After my success last week with the Morning Brain Dump scheduling exercise, I felt like I’d really started to get my day under control and achievable in the timeframe I had to work within.
I mentioned in my critique of this technique that the only downfall of the brain dump was that I like to get everything ticked off my ‘to do’ list each day and I felt with the sheet sitting on my desk with all the Shoulds, Coulds and Want Tos on it, I wasn’t achieving everything on my list.
So to add another layer on to this already very useful system, I read more on the subject and found this interesting article about a Daily Schedule here.
This is a technique used by arguably one of the world’s most productive men, Benjamin Franklin, and you can read about his own personal schedule on that post.
Basically, the idea is to use your Morning Brain Dump to feed information into a daily schedule and then put your dump sheet away until tomorrow. Then you can focus on the work – and rest time – you need for the day to get everything done and feel like you have finished all your tasks.
When you pick up your dump sheet the following day, you might find things which you thought were important yesterday can either be upgraded to a Must or downgraded for the day since you’ve had a chance to sleep on it.
I will plan my day a little like the below schedule and then slot all my tasks from my Morning Brain Dump into the Work Block spaces, making sure I consider how much time each job might take.
You can see that I’ve got a good balance between work and play.
There’s a few reasons for this:
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When I left my job, it was because I didn’t want to work a traditional 9 – 5 workday. I wanted freedom to live my life the way I wanted and to choose when I work and when I play.
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I also think that working solidly for 8 hours with a half hour lunch CAN work but also taxes the worker if this is what every work day looks like.
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The outcome on your health of working 9 – 5 or in a large work block has been likened to the equivalent of having jet lag and can leave you feeling exhausted and disconnected with the world. Read more about that here. I know I don’t want to feel jetlagged all the time!
My goal this week is to stick to my Morning Brain Dump exercise then feed it into my Daily Schedule and keep to the plan each day. With this in mind, there will always be tasks which ‘crop up’ during the day, so I may need to view my dump sheet to add it and decide if it needs to go on the daily task list.
I’ve popped a printable copy of it below so you can follow along too.
Daily Schedule
The idea is that you set times of the day that work for YOU! Work it in around your kids, your other job, brunch dates you’ve made etc.
I’ll be giving this one a critique at the end of the week so I would love to see how you fared and if there’s anything you would change or another technique you would like to try!
Kath xx
