• This Is How To Plan A Day.
  • Deb Knobelman, PhD
  • The Nuggets translation Project
  • Permanent link to this article: github.com/xitu/gold-m…
  • Translator: Prince Stuart
  • Proofreader: Qin Yuanyuan, Sun Jiao-sheng

How do you plan your day — here’s a guide

Eliminate anxiety and confusion during busy days

I’m going out of town with my family tomorrow.

I have a lot of things to do before I can get on the plane.

Work, writing, errands, kids, meals, cleaning, the dog are all the things I want or need to do today. Over and over, I knew I was overwhelmed by this day.

So I need to plan them out.

Now I know I had an hour and a half to write this morning. There is also time for rereading and editing later in the day. I know exactly what needs to be done when, and I don’t have to do those little things today

The best part of the plan is that I don’t waste any time worrying with anxiety about when I’m going to get it done, because I already know.

Here’s how I do it:

Make a list

I wrote down all the crazy stuff in my head, not as much as I thought. When you think about the same things over and over again, it feels like a tornado from The Wizard of Oz. When you write this down, a category 12 tornado becomes a category six.

Here’s the key: the list only took me a minute or two.

I did return a few minutes later to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. But making a list doesn’t take much time at all, because it’s already in my head.

Judge how long each event will take

Some of the things on your list might take 15 minutes or less, so I put them together. In my opinion, sporadic things like putting email away while we’re out and about, I put those in the same category.

Then there are things that take longer, like writing, finishing the last part of a consulting project. Each of these takes at least an hour, if not hours. With only one project left, it helps to know THAT I can spend my entire “work” time on one thing.

So I wrote down how much time each thing would take and put together things that I could spend less time on in the same place.

Again, this step only took me a few minutes.

Determine your free time for the day

At the moment, I have a few hours to spare. At 4 p.m., I had to pick up my kids from camp. We usually hang out after school or camp and have dinner at 5:30-6:00pm. It’s about 9 p.m., and it’s late when the kids go to bed. But after dinner my husband usually accompanies them to do something like throw a baseball. As a result, I know that 4pm to 7pm is not a good time to work because I will be spending time with my family. But after 7 p.m., I have some “free time” for unfinished business.

This means I need to get most of my activities done between now and 3:45pm (because I need to leave the house to pick up my kids at camp)

That still gave me six hours to get everything done

Six hours sounds like a long time.

Again, it only took me a few minutes.

Schedule each activity

Finally, I find the best time for each activity.

For me, I start by arranging what is most urgent or necessary. Today, this is all the little things I have to do. Most involve computer tasks and making phone calls. So I’ll do it first. It’ll take about an hour. So, I plan an hour and 15 minutes, just in case, you never know how long I’ll have to wait.

Next, I want to finish this work project, which isn’t actually due until next week, but I know I don’t want to work during the holidays. Therefore, I will spend two hours to finish it today, so as not to worry about it.

I plan to have lunch in twenty minutes.

After that, I will write something. I hope I can enjoy the time with my family. Therefore, I am not sure how often I will write next week. I want to finish part of it today. I will spend an hour and a half writing. Then, if necessary, reread, revise and edit after 7pm tonight with the goal of Posting tonight or tomorrow.

Writing keeps me in a deep state of flow. I’m engaged and lose time. So, I set a timer on my phone and keep writing.

Finally, there are all the errands that get me out of the house, and I have about an hour to pick up my kids on the way home.

When I put my schedule together, I realized that an hour might not be enough to get all my tasks done, so I decided to do what I would have done without the kids first. For errands like a trip to Target, I would take the kids after I picked them up. We should still be home at 5:00, plenty of time for dinner.

This reminds me that I don’t have time to cook dinner today, but I understand the situation. So dinner at the end of the day doesn’t mess with my schedule. I need to plan to pick something or find a good order option.

This part took me a while. It’s a little bit of a puzzle.

However, this still takes less than 15 minutes.

Take a deep breath and execute

And my day. From start to finish, it takes about 20 minutes all day, and now I don’t have to spend time worrying about it.

I know exactly what I can do and what I can’t do and when I can do it. I know I have time to get everything done, and any tasks that aren’t on this list can wait until after the holidays.

Most importantly, the day is no longer overwhelming, my mind is not spinning and I can focus on execution.

For me, scheduling a day is the most important way to relieve anxiety. Once I started doing this, I realized that I was wasting time worrying every day, thinking about getting work done without any real progress, worrying that I might be wasting a lot of time.

I like to schedule time every morning, once a day, on plain paper, on a post-it note or in a notebook.

I try to be a good planner and plan a week in advance, and that triggers my perfectionism. If I finish these things ahead of time, I feel like I’m sticking to my schedule for the week, feeling constrained and not relaxed. If I miss one thing in my schedule, the whole week goes to crap.

But everyone is different, and I have anxiety and perfectionism, so too much structure can be painful.

The key is to use this as a guide to find what works for you. We all have a lot to do, keep trying different things and you’ll figure it out.

With the right framework and the right mindset, anything is possible

I offer practical and concrete insights on productivity and anxiety management in my personal newsletter. As shown in thewww.debknobelman.com.

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