Planning Your Day - Why this saves your sanity!

I went through a crazy busy season recently. It was about six weeks of barely keeping up. It was just the way that the schedule happened to fall. During this time I found myself moving away from my daily planner and going to a weekly view and long list. While this works for a week or two, it is not a long-term solution! I found myself being stressed about my schedule and not feeling very accomplished, even though I was working just as hard as I normally do. When I moved back to my daily planner I was reminded why I love using it. let me share with you the reasons that I believe you should take the time to plan out your day on a daily basis and a few tips on how I do that.

1. I start my week with a list of things that must be accomplished that week. And then what would I additionally like to be accomplished. We can’t do it all so we must prioritize a few things.

2. When I look at my weekly view, I only put down the things that are definite blocks for that week. These are things such as appointments scheduled, or events.

3. I take time each evening to look at the next day. What was accomplished today? What are the things that are still on the list that are a priority? What time availability do I have for tomorrow? We have to be realistic with ourselves.
   
   Recently my son received his drivers license so we had to go to the DMV. We live in the largest county in Georgia and as you can imagine, the DMV is a nightmare. So as expected, it took about three hours of my day and honestly just about all of the energy that I had out of my day. I’m not really sure I’ve been to a more stressful and chaotic place. So rather than loading my day up with high-level task, I added several things that needed to be done, but ones that did not take a large amount of mental capacity to accomplish. Otherwise, I would have just not completed anything from my list.
   By starting this practice of only putting on your list the things you must get done and the things that are actually feasible for you to accomplish, you are setting your day up for success. There are some days that I crush that list and then I grab a few other things from the weekly list and get those done too. And yes, I write those down on my day and mark them off. Marking things off to do list makes us feel good!

4. There are some days I do not accomplish all of the things that I had hoped to accomplish. In fact, one day last week, I only got one thing done on my list. I had to run an errand that took longer than expected and wasn’t really feeling great And the day got away with me. That is OK! This is why I don’t make the list for every day at the beginning of the week. I am starting tomorrow with a fresh slate.
   
   By starting each day with a fresh list, I wake up with a plan. I have direction for my day. So while every day will not go as planned, the likelihood that I will accomplish the things I need to is greatly increased when I wake up with a plan.

Do you start each day with a list?