Limiting Your Schedule: Effectiveness Over Efficiency

What are your life priorities? We have all established obligations and priorities in our lives, but rarely do we take the time to write them down or simply recognize them.

Until you acknowledge where your priorities lie you cannot properly cultivate them; instead you’re left scrambling on a daily basis trying to determine what needs your attention. Why do people begin putting together a jigsaw puzzle with the edge pieces first? Because those pieces are the easiest to recognize, and the system is effective. The same goes with developing a schedule for yourself, begin with the edge pieces (your basic priorities) and then work inwards.

 

My life is prioritized into the following:
  • Personal Life
  • Education
  • Know Where Co.
  • Mattymatt

 

In attempt to keep things simple and easy to organize I’ve based my priorities into 4 categories; however, each of these priorities obviously have other focuses within them. My personal life is filled with spending time with my friends and family, and also includes running, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. My formal education includes classes, and talks/lectures offered by my school, while my education beyond the classroom includes reading, talks and conferences, and experimentation. Know Where Co. is a lifestyle, artistic pursuit by my brother and I that’ll initially focus on limited edition prints, and as we approach our launch towards the end of Fall we both have a lot to focus on in regards to design and business. Furthermore, all of my freelance and personal projects are filed under Mattymatt, which also includes writing for my blog, and making posts for social media.

Like most of us I have a lot on my plate, but instead of trying to blindly juggle all of my priorities I’ve taken the time to write them all down. By writing them down I’m able to actually visualize how many things I need to focus on; from there I can begin figuring how and how much to focus on them.

Before I began developing a schedule for myself I was panicking at the idea of starting classes again. I felt as though I was losing time, and I had no idea how I’d be able to find time to work on the other things that I wanted to work on. The concept of losing and finding time, however, is a false perception. Time cannot be lost nor found; instead it can only be allocated. I didn’t want to admit defeat and sacrifice any of my priorities so I decided that I’d rather limit my schedule to allow myself to focus on each priority only for a small, specific amount of time than to give something up entirely in hopes to make more time.

Throughout summer I was waking up at 5:30 to run in the morning, and when I got home I would write, but as school approached so did the start of my cross country season which disrupted this schedule a bit. I now have a scheduled practice at 7 everyday, and now I have classes Monday through Thursday starting at 11. With those two obligations set before me I had to rearrange the order of my day. Writing when I got home from a run was no longer realistic because after eating breakfast I would have no time to work before classes which led to the decision to continue waking up at 5:30 everyday, but getting in my writing before my run.

Just in my morning routine I’ve touched on 5 different priorities: Writing (for my blog), running, work (whether it’s Know Where, Mattymatt, or school), and then classes. I only listed 4 priorities; the 5th is sleep which I relate to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Considering I’m waking up between 5 to 5:30 it’s important that I’m getting enough sleep to operate throughout the day.

To make things clear, I’ll first outline how my days stand due to my obligations before I get into how I’ve limited my schedule.

Monday/Wednesday

5:30 – 6:30: Write

6:30 – 8:30: Cross Country Practice

8:30 – 9:00: Breakfast

9:00 – 10:30: – – – – – – – – – –

10:30 – 1:30: Class

1:30 – 1:50: Eat

1:50 – 4:30: Class

4:30 – 6:00: Strength Training

6:00 – 9:30: – – – – – – – – – –

9:30: Sleep

5 hours to fill in

Tuesday/Thursday

5:30 – 6:30: Write

6:30 – 8:30: Cross Country Practice

8:30 – 9:00: Breakfast

9:00 – 10:30: – – – – – – – – – –

10:30 – 1:30: Class

1:30 – 1:50: Eat

1:50 – 9:30: – – – – – – – – – –

9:30: Sleep

11 hours to fill in

Friday/Saturday

5:30 – 6:30: Write

6:30 – 8:30: Cross Country Practice

8:30 – 9:00: Breakfast

9:00 AM – 9:30 PM: – – – – – – – – – –

9:30: Sleep

12 hours to fill in

Sunday

5:45 – 8:00: Cross Country Practice

8:00 – 8:30: Breakfast

8:30 AM – 9:30 PM: – – – – – – – – – –

9:30: Sleep

13 hours to fill in

As the week progresses you can notice that more and more time isn’t routinely being dedicated to a specific obligation. Previously I had the mindset that I have to fill every hour of the day if I wanted to be efficient, and although I was doing a lot of work over the summer with that mindset, I wasn’t distributing an appropriate amount of attention to all of my priorities which led to a lot of problems. I was waking up and going to bed early because I wanted to get my run in, but following that I would just work all day, and I tried to do so with minimal distraction. I was getting so caught up in working that I’d forget to talk to my girlfriend all day and would only talk to her briefly before going to bed. Being in a long-distance relationship, this schedule was not healthy for us and it took me a while to understand that I needed to dedicate more time to her. In a letter I had written to her I had confessed that I was getting too caught up in my work and apologized, but I had also included my decision to no longer work after 6 PM. I recognized that I need to be in better communication with her throughout the day, and I need to dedicate more time to actually speaking with her. In order to invest in our relationship I must also invest the time.

Following that decision I had witnessed a change in my energy levels as well as my work. When I worked until 9 I was enjoying what I was doing, but my mental investment was far less than what it was when I started. By cutting off what I was doing by 6 I was no longer straining my mind to continue producing. There were days in which I wanted to keep working, but I refrained from doing so because a fresh mind in the morning can produce higher quality work than a tired mind tonight, and I also created a schedule with my girlfriend that I enjoyed and wanted to maintain.

Continuing from this experience I wondered how it’d apply to my new and busier schedule, but by understanding all of my priorities I knew I would be able to look at the big picture, and begin determining how and how much time to focus on each of them. Before classes began my girlfriend also had her doubts and began to worry, but at this point I had begun developing my schedule to ensure I’d be allocating my time more effectively rather than my misled efficiency in the summer. While others choose to go with the flow and fall behind due to procrastination I decided I need to begin with limiting myself.

“You can ‘efficiently’ drive in the completely wrong direction.” — Erik Reagan

The first limitation I set forth was no homework on Saturdays and Sundays, and I must either complete or at least begin working on every homework assignment the day that it is assigned. Rather than lagging, I determined that it would be best to use the momentum from my classes, suck it up, and work on these assignment immediately. Although I can expect that classes will take a toll on my energy, I’ll be more apt and able to work on something relevant to my classes from that day than to attempt starting fresh on other work. Since I don’t have classes on Fridays I’m able to utilize that day to finish up or polish any work, while the weekend can be used to think over and review what I had completed allowing me to make any needed refinements. The only exception I’m allowing for doing homework on the weekend is if I have a cross country meet which may take up an entire day or two forcing me to work on those days or if I plan on attending some sort of learning opportunity that may disrupt my schedule such as Creative South.

Secondly, I want to continue with my commitment of no work after 6, but as you’ll notice on my Monday/Wednesday schedule I won’t even be home until 6. These two days will serve as the only exception, but I will not work past 8.

Looking back at my schedule most of my time then is left open for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday which is when I’ll be spending most of my time working on freelance projects and Know Where Co. To limit myself even more so, I’m splitting up those days even more. Below you can see the revised schedule for the weekend:

Friday

5:30 – 6:30: Write

6:30 – 8:30: Cross Country Practice

8:30 – 9:00: Breakfast

9:00 – 12:30: Homework

12:30 – 1:30: Lunch

1:30 – 3:30: Homework

3:30 – 6:00: Mattymatt or Know Where Co. work

6:00 – 9:30: Personal Time

9:30: Sleep

Saturday

5:30 – 6:30: Write

6:30 – 8:30: Cross Country Practice

8:30 – 9:00: Breakfast

9:00 – 12:30: Freelance and Personal Projects

12:30 – 1:30: Lunch

1:30 – 2:00: Wrap up anything I was working on

2:00 – 6:00: Know Where Co.

6:00 – 9:30: Personal Time

9:30: Sleep

Sunday

5:45 – 8:00: Cross Country Practice

8:00 – 8:30: Breakfast

8:30 – 12:30: Know Where Co.

12:30 – 1:30: Lunch

1:30 – 6:00: Freelance and Personal Projects

6:00 – 9:30: Personal Time

9:30: Sleep

I’m spending much less time actually working in comparison to my summer schedule, but now I’m actually being effective with my time. Without a limited schedule put in place you’re left aimlessly working, but when you’ve developed a schedule you are able to ease into each focus by understanding your priorities.

“What gets measured gets done.”

Our work is attached to deadlines, and typically the work will get done just in time for the deadline. So if your deadline is set two weeks from now then it’ll take you two weeks to complete that work, but if it were set for just one week from now then you would complete the work in just one week. By limiting your daily activities you are forced to work incrementally and recognize the big picture rather than procrastinating for as long as possible. Embracing limitations will allow you to work smarter saving you from stress, procrastination, and becoming exhausted. To produce better work you must first work on how much you work.