You Need a Schedule.
“Work on Purpose, Play on Purpose, Rest on Purpose. Do not let yourself or anyone else waste your time.” — Izey Victoria Odiase
Give every minute a job.
The concept is something I apply and parallels a concept from a fantastic personal financial budgeting software called You Need a Budget (YNAB). Based on 4 financial principles outlined here, the software instills good financial habits to save your money.
Give Every Dollar a Job 💵
Embrace Your True Expenses 🤝
Roll With The Punches 👊
Age Your Money ⏳
I won't inundate you with the details given this blog post isn't about personal finance or budgeting, but check it out if you're interested or let me know if you would want a post on personal finance.
Nevertheless, organizing your day is equally as important to financial budgeting because it is important to assign your time a job. Without assigning your time a job, you can quickly lose track of time, waste time, or become preoccupied in other tasks, similar to your financial spending when you don’t follow or keep track of your budget. Without budgeting, it can be easy to overspend, buy impulsively, or spend your money on areas of your life that you don't actually want to invest in.
This is exactly why scheduling and even the use of the pomodoro technique is an effective tool for keeping you accountable, builds intentionality in regular breaks, and incorporates rewards into your continued use of the technique.
For me, here’s what an organized workday will look like for me.
Keeping myself scheduled allows me to truly prioritize the things I want to do. Please note, I am not unnecessarily busy and not incorrectly equating busy as productive with this exercise. The goal instead is to ensure I am constantly evaluating my day’s worth of activities and whether I truly am prioritizing the things tha I wish to do in the day.
Here, I’ve adapted YNAB principles for effective time scheduling:
1. Give Every Dollar Minute a Job
Assign every minute a job so you are intentional with your time.
Plan the night before what you’ll decide to do tomorrow — whatever is most important to you. Then, instead of deciding to do something based on your mood in the moment, you’ll decide based on a rock-solid plan the night before about what you really need to get done.
2. Embrace Your True Expenses Schedule
Make your schedule boring. Imagine never (ever) rushing to meet a last minute deadline. Take those large projects or regular responsibilities and divvy them up in manageable repeatign chunks. These chunks can be daily, weekly, or monthly but be aware of them and build time into your schedule to complete them. Then, say good-bye to last minute procrastination cramming.
3. Roll With The Punches
It is 100% okay for your schedule to change or your schedule priorities to change. Be flexible and address changes as they happens. When you overcommit in one scheduled event, just adjust. No guilt necessary. Free up time from another event or activity and move along.
4. Age Your Money Time
When you are scheduling activities and events into the next week or next month, you will have nothing to stress about time-wise. The goal is to be booking irregular or new activities far in advance, because you have previously booked engagements and your top priorities to urgently do now. It might not happen overnight, but stick with it! Imagine actually accomplishing what you want to do and doing so again and again and again in a timely manner based on your interest or value in the activity. Be purpose in your time allocation.
You will absolutely be amazed by what falls to the wayside when your priorities are clearly defined and you demonstrate intentional allocation of time. Video games, random youtube videos, mindless scrolling on your phone and unintentional lounging become a thing of the past.
Let me know what is your favourite or most useful tips for staying intentional.
How do you keep yourself acounted for? Reclaim your time for what you want to do! And let me know what you decided in the comments below!