About twice a year, I've gone through the process of trying to structure my mornings. Interestingly enough, about twice a year, I get really down on myself for having strayed off of that process.
I'm sure you and I can both list off 100 reasons/excuses/explanations for why we abandon our attempts at structuring our lives. What we should look though is not what came up to stop us, but why we let things stop us from waking up early, having a morning routine, and getting work done.
What I've discovered is that your calendar is a lot like your bedroom. It's a physical representation of what is going on in your head. If it's messy, clean, full of useless stuff, you can bet that your life or what's going on in your head is mirroring that too.
With a calendar though, it goes a step deeper.
You see, a calendar is not just the present. It's the future.
That means while your life can be completely messed up and disorganized now, a proper use of a calendar means that your future might not have to be so.
It's a place that goes beyond good intentions, and hope for a good day, but it's where you can literally reshape how your future day week or month is going to turn out.
That's pretty powerful stuff.
Part of what makes a calendar with your day planned out so much of an influence on you, is that unlike a good intention, or a thought... a calendar doesn't change.
It stays constant while our minds in the moment get affected by outside influences, peer pressure, and distractions.
Decisions you make in the past, are now decisions you don't have to make in the future.
That last line was important. So let's go deeper into that:
Part of the reason we're so disorganized all the time is that we are trying to be a superhero, when we're just ordinary men and women. We have limited headspace, memory, and willpower. We suck at multitasking, and every study you can find shows we absolutely suck at estimating how long it takes to do things.
When you organize your day/week/month ahead of time. You skip past all of the stupid things that pop up into your head that get you off track.
A calendar doesn't give you more hours in the day. It reduces the amount of things you have to remember in a day, so you can focus more on what you're doing.
We want to feel in control
there is a well known saying that if you want to be a leader, you need to first be a servant. A leader isn't about being the boss and telling people what to do. It's about serving the people you are supposed to lead.
Likewise, if you want to be in control of your life, you have to first give up some control. Humans like to make decisions. We like to feel we have the power. And a calendar takes that power of choice away from us.
And that's a good thing.
There are cool studies that talk about the paradox of choice.
We don't get to decide what we want to do or work on at 2:00pm. Because most likely we'll decide to check for "important updates" on Facebook, or worry about responding to some important, but not urgent emails that will derail our day.
My own personal struggle, has been exactly that. I run a marketing company, and during the day I'm constantly switching tasks to what I FEEL is the most important thing. (in my life... everything is incredibly important) So I needed to schedule out my mornings so that the bulk of the important stuff is done before 10-11am, so during the day, I can focus more on my team and my clients, and not all the other important stuff.
What works for you might be slightly different.
I'm not here to tell you the best way to organize your day. There are people way better at explaining that like Thomas Frank, or you know.... Google.
But I am just the messenger to remind you that if you are feeling disorganized, or lacking some control in your life... that literally almost every successful person (not just money success, but people we look up to success) I know or have met, says the same thing:
We need to set our intentions for the day, time block our day. Schedule it.
And if you're like me, and having trouble scheduling your day, maybe take a step back and ask yourself why. Maybe it's like me and you have trouble wanting to give up control of your decisions. Maybe it's an ego thing that you think you're pretty good at making decisions. (reality check. you're probably not)
Whatever it is, if you're looking to make a big change in your life, I assert that unless it gets into your calendar written down, it's not going to happen.
If you're looking for some practical guides on productivity, look no further than youtube. I like Thomas Frank for a very analytical breakdown of productivity, but there are many other youtubers that have covered this topic.
