Time Management
Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing
Now that you’ve completed the Top-Down planning, you know the end-result (Vision), you know what you have to do (Mission) and you know the pathway to do it (Goals & Tasks). In short, you know WHAT to do. Now the question appears, HOW?
How can you systemmatically execute your plan to achieve the goals and mission in the most efficient way? Answer to that is execution plan.
There are several steps in execution plan. And it is actually way harder than the goal-planning part. Anyone can make a perfect plan. But to perfectly execute it, you need a lot of commitment, competence, and patience.
Eisenhower Matrix
It is the simplest way to decide which tasks to do now and which tasks to complete later.
Remember that we put two parameters with each of the tasks? Importance and Urgency. That was for this very reason. The Eisenhower matrix tells you which of the tasks you need to complete when based on these two parameters.
- High Importance & High Urgency -> Do the Task ASAP
- High Importance & Low Urgency -> Schedule the Task for later
- Low Importance & High Urgency -> Delegate to someone else
- Low Importance & Low Urgency -> Don’t do anything
Weekly Scheduler
Now you know which tasks you’re supposed to do. So, how to schedule these tasks? One of many ways is to create a weekly scheduler which contains all of the tasks you’re supposed to complete in a given week.
There are two ways to look at the schedules. One way is the “fatigue” way. The way we used to look at our class schedules in school. When you wanna do anything in the world except the things written in schedule. The other way is “vigour” way. If you keep in mind that this schedule will bring you one week closer to your goals & vision, the way you look at the schedule will completely change.
Make the schedule for next 4-6 weeks in advance. Measure your weekly output for previous weeks (No. of hours worked, tasks completed, etc.) and based on that, plan the next weeks. Push yourself but don’t make unrealistic schedules. Failing to complete the scheduled tasks only brings in the negative energy. Keep your weekly schedules moderate.
Daily Routines
To a chaotic person, daily routines usually seem boring an hectic. But they are quite te opposite. If you can setup a consistent daily routine, it benefits you mentally in ways that you can’t even think of. And daily routines don’t have to be a whole pre-planned day. The essence of a daily routine is to have small repetitive tasks which help you increase your productivity.
Arguably, the most important part of daily routine is the morning ritual. And i cannot emphasize this enough. If you want something good from your life, start waking up early.
The morning ritual is a small activity you need to do after you wake up and get freshed. If you’re a muslim, you’re in luck. Fajr prayer is the most efficient morning ritual you can have everyday to get your day started. Your will-power drops by more than 20% only by waking up late in the morning.
After the morning prayer, the first thing you’re supposed to do is Not to see your phone. That’s written in bold for a reason. Opening your phone early in the morning is way more unproductive than you think. You suddenly go from Active mode to Reactive mode once you start reading and replying to emails and messages.
The second thing you’re supposed to do in the morning (after prayer) is to look at your vision statement, missions, goals, tasks, and current progress. It is recommended to print your vision statement and put it somewhere in your room where it is visible to you. Stand for sometime (Don’t sit), and read the vision statement. Do it once or twice. After looking at the goals, tasks and vision, look at your tasks for that day. Look at the schedule, take a deep breath and you’re good to start with your day.
Studies show that breaking down your day into independent chunks and then planning that parts of the day individually is a way more productive way of scheduling than having one plan for the whole day.
The most efficient way of doing that is through prayers. The day is already broken down into major chunks by the 5 prayers. If you can keep your routine of prayers in check, you would automatically have a way better producvitiy than others.
