How Planning Out Every Minute of My Day has Increased my Productivity
By: Lola Idowu
Tags: Life Lessons, Habits, Planning, Life, Productivity

This might sound crazy, but at 7 years old, I started to create hourly schedules and task planners. I don’t know what compelled this type of planning, but for as long as I can remember, I have been type-A in the sense that having no plan stresses me out. This includes traveling plans even for “relaxing” vacations, plans for simple hangouts with friends, plans to finish group assignments, etc.

Now, what type of plans did a 7-year-old need to write down? I vividly remember creating schedules that allotted time to practice piano, clean my room, draw, watch tv, play basketball, read the bible, read other books, and even scheduling time to tell my mom about my day. These were some pretty well thought out schedules; the only issue was I rarely followed through on them.

For better or for worse, I am type B in most other areas of life. This means that I never got too stressed if I didn’t complete the plan or if plans needed to change throughout the day; I was satisfied with just having a general outline to follow.

I abandoned this practice in middle school where I had too much free time and not enough drive (I got home from middle school at 1:45 pm, had approximately 1 hour of homework a day, and participated in absolutely no after school activities other than engaging in 3 way prank calls, updating my AIM away message, and reranking my top friends on myspace based on whoever decided to join my prank call shenanigans that day).

I also didn’t see much use for it in high school, where I didn’t have enough hours in the day to waste any moments planning for those hours ( I got home from high school at about 7 pm after a long day of AP classes, club activities, and track practice, and had to fit in 16 hours of homework, 8 hours of sleep, and 4 hours of studying for standardized tests in the 12 hours available to me before school started again).

By college, I recalled the benefits of this type of scheduling and was the appropriate amount of busy to test out this method again.Unfortunately, I was surrounded by a ton of type-A high achievers, who made it rather apparent that creating a plan and failing to finish everything on this plan was equivalent to having no plan at all. I got frustrated with my inability to plan appropriately, and frustration for me leads to less effort. Needles to say, I once again abandoned the tool that had been so fun for me as a kid.

This quarantine induced WFH/social isolation situation has allowed me to figure out my most optimal routine. It might have something to do with the fact that I’m back in my childhood home, but I have once again returned to this method of scheduling out my day and have never felt so productive or content with any other system. Here’s what I do, and here’s why it has lead to both an actual increase in my daily accomplishments, and an increase in how accomplished I feel.

My big secret is: I write down what I plan to do with each minute of the day. I don’t even use any fancy calendar or app for this, although I’m sure that some exist. I simply open up the notes app on my laptop or phone and write down what I think I should do with all 24 hours available to me.

A day’s plan might look like this:

7- 7:30: Yoga,meditation,etc

7:30–8:30: Coding Practce

8:30- 12: Work — weekly report + look into traffic

12–2: Workout and Shower and Lunch Break

2–3: Work — prep for meeting

3–4: Writing — work on blog post

4–5: Work — meeting & prep for tomorrow’s touchbase

5–6: Edit Resume

6–7: Work? If necessary

7–7:45 — Tutoring

7:45 -8:30: Eat dinner

8:30–9:30- read, chill,etc.

Or sometimes more like this:

8–9:30: Run+ Workout, Shower, etc.

9:30–10: Emails

10–10:45: Writing

10:45–11:30: Work on Canva Post

11:30–12:30: Target & Post office Run

12:30–1:30: Make lunch, eat chill a bit

1:30–3: Work on social Media posts

3–3:30: Call Restaurants

3:30–4: Clean Up

4–5: Read a Bit

5–6: Walk + then yoga

6–8: Cook Dinner, Eat, Chill

8–9:30: Work on tomorrow’s Canva Post

As you can see, I allocate time for various work activities, time to run errands, time to exercise, and even time for relaxing activities.

How do I come up with these plans? Understanding how you feel during different parts of the day is crucial to this planning system’s success. Before you begin planning this way, track your feelings (tired, motivated, creative, lazy) at different parts of the day, and notice how these feelings impact whatever you are working on.

For example, in the morning, I know that my mind is the sharpest — so I’ll always attempt to do something before lunch that needs a lot of brainpower. On the flip side, by 7 pm, you couldn’t pay me to write or workout, so I make sure to leave those hours for tasks that require a bit less effort. I also know that after a workout, I’ll be feeling a little lazy — so I always add in a buffer period before I’ll get back to my optimal state.

So why has it been so effective? The first major reason that this plan has worked so well it’s so simple to stick to! As I said earlier, having no plan stresses me out and yet every time I’ve tried to use to-do-lists or schedule builders in the past I’ve given up. AKA I’ve lived a life full of stress and did not get nearly as many things done as I do now. This planning system has been so easy to stick to because I’ve recognized the patterns in my preferences. It’s so much easier to stick to a plan that is already optimized for how you’d like to spend your day.

The second reason this plan has been so effective is because it’s based upon hours spent rather than tasks completed. Building a plan this way limits feelings of frustration when tasks inevitably aren’t completed as quickly as you expected. I no longer put exact expectations upon completing assignments because so many things take either a longer or a shorter amount of time than I expect. This is because of the planning fallacy. We are inherently pretty bad at estimating how long it will take to complete something so instead I just focus on how many hours I’m putting in. This leads to considerably less frustration and increased sentiments of accomplishment, which keeps me motivated regardless of my exact output.

The last reason that this plan has worked so well for me is that I’ve let myself be type B about it. Again, I don’t know if it’s the influence of living in my childhood home, but I’m perfectly okay with not completing all these plans and have even come to expect this! If an errand takes an entire hour longer than expected — that’s perfectly fine. I’ll look at the rest of my schedule and decide what I can either spend less time on or what can be moved to the next day without negatively impacting my weekly goals. Each day, I build in more work than I need to actually complete or even hope to achieve for the day. This way, even if I only spend about 75% of the time allotted according to plan — I’ll have done everything I need to do. I end each day having accomplished all my goals and rarely have that burnout feeling like I used to.

Wondering whether this type of planning can work for strict deadlines?

I am pleased to tell you that it definitely can, with one little caveat. YOU MUST STOP (or significantly limit) PROCRASTINATION. Strict deadlines rarely sneak up on you in most industries (I feel for anyone who works somewhere with constant quick turnarounds- this may not be the best plan for you). Instead, you usually know when something is due and can schedule a time to work on it hours, days, or weeks in advance. Understanding when you’ll be most motivated to work on a task is even more important when it comes to a project with a deadline. Don’t schedule time to work on it late at night when you have a tendency to get distracted. Figure out when you’re most likely to actually complete the assignment and plan accordingly.

And there you have it — a straightforward and effective way to be more productive. Give this a try, and let me know if you are a fellow type A/type B/routine loving weirdo!