Maximizing Your Productivity by Making a Plan

Chances are, if you’re reading this post, you’re busy. Between your professional and personal lives, there never seems to be enough time in your days or enough gas in your tank to do it all. If that’s you, then don’t worry. You probably already know that you’re not alone in this stressful struggle, but I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to stay there either. This is the first post of a seven-part series we’re calling How to Get It All Done, and the first step to taking back some control in your life is making your plan.

Making a Plan

If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. You’ve probably heard this little proverb before, but it’s more than just a quaint saying. There are plenty of books and articles out there giving tips and tricks on how to get more out of your days, but one thing that rings out loud and clear across the board is productivity doesn’t happen by accident. It starts as a mindset, moves to a piece of paper or an app, and then changes how we live our lives. Later parts in this series will deal with building habits to set ourselves up for success and choosing the right tools to keep our tasks organized, but the mission of this first post is to confront the most common misconception in the world of schedules and productivity: “I don’t have time.” We’ve all said it a million times, but I want to suggest to you today that it might not be true and that knowing how to make your plan might be the key to proving it.

Finding the Time

In 2017, author and time management expert Laura Vanderkam gave a TED Talk called “How to gain control of your free time.” In the talk, she argues that you won’t find the extra time you’re looking for by shaving bits of time off the things you’re already doing, but by building your schedule around your priorities. When we say we don’t have time for something, Vanderkam suggests, what we really mean is that this thing in question is not one of our priorities. She then breaks down the number of hours in a week to demonstrate her point. If you work a full time job, have a side hustle, and sleep 8 hours a night, then you still probably have between 72-52 hours of time left in each week! It probably doesn’t feel like it, but it’s true. Vanderkam tells her audience, “We cannot make more time, but time will stretch to accommodate what we choose to put in it.” She encourages her audience to plan ahead and to put their priorities into their schedules first.

Identifying Your Priorities

Now that we know that we do actually have time to get it all done by building a schedule around our priorities, the next step is looking at what those priorities are. Start by identifying the different categories that your life and responsibilities are divided into. A simple place to start might be Personal, Professional, and People. Or you might choose to break it down as Home, Work, Social, and Self. Take some time to think about what categories best sum up the circles of your life, and then look at each category one by one. What are your priorities for your professional life? What are your goals, what is most important in that sphere? Write them down or type them up, and then move on to the next category. The goals and priorities you write might be concrete tasks, maybe more broad visions and hopes, or a bit of both! What matters is having it all laid out in front of you so that when you’re trying to ‘get it all done,’ you know what it actually is. You can’t hit your target if you’re not quite sure where it is, so find your priorities.

Making a Plan (Again)

So now you know what you want to get done, you’ve put it into your schedule, and the plan is ready to go. What do you do when the plan doesn’t work? Every year on January 1st, people all around the world have big plans of how they’re going to reform this and reinvent that and how they’re going to be a whole new person in this new year. And we all know what happens, right? Minus a couple exceptions, nobody sticks to their resolutions for longer than a couple weeks. Some of us don’t even last more than a few days! When you start a new schedule or implement a new plan, there are going to be bumps once the rubber hits the road. Life looks nice and simple when we write it out and color-code it on a piece of paper, but things rarely go like we expect them to. The only predictable thing about life is that it’s going to be unpredictable! So what do you do when you make a plan to maximize your productivity, and the plan doesn’t work?

The answer is actually pretty simple: make a new plan. Or, more likely, adjust the plan you already made. Getting it all done in life starts with knowing that no two weeks are ever the same and things are always going to slip through the cracks. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong, it just means you’ve gotta roll with the punches! Pick your priorities and make a plan. Then scrap the plan and make a better one. Rinse and repeat.

Conclusion

How do you get it all done? There’s lots to be said, and this series is going to dive into several different aspects and strategies to help you maximize your productivity! But before you start grinding, you have to know where you’re going. You’re never going to stumble upon a productive lifestyle, and you’re never going to get it all done just like that. You have the time! Now you need the plan and the perseverance to make it happen.

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