“Begin with the end in mind” is excellent advice. If you’re able to visualize a project at it’s completion, you can better understand the steps you need to take to reach your goal. One of the best strategies for planning out your day is to follow this simple principle.

We have things that we’d like to accomplish during the day. We have activities that we love doing and others that must be done. We have things that will help us to relax, things that will support our family, and things that will keep our household running.

The perpetual enemy is roadblocks. The perpetual enemy is the couch. The perpetual enemy is the computer. These distractions can suck up valuable time when they’re taken out of order. The more time you spend watching TV, the less time you have to accomplish things on your to do list.

Having a plan can help. By planning out your day, to include rest and relaxation time, you can short-circuit distractions. When you’re busy washing the car or mowing the lawn, you'll know that there’s a time scheduled during the day for you to watch TV. When you’re playing with your kids, you know that you’ve set aside time to read the paper or play a game.

Your plan needs to be balanced. It needs to have time for your family, for your faith, for fun, for intellectual growth, and for work. Whenever you neglect one of these areas, the others suffer. They’re all important in their own way, so dedicating time to them each day is important.

The day can easily slip away from you. By having a plan in place for how you’ll spend your time, you can by-pass distractions and get it done.

Tags: Productivity