Organize Your Day & Priorities and Get Things Done

Have you had one of these days, you look at your watch and it’s time to pick up your kids from school or it’s almost lunch time and it feels like you have not accomplished anything? Your to-do list is still too long.  But wait, you have been busy, working hard all morning.  What were you doing? What one important thing did you accomplish? How can you manage your time better and get your priorities done?

Does it seem like you are busy all the time, but never getting the right things done? Let’s talk about how you can manage time to improve your productivity.

How to organize your time is part of the Organize Your Life in 52-weeks series.  This year we are going week-by-week and organizing our home, our time, our digital life and more.  You can read all the posts on the Organize Your Life page.

If you want to master your time, you need to start with a plan every day.  Your plan should include several key priorities that will help you maintain your focus all day.  You can use the Smart Mom Priority Planner to help you plan your day.

5 Steps to Manage Time Like a Pro

Today’s One

When you start your daily plan, ask yourself, what is the one thing you must do today to feel successful or that you have been productive?  Do you have a project you want to finish? A room you are redecorating? Schoolwork or study time with your child?

Every night before you go to bed or first thing in the morning write down your “today’s one”.  When you start your day, keep your focus on this one task.  No multi-tasking allowed.  Focus your time and mental energy on completing this one important task you selected for today.

Your goal is to be sure you complete today’s one most important task or goal today.  Only on rare occasions should this task be carried over to the next day (i.e. unforeseen circumstances like your child is sick or your car breaks down and you are prevented from working on this task).  Don’t be too easy on yourself or you will continually come up with excuses for not completing your one daily priority.

At the end of the day, your “today’s one” should be complete and you are ready to start tomorrow’s priority.

Also recommended: How to Complete Your Priority Task List 

The Hot List

After you have completed your “today’s one” task, you will usually have 2 or 3 other important tasks that should be done today.  These tasks are your “hot list”.  A hot list could include many things such as:

• get an oil change for your car
• balance your checkbook and mail all payments due
• schedule doctor/dentist appointments for your children
• business related tasks you need to complete
• cleaning your house
• making your weekly/monthly meal plan

You can include many types of chores or tasks on your daily hot list.  When selecting what to include on the hot list, you should include only high priority tasks and ones you believe can be completed on the day you schedule them.

You may also find it helpful to give these chores and tasks a number (i.e. 1, 2, 3) and complete them in the order you assigned them.  If you rank everything by importance, you will continue your focus on completing the most important things first.

Start Early

The best hours of the day are early in the morning.  You will accomplish so much more early in the morning.  Your home may still be quiet since everyone is still asleep.  You will have energy because you are well rested from a good night’s rest.

If you want to complete your “today’s one” and “hot list”, you need to get an early start on the day.  If you wait until the end of the day or after your children go to sleep, you may be too tired and not have the energy to complete what needs to be done.  Depending on the time, if you need to reach other businesses, starting early in the day is better.

All Action Must Be Focused

As you go through your day at home or at work, are all your actions focused on completing your “today’s one” and “hot list”?  You must have laser focus on these tasks.  Don’t let yourself get distracted with Facebook or Pinterest unless they are part of your daily focus.

To stay focused, you must be disciplined. You will need to recognize what distracts you and causes you to miss deadlines.  Then you will need to set-up ways to self-correct if you get distracted.

Social media is fine to enjoy.  But don’t become so involved reading Facebook updates you don’t complete your “today’s one” or don’t spend too much time on your Pinterest feed and don’t complete your “hot list”.   If you want to take a break from your focused work, you can set a timer for 10 minutes.  Enjoy and comment on Facebook or Pinterest.  When the timer chimes, it’s time to get back to your “today’s one” or “hot list”.

Also recommended: 6 Steps to Stop Procrastinating

Always Have a Plan

If you want to manage time, you will need a plan.  A plan that helps you determine your most important daily task or chore, a plan that also allows for 2 or 3 other important tasks and recognition of what distracts you from completing your goals.

To help you with your daily plan, I created a Smart Mom Day Planner Printable for you.  This planner has a daily or weekly layout and you can set your “today’s one” and “hot list” plus other checklists and reminders for you.

Get your Smart Mom Day Planner and start mastering your time today.

Your Turn…

How do you manage your time?  What is your best time management tip?

Photo credit: Jill Levenhagen