How much more would you get done in a week if you could ensure that, each day, you were at maximum productivity levels?

Instead of just waiting for one of those magical moments to come along, let’s look at the steps to planning your most productive day so that you can get shit done in much less time than it would normally take, and then go put your feet up.

A lot of people are turned off by the idea of planning their days, thinking it’s too rigid and structured, and doesn’t allow for any flexibility. Au contraire! The very reason you should plan your days is precisely BECAUSE it allows you to get your work done as quickly and efficiently as possible so that you can make more time for the things that really matter to you.

When should you do it?   The evening before.

Why?   To give yourself enough time to get everything set up, and so you don’t waste half your morning. You want to wake up and hit the ground running. You’ll know exactly what to do next, so there’ll be no dawdling or dilly-dallying.

It also means you can spot and solve potential problems in advance instead of only being faced with them when it’s too late to fix them.

As well as that, too much choice can quickly lead to mental fatigue so, to be at your best, you need to limit the amount of decisions you have to make on the day itself. That will keep your willpower and your mental energy as high as possible for as long as possible.

Planning Your Most Productive Day -- what you’ll need:

When planning your most productive day, start with all the stuff that’s set in stone.

Calendar:

Fill in any appointments, work hours, meetings, commitments, etc. you have the following day. Block out all the time you’ll be unavailable.

Here are some top tips to make sure you’re getting an accurate reflection of your day:

1. Allow for travel time
2. Don’t forget “routine” stuff like showers and meals, prep time, break time & downtime
3. Overestimate how long it will take to do things

Now take a close look back over what you’ve done so far. If there’s something there that could be cancelled without consequence or would fit into a different day a little better, do it. Scratch it off tomorrow’s list and give yourself back that precious time.

So now that you’ve blocked off all the time you’re unavailable or resting, it’s time to fill in the gaps.

To-do list:

OK, let’s look at how best to slot your tasks into your day to ensure you get the most done without leaving you completely drained.

Remember that your main to-do list is for every single thing you have to or want to do in your life. The aim is not to try complete it all in one day, it’s simply to make progress on it.

What should you tackle first?

Start by delegating or just plain eliminating as many things as you can upfront. The only tasks that should be on your list are things you have to do yourself, or things you want to do yourself.

Now, remember that your mental energy will be highest in the morning, so this is the best time for tackling the bigger, scarier, or harder tasks. (If you need to, you can plan in a really small, quick task beforehand to give yourself a bit of a kickstart and get the productivity ball rolling. I do this and it really helps.)

Then, having already made room for your big goals (which, in itself is hugely productive), it’s just a matter of filling in the rest of the available slots in your day.

  From the TeuxDeux site (which is the task app I use), lest you think I'd ever run a marathon. 😉

The first thing to do is to look at how long you have for each slot, because this will dictate how much you can reasonably expect to achieve. If, for example, you’ll only have 10 minutes to spare, you can quickly and easily eliminate anything that takes longer than 10 minutes. This will eliminate a huge amount of frustration that you’d normally feel when you start a task and then realise that you don’t have the time to finish it.

If possible, subject to your time constraints, you should try to hit all priority levels in descending order, starting with the high priority things (urgent and important) and working down to the non-priority things (non-urgent and unimportant). In that way, every area of your life is always progressing so that you maintain balance and nothing is neglected.

The temptation can be to only work on high priority tasks but, if you keep neglecting the lower priorities, in time they’ll become urgent too. Try not to wait until something is causing you a large degree of stress before tackling it.

This is the perfect time to hack your to-do list.

Are there any tasks that could be nicely batched with your calendared items to cut down on time? Any errands you could run while you’re already on the road?

For travel time or waiting time where you could be getting something else done, plan in some tasks that don’t require a huge amount of focus. Think reading, listening to an audiobook or podcast, replying to a few relatively unimportant emails, confirming appointments, etc.

And remember while you’re filling all those slots that you need buffer time and regular breaks too. Breaks aren’t something you should just try squeeze into your day whenever you can find a space, they should be something you’re MAKING time for, just like your tasks. As a general guide, your break time should be about 20-25% of your work time, depending on how much energy was required and how difficult the upcoming task is.

Now do the same as you did for your calendared items: go back over everything with a critical eye. If anything can be erased or would be better suited to a different day, remove it.

Once you’re all done and dusted, and you know you’re going to be getting all the urgent and important stuff done as well making room for the routine things and plenty of downtime, now it’s time to make sure you’re fully prepared and you don’t forget anything.

Planning Your Most Productive Day -- preparation preparation preparation:

Start at the beginning of your day and look at every single item in turn, starting at the first and working your way through one by one. Ask yourself if there’s anything you need to do in advance, or to have with you.

Let’s look at some examples of the types of things you might need throughout your day and the kinds of questions you could ask yourself.

• Do you need to bring anything with you?
• Will you need cash or credit card?
• Do you need directions to where you’re going?
• What will the weather be like?
• What will you wear, and do you need to bring a change of clothes?
• Are your devices and external battery packs charged?
• Do you need to confirm anything with anyone?
• Is there something you always seem to leave the house without?

Try to think of every single thing you’ll need (this will get MUCH easier with time and practice, so don’t worry if it initially takes a bit of figuring out). A great way to do it is to visualise yourself completing the task from start to finish so you can see what you might be missing.

Gather everything you need and put it somewhere you can’t miss it.

Reviewing Your Most Productive Day:

You can’t improve if you don’t take some time to evaluate the successes and the areas requiring a little more work so, at the end of your day, take 2-3 minutes to ask yourself the following 4 questions:

• What went well?
• Is there any way I could make it even better?
• What could have been improved?
• How can I do that?

If you forgot something, make a note for next time. If you still found that you were rushed, add in more buffer time. If you found that you performed certain tasks better at a certain time of day, schedule them into that time in future.

By being a little more aware of the strengths and weaknesses of your system, you can make slight tweaks and changes to hone it into a perfect productivity machine.

And that’s how you plan a productive day. It might take you a while to do it on your first attempt but rest assured, you’ll get into the swing of it very quickly and, before you know it, you’ll have it down to a fine art. Invest a little time now for a big payout in the very near future, because a few minutes spent planning can ensure you have more time for the things that matter most to you.

This post is a condensed version of Module 8 of my e-course, the Productivity Power-Up. To learn more about how you can take your productivity to the stratosphere, to see the full curriculum of everything you’ll learn, as well as watching a free preview of the introductory module, click that image below and then, when you’re ready to start achieving things you never thought possible, go ahead and sign up.