How To Structure You Day

When I’m out camping like I am now, obviously I’m not working all the time. That’s not the point. But, I AM doing some work.

Thing is, wifi is usually spotty and unreliable. Sometimes it is great… sometimes it sucks. Sometimes, there is none at all (like in state parks) and it is either tethering to your phone or nothing.

When the wifi isn’t good, sometimes I go into “planning mode” with my business. It is a great time to brainstorm and strategize because you have no internet to provide distractions.

Here’s a framework that I use:

• Goals (big picture goals for life and business)
• Purposes (lesser goals. More granular goals that lead up to the bigger ones)
• Policies (“rules” I need to set for myself so that anything gets done)
• Plans (big-picture plans on things I want to implement or solve)
  • Projects (specific project to do something as part of a bigger plan)
    • Tasks (specific action done in a day or so as part of a project)
• Stats (things to be measured so I can see how things are progressing)
• Ideal Scene (vision of what everything should look like)

This is a framework. I do it within Dynalist as a series of nested bulleted lists. And Dynalist happens to work offline nicely.

Now, all the planning in the world means nothing if you don’t execute it. And, it is really easy to just fall back into your habits when you get back to your computer. Then, all those beautiful plans never happen and end up as nothing but ideas.

So, the answer is systems.

Repeatable systems. Step by step. Like checklists.

So, look at the plans, projects and tasks that need to get done. Some are one-time tasks while others will be repeating. For instance, if you’re going to publish a blog post, you go through the same basic series of steps every single time.

You can arrange these things into daily checklists. And you can create checklists for yourself for things you will do on days of the week.

For instance, this EDGE newsletter is a component of my overall content strategy. It is part of the larger plan. It is sent on Mondays, so that would go on a Monday checklist.

If I wait until the last minute to write it, I know that’d be problematic. So, I put it on a Friday checklist to pre-write the EDGE for Monday.

Stats are super important for business, so that’s a repeating item to actually take the time to compile and look at them and plan accordingly. So, that’s another thing on the Friday checklist. Any specific actions I do as a result of the stats will then be on my agenda for the following Monday.

Point is…

Monday through Friday (or whatever you particular schedule would be), you can implement systems to ensure you DO the things that line up to the strategic planning you did.

Everything aligns.

And if you have the discipline to do this, things will actually get done.

And your plans will come to fruition.

When people don’t get much of anything done, it is usually because they have no system. “Work” becomes a big free-for-all of unstructured time and doing whatever randomly comes to mind.

Putting some simple system in place – even if you only give yourself one task per day – will accomplish more. As long as that one task on your checklist aligns with the goals you’ve set.