How to Make a Busy Schedule Effective
- 1). Make a list of all the activities on your schedule. Only list those activities that you have planned in advance; anything that you do on a whim is not a scheduled activity. List things like meetings and workouts; do not list things like video game sessions or coffee dates with people you happen to run into.
- 2). Prioritize your activities from highest to lowest. At the top of your priority list, include those tasks that do the most to advance your goals. For example, if your top goal for the year is to win a running race, include running practice at the top of the list. At the bottom of your list, include trivial things. For example, if you have "dry cleaning" on your schedule and you only have one unimportant article of clothing to clean, put dry cleaning at the bottom of the list.
- 3). Move the high priority activities to earlier in your schedule. Place all the high priority activities ahead of the low priority activities, so that you can spend more time on the high priority activities if they run late. If you spend the first 8 hours of your day working on low priority activities, you may not have enough time to do what you really needed to do. If you spend the first 8 hours of your day working on high priority activities, then the worst case scenario is you move the low priority activities to the next day.
- 4). Cut activities from your schedule if they are unnecessary and aren't essential to achieving your goals. For example, if you had scheduled two hours of TV watching, and you still haven't done your workout, cut out the TV so you can get your workout done. Entertainment is great, but don't let it become an excuse to procrastinate.
- 5). Write a log of your daily activities in a note book. Start a new page on each day. At the beginning of the day, include the list of activities you have planned. As you complete the activities, check them off with a pencil or pen. By doing this, you will know exactly what you have left to do, and will not waste time trying to find out what's next on your schedule.
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