How To Make The Most Of Your Day!

We race to fit in few minutes in our days to keep up with our jobs, social and personal live just to feel that, yes, we made the most out of today. But, in reality, we all know that our time and energy is limited so let’s get on with knowing how we can be total control of what we will accomplish each day! Here’s are some list of things to do everyday specially curated to help you spend time wisely.

1. Identify What’s Essential

“We overemphasized the external aspect of choices, our options and underemphasized our internal ability to choose our actions. Options can be taken away, while our core ability to choose cannot be taken away.” 
 
When we forget to exercise our ability to choose-we learn to be helpless. Making ourselves realize that practically we cannot do all that’s on our mind, just like the all food buffet; it looks really amazing and tempting to the tummy but can we eat all of it? Understand that when we choose what’s essential to us we achieve much more. 
 
Remember to exercise your choices – “I CHOOSE” 
Explore & Evaluate → Eliminate → Execute 

2. Set Weekly Goals

Committing to weekly goals each Sunday night/Monday morning by making a to-do will keep you ahead of the week. It can feel unnecessary since we all trust our memory so much but there are thousands of thoughts that cross our minds throughout the day. Having a path laid out in front of you will not only make you feel productive but will lead to an aimless workflow. 
 
If this seems too high of a commitment, you can start with making to-do lists for each day. 
 
Benefits of writing things down-  
less load on the brain to fetch info 
brings clarity to our thoughts 
brings structure  to our thoughts 
produces a baseline between our rational and irrational thoughts, eg, realistically being able to assess how much time each task takes up  

3. Time Blocking

Depending on the type of your work, typical days sometimes look different. There’s always a thing or two that props up. At times, this leaves us in a frenzy. Having our time blocked requires being flexible. With flexibility comes in buffer time that can be utilized to deal with unexpected things, eg; traffic, sudden meetings with the boss, an errand to run etc.  
It also challenges our rigidity and perfectionist mindset that we take everywhere we go.  
 
Tip to try – try putting everything on your digital calendar: meals, mails, meetings, leisure time, sleep etc. This will make you become aware of your time and ideal schedule when things get a tad bit hectic.  
 

4. Manage Social Media Distractions

Indians spend, on average about 2.25 hours on social media daily. With ever growing technology, the time spent on social platforms will only increase and our attention span, decrease. One scroll leads to you missing out on so much precious time and that leads to you feeling inefficient. It’s a chain of events!  Juggling between work and media alerts can leave us distracted.  
 
A study found that people take 25 mins to resume interrupted tasks. You can easily schedule time in your calendar for using social media as well. This will help in keeping tabs on your daily screen time which ultimately acts like a wake-up call. If there’s a time of day when you are regularly interrupted- plan for it! 
 
If you’re someone who struggles with social media addiction, start by switching off your notifications for certain apps and then maybe go on to uninstalling such apps, sound too radical? Give it a try. 

5.  Early To Bed + Early To Rise

We have heard our parents, grandparents and teachers say this so many times that it almost felt too good to be true. Only as adults we realise the importance of it.  
A new day actually starts when we hit the bed at night. How many times did it strike you that you were cranky because of not getting enough sleep? What is enough sleep? 6 to 7 hours of sleep will result in a better tomorrow.  
 
Set your sleep cycle in such a manner that it also becomes a habit. Sleep and wake up at the same time. This helps in maintaining our circadian rhythm which directly affects our mood, thoughts and behaviour the next day.  
 

6. Designate A ME-Time

Did you know that most top-class businessmen, like, Bill Gates, set 3+ hours of free time in their routine. Well, it does sound a little too much for some of us, simply because we can’t really afford it. Does that mean we shouldn’t make time for ourselves at all? NO!  
 
Try allocating 30-60 mins of ME-time in your daily routine. This helps us in taking a pause during hectic schedules, helps in feel refreshed, our brain gets some air, paves way for creativity and divergent thinking! 
On weekends or seemingly easy days, you can invest your time and energy by engaging in activities that truly make you happy (i.e; your hobbies, or picking up a hobby if you don’t have one already) and induce flow. By doing this you will make the most out of weekends as well!