4 Simple Steps to Getting Things Done Without Burning Out, Pt 2

Yesterday we talked about identifying the roles you play in life. I listed the roles that I play by way of example (Personal, Family, Pastor, Leader, Teacher, and Administrator). Today we’ll talk about what to do once you’ve identified your roles, put them in order of importance, and listed all of your tasks under the right role.

Here we go:

2. Schedule when and where you’ll do your work
At the beginning of each week I block out time to plan out when and where I’m going to do my work. It’s not enough for me to have an organized list to work from. I also have to schedule when and where I’m going to do my work.

NOTE: Right now I use Google Calendar for my schedule and appointments and Remember The Milk for all my tasks (both services are currently free). In RTM I have a folder for each of my roles and go through each list each week to see what needs to be done in each of these areas of my life.

So I look at my calendar and see what my appointments are. Then I schedule when and where I’ll be working on the tasks in the space where I have nothing scheduled. When I’m finished my calendar looks something like this (click on the image below to enlarge it):

One of the great things about using a digital calendar like Google’s is you can set reoccurring appointments.

So for example I have standing meetings with my boss and team each week so once I’ve entered that in and set it to recur each week I never have to worry about accidentally scheduling something in a time when I’m already scheduled to do something else.

I also do this with my day off. That and family time always gets entered first and takes priority over work stuff. Sometimes I have to move those times around but seeing it here and planning it out helps me not to forget to take care of myself and my family.

Tomorrow we’ll wrap this series up by talking about the most important thing to keep in mind when putting your schedule together and what to do with incoming tasks after you’ve put your plan together for the week. In the meantime schedule some time at the end of this week to put your schedule together for next week.