6 Tips to taking ownership of your day, feeling more producive, and ending your days with a feeling of accomplishment.

Woo… That was a long title… In the spirit of time management, you can skip to the end of this article.(Grammarly also isn't working, so… the errors are probably there)

Your day consists of 24hrs, that is 1,440min and 86,400 seconds…

But, we aren’t here to waste time talking about the make up of a day in time.

Do you ever feel like no matter what you do, you just can’t seem to get done what you planned, always falling short of your goals? Maybe even feelings of anxiety and emptiness.

The lack of time management is Chaos, some people may thrive in it, while most of us mere mortals are drowning in the constant distractions of our constantly changing lives. So, today I'm going to provide some tips for (are you ready for the buzzword?) Managing and Optimizing your time🎉 .

What are we going to go over?

• Maximizing with Multitasking
• The 4D’s
• Routines and Schedules
• Front Load
• Keeping things realistic
• Eliminating Distractions

Maximizing with Multitasking

Multitasking is bad, there is absolutely no way that something with seemingly limitless potential to conquer its environment and space could possibly be able to focus on more than one thing.

If you sensed sarcasm, you sensed right. The brain is amazing, at all times it is calculating an unfathomable amount of information, without you even noticing.
Information on how amazing the brain is <- Insane article.

Maximizing your time with multitasking is, very simply, finding the things in your day that can be combined, for example listening to audio books while driving, reading while doing cardio, walking while taking a call. By combining mindless tasks with cognitive tasks you are able to think clearer by giving your brain more oxygen, as well as knock out some of that personal development time which gives you that precious time back.

The 4Ds

The 4Ds is a framework to ensure you are making the most of your time. Do, is a task the is important and urgent, these are tasks that need to be done now, and you cant afford to delegate to someone else. Defer, is something that you must do, but it does not have to be done immediately. Delegate is a task that is urgent, meaning it has to be done now, but its not so important that if its not executed to standard, it is ok. Delete is exactly that, if an item on your todo list doesn't fall into any of those categories, its time to remove it.
1. Do: Tasks that are important and urgent.

2. Defer: Tasks that are important but not urgent.

3. Delegate: Tasks that are urgent but not important.

4. Delete: Tasks that are neither urgent nor important.

Routines and Schedules
Controling your day is liberating to say the least, this is incredibly hard to do if you don't know what your day consists of.

By implementing a schedule you give yourself insight into how you day is laid out from an outside perspective. With that information you can fine tune your day, able to take note of what tasks may need to be moved around, and start to move towards combining certain tasks.

Front Load

If you put it off, you’re not going to do it. We hedonists seek pleasure and avoid the pain, the thing is, pain is what stimulates growth. Those hard tasks are what make turn us into more efficient productive human beings; more fulfilled human beings. Chasing early, easy wins may feel good, but your actually cheating yourself from self improvment.

Eat that frog. Do the things that you are dreading first thing in the morning. Procrastinating will only cause anxiety and stress as the day comes to a close and you have still missed your mark.

Front loading tasks also give you a sense of accomplishment that you are able to carry to the rest of your day building a success snowball that you can use to push through.

Keep things realistic

Do not overfill your plate. It will make you sick. Just because you put something on your schedule doesn't mean it will magically get done. If you don't actually have the intention of getting it done.

Eliminate Distraction

Context switching is the devil. Research has show that It can take up to 25min for individuals to get back on track once attention is taken off their current task; I feel like the stat is taken out of context, but if you have kids or are popular or both, then you know exactly how close to true this can be.

Noone needs to talk to you, there isn't going to be a family emergency, you are not going to get a call from anyone in a life and death situation….

You know who is calling? Telemarketers and that's it. Even if your job is to talk on the phone, you should have two phones. One for personal use, and one for work. Keep focused on activities that pay the bills, not the student loans that you're not paying… the education system is a scam… Why isn't there a “No-Job, No Tuition” clause? Its rediculious.

Closing remarks, Stop here if you didnt read.

In a nutshell:

• Look for opportunities to combine low energy tasks with other low energy tasks. i.e Audio books while driving.
• Rate your tasks, do what is most important first, aim to delegate tasks or completely get rid of them.
• If you don't have a schedule, you are driving without a map.
• Don’t put things on your plate you aren't going to actually do. Those time blocks will be filled with empty mind calories like bullshitting on Facebook or LinkedIn.
• Turn off your phone! You are not that important; If you're in sales, stop putting your phone down, make more calls.
• Lastly, if you made it this far and found anything of value, hit that clap icon… Oh, and get back to work!