistakes that people make is that they don’t focus on prioritizing their tasks or wrongly prioritizing them. Setting clear priorities make your day more productive and efficient. There is a very simple and straight-forward way to prioritize tasks. Following is the order:
Most important and most urgent > Urgent but not important > Important but not urgent > Not urgent and not important.
Using this method will help you create a better day plan where you sort tasks on the basis of their priorities.
Set realistic deadlines: When creating a to-do list, people often become too ambitious and give themselves tight deadlines, deadlines that can only be achieved in ideal conditions. The drawback is that there can never be “ideal” conditions that will lead to stress caused by not completing the task on time. It can be easily avoided by giving yourself reasonable deadlines. When giving deadlines, keep in mind to give yourself a buffer for any smaller things that come up or any sort of distractions/delay.
Make time for health: This is the most important thing that people don’t pay attention to. You need to prioritize your health more than anything. No matter how much workload you have, you need to spare at least an hour every day to get in some form of activities like breathing, yoga, exercising, running, walking, etc. Physical activity not only makes you physically better but also improves your mental capacity. It makes you more energetic, improves memory, relieves stress, enhances mood and has a lot of other benefits. You need to remember the biggest wealth in the world is your health!
These are a few tips that will help you in having a productive day simply by planning it well in advance.
-By Vrutika Dawda, Director, IdeateLabs