by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
I wanted to finish telling you what happened over my 2 week experiment where I planned every minute of my work week because this could have a massive
If you want to read part 1, click here
Here’s a quick recap of what I did. . .
Each night I took 10 minutes to plot out my schedule for the next day.
The next day I didn’t even look at my to do list — I simply followed the schedule I created and worked accordingly.
Besides getting more done, feeling less stressed and more in control, and I actually got to work that I had previously been avoiding, I discovered a few other things:
I Got More Focused
When you schedule a specific time to do specific work, you free yourself from thinking about anything else during that time.
If you set aside a time to write, you can focus on that and know your other work is accounted for in other scheduled time blocks.
You don’t have to feel guilty about what you may neglect during your watching game film time because you’re not neglecting anything — you’ve scheduled it all.
This freedom to focus on one task at a time makes your work easier, quicker, and better.
I Took More Breaks
Scheduling every minute of your day doesn’t mean you work every minute of your work day — quite the opposite.
Scheduling your whole day actually ensures you take breaks, eat lunch, and achieve better work-life balance.
When you schedule meals and breaks, you’re more likely to take them than when you don’t.
Excuses like, “I didn’t have time to eat” or “The day just got away from me” go out the window they’re baked into the plan of your day.
I Maintained Flexibility — A Schedule Is Not A Trap
As I’ve shared my experience with scheduling every minute of a workday with coaches, I keep getting the same two reactions from people:
“Oh my god, that sounds amazing — but there is no way I can do that as a coach with my athletes always stopping by!”
“But what if stuff comes up that isn’t on my schedule that I have to deal with?”
My answer to those comments is two-fold. First, you’re right, it’s amazing and you should try it.
Second, just because you schedule your whole day doesn’t mean you can’t adapt that schedule as needed.
Stuff happens. Athletes will stop by. Work will appear you didn’t foresee and need to address in a timely fashion.
When that happens, the first thing to do is compare that new work to what’s already on your schedule and determine if the new work is worthy of priority over something you already scheduled to do.
Remember: Urgent isn’t the same as important.
A schedule allows you to do a quick check and compare new work to what else you have to do as opposed to just being reactive and working on whatever comes from the person who yells loudest.
If the new work is a true priority, then adapt your schedule and slot it in to replace other scheduled work you have that day.
For example, if I find out at 11 am that an hour’s worth of new work needs to get done by 4 pm, I can look at my schedule and figure out where to place it.
I don’t have to drop everything and do it immediately — I may decide to replace my pre-planned 2 pm work with this new project, knowing it will give me plenty of time to get it done.
Then I can go about the rest of my schedule as usual.
I Discovered How I Spend My Time
In addition to making you more productive, reducing stress, and improving time management, there’s one more huge benefit of scheduling your days.
It allows you to see exactly how you spend your time.
Most of us have no clue how we spend our time because we don’t track or plan it in any real way. Without access to that data, we can’t optimize it.
We don’t know how much time we spend on email. We don’t know how much time we spend in meetings. We don’t know how much time we spend doing work that isn’t important.
As a result, we don’t know why we don’t have “enough” time to get things done.
Scheduling every minute of your work week counters all of that.
It will help you in a bunch of different ways, but if nothing else it will help you discover how you spend your time.
You just may be surprised what you find.
Want help scheduling your work week? Reach out to Mandy at mandy@busy.coach to talk with her about how she can help you be a more productive college coach and recruiter.