Productivity Habits
It’s a new year! Which means it’s time to reflect and set goals for the year ahead. Often times we dream big, setting lofty visions for ourselves that slowly dissipate from our mind’s eye as the novelty of the new year wanes. This year, let’s take a new approach, by setting goals, breaking them into bite-sized tasks, then making a plan to build towards them incrementally. This will make those big dreams more accessible, helping you to focus on daily, calculated actions instead of getting overwhelmed with lofty ideals that seem far away and out of reach.
We also have our daily chores, often times taking up way more time than they need to. Who doesn’t want to gain that time back for self-care, time with family, or passion projects? Good habits will not only help you gain time, but also the confidence that comes with having a plan. We have some productivity hacks for those too.
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Calendaring
Ever since Marie Condo’s debut book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” (1) made waves in home organization, the art of decluttering has gained both traction and amplitude. The core principle of the book is to “keep that which brings you joy”, and let go of that which doesn’t, savoring rather the act of giving new life to these items as they find new homes, instead of collecting dust abandoned in your closets.
The same goes for time management. If you map out everything that is recipient of your attention, is this because it brings you joy? Is it intentionally moving you towards greater goals? Or are you filling that time with distractions? Being intentional with your time is probably one of the greatest productivity hacks out there. Because as soon as you start to establish intention, your free space starts to fill with purpose, and your actions become additive to greater goals that you can see building right in front of you. But those intentions are entirely up to you. Perhaps you are building towards a sense of peace. Or, you could be more goal driven, every day building a new deck in your backyard, or taking a culinary passion into the writing of a cookbook. Every chartered step is a brick laid towards the castle of your desire. And calendaring is a great tool to help you get there.
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EVERY CHARTERED STEP IS A BRICK LAID TOWARDS THE CASTLE OF YOUR DESIRE.
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The art of calendaring is one of the most powerful productivity habit hacks around. Effective calendaring not only creates efficiencies for chores, it also helps you have a birds-eye view of your values and your goals. Effectively, your life is a reflection of how you spend your time, so being intentional about it can make you feel more authorship over your lived experience, more ownership of your achievements, and more empowered to make the necessary changes along the way that will keep you in balance.
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Calendaring becomes most powerful when it transcends tracking upcoming meetings and social events. In fact, some highly successful individuals say one of their key productivity hacks is to account for every minute of the day… which means building a complete calendar to include your workout, your social time, and your personal care time. Silicon valley Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen says (2) that he has every minute of the day accounted for - from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep, building in blocks for meetings, reading, down time, and even time to think.
CALENDAR TIME FOR ALL ASPECTS OF YOUR HOLISTIC WELLBEING.
Undertaking an exercise like this is also a great opportunity to make sure you are allocating time to all aspects of your holistic wellbeing, from financial health, to continued education, to family time, creativity, social life, and physical activity. And of course, breaking your life goals into meaningful small steps and adding them to the calendar is essential too. Add a few hours every month to track your progress and take stock of all that you have achieved.
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Add your to-do list to your calendar
In addition to life goals and work meetings, scheduling chores can also pay high dividends. Pre-planning events such as organizing mail, paying bills, or doing laundry, relieves the cognitive lift and chaos of having all these tasks unorganized and lingering. For example, blocking 1-2 hours every Saturday morning to organize non-urgent mail and pay bills will allow you to take that mail and set it aside until Saturday arrives. Then, when the time comes, you can streamline the process of organizing the mail into folders, tracking expenses in a spreadsheet, or checking up on your accounts as part of one dedicated micro-work block.
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Set reminders
Creating a planned calendar takes a lot of work, and takes iterating over time to get the balance just right. Until your new schedule becomes routine, setting reminders can make all the difference in helping you to stick to the plan you mapped out. This can take the form of post-its on doors and mirrors reminding you of upcoming tasks, notifications and widgets on your laptop, phone or digital watch, or even engaging an accountability partner such as a friend or partner.
Put ‘you’ time on your calendar
Lastly, make sure to block time for self-care and self-reflection. Our lives are full with go-go-go routines, and jam packed to-do lists. Adding a checkbox for ‘personal time’ or ‘time to think’ will make sure you carve out space to take care of you, too.
For everything from mundane chores, to life goals, to personal time, create a schedule for yourself. You will feel empowered knowing that you have a plan… balancing the needs of now with your bigger dreams, all while managing the quality of the journey along the way.
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Sources
1. Condo, Marie. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Ten Speed Press, 2014.
2. Clifford, Catherine. “Why billionaire VC Marc Andreessen schedules every second of his day, including ‘critical’ free time.” CNBC.com, 17 Jun 2020, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/17/how-marc-andreessen-schedules-his-day-including-critical-free-time.html. Accessed 10 Jan 2020.