Maximize Your Daily Routine for productivity

There are only 24 hours in a day, and everyone has access to those same hours. However, some people know how to maximize their time and be productive. Others may consistently struggle with falling short of their daily goals. If you often wonder how the day “got away from you,” it may be time to look closely at your routine. With more intentional planning and consistent follow-up, you should be able to get the most out of each day.

You could be overcommitting and overestimating your ability to get things done each day. Or you might struggle with losing your focus each time distractions pop up (which they inevitably will). But in many cases, people fail to meet their daily goals because they don’t plan how to reach them. That’s where a daily scheduling tool such as Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, or Google Calendar can come in handy and help you stay on task. Here are three calendar habits that can help you maximize your daily routine.

1. Try Task Batching

Task batching is a time management strategy that lumps similar tasks into batches. Instead of completing those tasks randomly throughout the day, the task batcher schedules them into dedicated time blocks. This may seem overly simple to solve your underproduction problem, but it works very well for many people. The only way to see if it works equally well for you is to try it and analyze your results.

If you’re not sure what tasks to batch together, here are a few ideas to help you get started:

  • Phone Calls: You must call your dental insurance company, plumber, and an important client today. On a typical day, you might spread your phone calls throughout the day with other unrelated tasks mixed in between. But today, you will try task batching and scheduling a block of time to make all your important calls. Notice how this approach helps you stay focused and quickly finish your phone calls.
  • Errands: Task batching is a must if you have multiple errands to run in a single day. Instead of picking up prescriptions in the morning and buying groceries in the afternoon, run all your errands at once. It will save you time and money on gas to do things this way.
  • Meal Prep: Pausing to make three separate meals from scratch throughout the day can be a huge time consumer. That’s why people who task batch often set aside a chunk of time for meal prep at the beginning or end of the week. Batch cooking your meals and portioning them out for the week can be a huge game-changer. It can maximize your daily productivity and help you become a more efficient person.

These are just a few easy ways to incorporate task batching into your daily life. Once you identify obvious batching opportunities, schedule them into your calendar. Reserving dedicated time blocks for task batches will help you stay focused while you complete them.

2. Separate Urgent From Non-Urgent Tasks

When you consistently fall behind on your daily goals, you can get stuck in a cycle where everything seems urgent. You might feel this way because your body’s stress response is stuck in high gear. By analyzing your to-do list, you should be able to reorganize outstanding tasks based on their proper priority. Need a little help figuring out what’s truly urgent and what’s not? Try using the Eisenhower Matrix.

The Eisenhower Matrix is a prioritization strategy that helps you identify urgent vs. non-urgent tasks. This strategy aims to help you manage your time and avoid the overwhelm that comes from thinking every task has equal urgency. This strategy is a great solution for procrastinators, people approaching burnout, and anyone with difficulty saying “no.” To use the Eisenhower Matrix, begin by separating each of your tasks into one of the following four categories:

  • Do First (Both Important and Time-Sensitive): These are urgent tasks that must be done immediately. They typically have a non-negotiable deadline and can’t be pushed to the back burner. Examples of “Do First” calendar items include rectifying a client complaint and handling a personal or professional emergency.
  • Schedule (Important but Not Time-Sensitive): Tasks that are important but don’t need to be done immediately should fall into your “schedule” category. You must strategically prioritize these essential responsibilities in your calendar to ensure you get to them, but they aren’t emergencies. Examples include working on a long-term project, maintaining your physical wellness, or attending regular self-improvement conferences.
  • Delegate (Important but Not Urgent): If you feel you can’t get to everything, it’s because you’re human. One person can’t do it all, so delegation is so important. Delegation is when you assign some tasks to another person or group so you can attend to more urgent things. The Eisenhower Matrix stipulates that you should delegate important but non-urgent tasks that don’t require your specific skills or input. Examples include house cleaning, data entry, lower-level meetings, and answering certain emails.
  • Eliminate (Not Important or Urgent): The final category in the Eisenhower Matrix is reserved for tasks that are neither important nor urgent. You typically do things out of habit, boredom, or obligation. In most cases, you can eliminate them from your daily to-do list without any negative consequences. Examples include binge-watching television, mindlessly scrolling social media, and saying “yes” to things because you have difficulty saying “no.”

Using the Eisenhower Matrix can help you wisely plan your days and eliminate hidden time-wasting tasks. Try this strategy and see if your daily productivity improves.

3. Break Big Goals Down Into Smaller Tasks

Have you ever avoided working on a big goal or project because you didn’t know where to start? This is a common problem that can lead to a cycle of procrastination, anxiety, and eventual burnout. To make a big project seem less daunting, try breaking it down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Micro-tasking is a great place to start and works well for many people who otherwise struggle to get things done.

When you break big goals into smaller pieces, you’re less likely to feel overwhelmed or tend toward procrastination. If your calendar says, “Get a new product ready for launch,” you could stare at that action item all day without knowing how to begin. Breaking that responsibility into smaller, more straightforward tasks throughout the month is motivating and doable.

For example, you could break your product launch goal into multiple smaller chunks with set due dates. Those chunks might include finalizing product packaging, launching a new product marketing campaign, and updating your website. You could further break those chunks into micro-tasks that help you steadily achieve your goal. Micro-tasking helps you maximize daily productivity by clearly defining and scheduling what needs to be done.

Conclusion

Many people struggle with time management and feel like failures when they don’t accomplish their goals. Carefully analyzing how you spend your time and making adjustments as needed can help you refocus and get back on track. Use these three calendar habits to maximize your daily routine and increase productivity.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Vlada Karpovich; Pexels