There are many complicated organizational methods to planning your day. Most systems want you to write everything down on a sheet of paper, but if you’re truly busy, you don’t have time for that.
There was a season where I tried this method. In order to be productive with my mornings, I sat down with a chart and plotted everything I planned to do that day. But what I discovered was that I was eating away at my precious time by simply writing everything down.
While I am a strong supporter of externalizing your goals when you can, sometimes, you just don’t have enough time to. When that happens, you need a habit—or a system of thinking—to automatically snap into so you can plan your day and stay productive.
The habit I formed is simple to remember, and thus, simple to implement. Train this way of thinking to better plan your days when you don’t have time to consider everything about your life.
It involves the 4 P’s: People, Projects, Plans, and Possibilities.
If you want to stay productive, but don’t have time to externalize your goals for your day, make it a habit to follow this rule: let the important people “interrupt” you, do you projects, make it to your plans, and don’t entertain your possibilities.
1. Let People “Interrupt” You
I made a list of people who I don’t consider as interruptions to my work. This list includes my wife, my family, and very close friends. If these people contact me during the day and need my help, I will put down my work and welcome the “interruption”.
The thing is, I love these people, so they are no intrusion on my work. If my wife comes in from a hard day of work, right as I’m in middle of writing an article, I shut the computer and listen to her. You can plan for these “interruptions” by only having the people important to you be able to deter you from your work. If someone like your co-worker wants to have you help them get their goals done, you have the ability to say no. If they are not on your list of important people, they are a distraction.
2. Do Your Projects
Our primary responsibility—if we want to be productive—is to focus on our projects and do the work.
Oftentimes, we get dragged into doing work that doesn’t benefit our goals, but helps others reach their goals. This is why it is important to stress the “YOUR” part of “do your projects”. Like I said before, don’t let others deter you from your work, unless they are important to you. Stay focused on the task at hand, and keep tearing away at your important projects.
3. Make it to Your Plans
Do you have appointments for the day? If so, don’t be the person who spends all day waiting in anticipation for them. Simply attend them. And only arrive early to your appointments if you believe you can get work done before the other party arrives. If not, arrive right on time. This is what I do. I usually use every minute I can being productive until I actually have to be at my appointment.
4. Don’t Entertain Possibilities
Sometimes, work arrives on our desk that we can either defer for a later time, or not pay attention to in the current moment. For instance, if your countertop needs a slight repair, don’t use your time you’re working on your important projects to plan for how you’re going to do that. Save that time for later. The countertop can wait.
Many times, we’re unproductive with our workday because we spend one hour doing our important projects, and spend the rest of the time entertaining possibilities and helping others achieve their goals. Yet, once I established this system of thinking, I was able to be mission-minded—able to filter everything that came up in the day through the mission I wanted to complete.
This system is honestly part of how I started living a more intentional life like Jesus. I wanted to be as focused on my mission as He was, and by following this simple rule, I was able to do just that.
Do you have a system of thinking you default to in order to keep productive? Talk about it in the comments section below!