We are busy. Effectively planning your day is the answer.

As moms, we are running the household, taking care of the kids, animals, plants even! We are in charge of cleaning, driving, shopping, finances in some form or another, and a ton more.

Without an effective plan for your day, you will feel like you’re going crazy.

I’ve totally been there. Just wandering from here to there, one task to another. But nothing really got done and crossed off.

Things were just piling up around me. One unfinished project after another. And then overwhelm started to sink in.

And the best, most simplest way I’ve been able to combat that has been through really planning out and structuring my day.

 

 

>> Grab Your BFF planner <<

 

Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome to this live workshop all about planning your day.

I’m Antoinette, founder and creator of One sweet Life and myonesweetlife.com. I help busy mamas get organized and start living a life that they love!

So I wanted to start off with why is this important? Right? Why is planning our day so important? Couldn’t we just live day to day without planning?

And the answer to that is.. It’s really up to you. But I’ve personally had days that were planned and scheduled and days that were up in the air. And the days that were up in the air were not my best days.

I’m not saying that we can never have a relax day i think that some days like the weekends don’t need to be scheduled out. But on the weekdays to take being at home seriously, we should have some plan of action in place so that we can accomplish what needs to be done and what we want to get done.

Take a second and think about why this is important to you? Type in the chat some ideas that come to mind

For me, i want to feel more in control of my life. I don’t want it just slipping by and wondering where the time went and why i felt like i didn’t accomplish anything.

I wanted to start achieving the goals i set out for myself.

Focus on what’s important to me.

To stop feeling like a chicken with its head cut off running around here crazy because I didn’t have any routines or systems in place.

I wrote a blog post a couple weeks ago that mentioned the word effective efficiency, and this is what i’ve been aiming towards every day.

 

What the heck is effective efficiency?

Effective efficiency is producing results that are wanted without wasting time and energy

I’ve tried to stop doing more like going and going but intentionally planning out my day so by the time my head hits the pillow at night, the right tasks and specifically the most important tasks to me were completed. So i’m not wasting time or energy on things that don’t matter

 

What is messing you up?

I’d like to take a second so you can think about your day to day schedules and really dig deep to what might be messing you up throughout the day? Too much tv? Too much social media? Not enough motivation? Discipline? Or routines? You don’t know where to start?

Hopefully by the end of this workshop we’ll address some of those issues.

Let’s start with this… when you are planning your day, you have to be PRETTY!

I love acronyms by the way.

What pretty stands for are priorities, routines, effective efficiency, tasks that build momentum, one thing at a time, and your focus.

 

Priorities

There are so many things that we need to do and want to do in a day. But when you are planning out your day, remember that the top priorities should be scheduled first.

Do you have any appointments? Responsibilities or obligations? Something that you really don’t want to forget or miss?

Kids, family time, and if you’re working outside the home, you have to make sure you get to work on time.

Is there a goal or project that you’re working on?

These can also include items to you need to do to maintain the house. As moms we are in charge of maintaining the household right? Dishes, laundry, and cleaning the house are our responsibilities as well.

 

Routines

Specifically morning and evening routines. The power of a routine is that we have become so used to doing it that it doesn’t take any more brain power to get it done. We don’t even think about it anymore, we can easily go through the motions.

Morning routines are powerful because it starts your day off on the right foot. There was a period of time after I had my second daughter that I was so tired I could barely wake up in the morning. So every morning before i had to take my oldest to school we were scrambling to eat breakfast, get ready, and head out the door to make it to school on time.

Fast forward to today, I wake up before the girls, it’s usually about an hour to an hour and a half before my oldest wakes up. She is an early riser. She wakes up between 6 and 6:30 every morning. Even on the weekends! So that only gives me enough time to do a handful of things. But that gives me time to get some coffee have some quiet time plan for the day and start the day however I want it to start.  

I can walk into clean work spaces because i took the time in my evening routine to make sure that we all cleaned up before we started our bedtime routines.

The evening routine gets you prepared for tomorrow. Write tasks down that you don’t want to forget, helps you start getting mentally prepared. You can also sleep a little better since things aren’t swirling around your head as you try to not to forget.

You do a quick tidying of your living spaces like the kitchen, dining, and living room up so you can come into fresh and clean space in the morning.  

 

Become Effective At Planning

The best and fastest way to reach your goals is to have a plan in place. Break down tasks so they’re easily accomplished. Schedule 3 to 5 tasks so you don’t get overwhelmed. So it doesn’t need to take a lot of time out of your day.

 

Tasks Build Momentum

Break down tasks into small steps so you can complete them in a shorter amount of time. Look for quick wins, so you can cross it off your list. Once you start, you’ll want to continue to get it all done.

 

One Thing At a Time

Work on one project at a time. One task at a time. Don’t start anything new until the task at hand is completed. Overwhelm comes from trying to juggle multiple unfinished tasks and projects.

I know I’ve started doing something in one room, pick a thing up to put it away, and when I go into the next room I start working on something else and then I completely forget to put that original thing away and why I’m even in there in the first place right? Then both tasks end up not complete.

 

Your Focus

Laser focus. Your attention. Focus on the task at hand. It will get done faster. Determine what tasks need your absolute 100% focus and plan those tasks for when the kids are taking a nap or before they wake up. Things that aren’t can be done while they are having a quick play time.

The pareto principle states that 20% of your efforts account for 80% of the outcome. So that also means that 20% of our time gets us 80% of the results that we want for the day

So how can we really make that 20% count.? And how can we expand on that?

 

Let’s go over a couple quick strategies to help get you started so you can take action and start feeling more in control today.

 

Step number 1 when planning your day is to identify what your ideal day looks like.

What do you want to accomplish?

Grab a notebook or piece of paper. That’s my notebook right there.

Write down an ideal day. What are you doing? How are you feeling? Who do you want to be?

Become her today!

You don’t become the person you want to be after you have the ideal life, you get the ideal life by being that person.Click To Tweet

 

Step number 2 is to to get clear.

Track a typical day. Don’t change anything because you are tracking yourself. The only way to know how and what to change is to know where you’re starting from.

Just like starting a budget. You need to know where your money is going first right?

Let’s figure out where our time is going. And also write down all the times that you are switching tasks

Looking at this example here, you wake up at 5, which is an amazing start. You do an at home exercise but then you get a notification on your phone. You start looking at social media, which leads to someones profile, then to a website, then to something else and then you realize you need to shower and get ready!

So you get that done and the kids are up so you help them get ready and make breakfast meanwhile emails are coming in so you check that which leads to check something else then you realize you have left the house late. Get stuck in traffic and so on. You are feeling frustrated have anxiety feeling angry.

Are you living your ideal day? How did you feel that day? Analyze where your time is going. Highlight the times where it’s slipping away from you.

The moments in your day that you have highlighted are your opportunities. In the example we had there was 45 minutes of time that can be allocated differently.

Maybe you do have to check your emails. Do that and social media once. For 15 minutes.

Then you have 30 minutes to add something from your ideal day list in that slot.  

To recap, cut out any unnecessary tasks, batch tasks like email and social media to one time. Add one thing from your ideal day list.

 

Step number 3 is using the proper tools to keep you organized

A monthly calendar so you can see a high level overview of the month. You know what’s coming up

Then use your weekly schedule so you can plan for the week ahead of time. You can do this either Sunday or Monday whichever works best for you to get a preliminary schedule of what you want your week to look like. You can meal plan for the week at this time, And again map out the times you want certain things to happen. Keep it flexible. But seeing it laid out makes a big difference.

Then really flushing it out to your daily plan. Where you can really get into the details of your day. 

Determine which tasks you need complete focus and which tasks you can do with the kids running around. To create balance, alternate between priority tasks, routines, family times, etc.

End the day by writing down the things that are scheduled for tomorrow. This clears your mind for a peaceful sleep. I like to start the next morning by scheduling a time for the tasks I’ve written down. That way I know when they will be able to be crossed off!

Also, end the day with something for you. You can read a book, do a craft if you like crafts, drink some tea, or watch a show. Do something that relaxes you so you feel recharged and re-energized!

 

How do you plan your day? I would love to hear some of your tips and tricks!