Finding Lost Time in Your Day
Hello young professionals,
Whether you are new to the workforce or have had a 9-5 schedule for a few years, it is likely you feel there is never enough time in your day. I felt this most when I made the shift from college to a traditional 8-hour work schedule. I found sitting in one location for 8 hours to be mind-numbing and wondered how people ever were inspired while looking at the same 7x7 space, year after year. By the end of each work day, I was mentally drained and got to look forward to using my nights preparing for the next day, Yay! (not fun)
A long list of things that I wanted to get done accumulated, but I could never find the time, after work, to be productive in my personal life. If this sounds like you, you are potentially losing hours of time that disappear into daily happenings or social media scrolling. Keep reading to learn the simple strategy I use to locate that lost time and take control of it.
With a need for change in mind, I thought back to how much I was able to achieve in college. My college self bought a calendar at the beginning of each year and filled out all major assignments, meetings, and events for the entirety of the semester. This process not only made me aware of the rhythm of assignments but also allowed me to block out time for my extracurriculars. To further designate the urgency of each event, I proceeded to color-code everything on my calendar into these categories. Ex: due dates (yellow), exams (red), social events (green), meetings/study sessions (blue), etc. My love of color coding makes yet another appearance 🤓
I have since adapted this process to fit the working world. Here are the simple steps to feeling more in control of your time:
- Buy a pretty calendar
The aesthetics may seem insignificant, but if you opt for a calendar that is ugly, you are unlikely to look at the calendar, rendering your effort useless. Do yourself a favor and choose a cute calendar.
My current calendar is linked here and it costs $9.99
I recommend a wire-bound wall calendar so it doesn’t get lost under piles of stuff and it will flip easily. I particularly like the one I currently have because the pages are single-sided meaning no bleed through. If you have bigger handwriting, get a calendar with larger day squares.
- Sit down one night and write out EVERYTHING
Write down work, if you will be at the gym, walking your dog, calling loved ones, going out with the girls, attending appointments, and so on. It is up to you how detailed you want to get, but I would suggest leaving out things like driving time to minimize the day-to-day visual overload.
I like choosing one day near the end of every month when I will write out my plans for the entire upcoming month. Feel free to segment your month into multiple planning sessions to allow for more adaptability. My monthly planning session makes me aware of events that are about to happen and gets me excited for the things to come.
- Write down the timing for each event.
This is arguably the most important step. After writing every major event, write down the span of time when each event will take place.
A Monday for me looks like this:
Work 7-3, gym 3:30-5, prep for next day 5:20-5:30, dinner until 6, finalize post of the week 6-7:30, stretch and Duolingo 7:30-7:45, Nightly calls 8-10, get ready for bed 10-10:15.
Writing out the time when each event will take place establishes urgency and gives you a guideline of when you want to move on to the next thing. Of course, things may come up and adaptability is important to exercise in these cases. However, I like having the timing written down because it helps reinforce my priorities. Also, by seeing the timing and all I can accomplish in my day, I can easily locate the time I have previously been wasting.
- Continue to do this each month
The planning session is going to be a lot the first time you do it. It was sometimes very repetitive to fill out my entire month, but I saw benefits immediately after sticking to my new blocked-out schedule.
I felt a sense of urgency with moving between classes, the gym, my apartment, club meetings, and social events because there was always something going on. This fast pace created built-in motivation which kept me in a high-achieving mindset. Because my tasks were mixed in with things I enjoyed, there was an inherent urgency to complete one event and move to the next. This mix of business and pleasure (if you will) also prevented me from feeling burnout.
Putting this same mindset to work for me professionally has made me more driven and purposeful in how I use my time. Each day on my calendar is now a mini checklist of things I am going to achieve.
Bonus tip: One of the productivity Youtubers I listen to, Ali Abdaal, said that he uses the events on his calendar to make sure he is moving towards his goal. I interpreted this as each week should move you closer to the person you want to be and the goals you want to achieve.
By writing out every task for every day, you should be able to make clear connections between things you are doing in your day-to-day and your future. If your daily tasks are not moving you closer to where you want to be, you can see what needs to be moved around to align with your priorities. For me, I want to post a new blog every week, so I have writing and editing as time blocks in my schedule.
Hope this week’s post helps move you closer to being the high-achieving young professional you want to be. Thank you for reading and enjoy feeling more in control of your time.
