How I Plan My Day

Posted onAuthorJoyce Moy

I love when people do “Ask Me Anything” question boxes on Instagram. It’s fun to get to know more or less random facts about people or what they think about a topic. For this blog series, I will be responding to some questions that folks have asked me in the past few months. There is a variety of topics like decluttering, planning, homeschooling, and more. In this blog post, I will respond to this question about how I plan:

How do you plan your day?

Quick Response

I plan my day very carefully, prayerfully, and thoughtfully.

A More Thoughtful Response

In order for me to plan my day, I have to have planned my year…more or less. I start with the big picture and then get into the details. Think of it as a funnel.

Once I have some yearly goals, I break them down into quarterly goals. Then, those quarterly goals become monthly goals, which become weekly goals, and those become my daily tasks. (I’ll have to do another post about goal-setting because that informs how I come up with my daily tasks.)

How I Plan My Day

After I review the past week during my Sunday afternoon Weekly Reset sessions, I note the goals for the upcoming week. I draft a list of five tasks for each of the three Weekly Goals. Each night after dinner, I use that list to plan for the next day. Here’s how my planning looks:

  1. Write out my Top 3 Tasks (or Daily Big 3 or Most Important Tasks).
  2. Fill in my schedule with Must-Do tasks like meals, meetings, appointments, chores, routine tasks, and other commitments. (Don’t worry, this includes fun things with family and friends too.)
  3. Add a list of other tasks I need/want to do. These are usually tasks that only take a few minutes like writing a card, or up to 15-30 minutes like planning for an upcoming trip. This list is informed by what my family has going on, projects I want to work on, and other similar tasks. The tasks on this list are usually not urgent, but I usually highlight the top 3 tasks that I’d like to get to first.
  4. In the morning, I look and pray over the plan and somewhat visualize what I will be doing. This helps me to make sure I have enough time to get ready to leave and account for traffic. It also helps me to see what prep needs to be done for meals.

Other Thoughts on Planning My Day

Obviously, planning is more involved than what I shared because there are many factors to our unique and individual lives. It may sound strict and rigid, but it’s really not. I have found so much freedom in having a plan that I can pray over. It allows me to leave some margin to be available for others and time for rest which helps me to show up to do my best work.

Of course, we will always live with at least a little bit of uncertainty because that’s life. There are lots of things that we don’t have control over. And sometimes, we pray and God moves us in a different direction. I hold the plans with open hands, but the plans help me to not sit idle or to waste precious time. This is not to say I don’t scroll the interwebs or play a game of quordle or ten from time to time, but I also (mostly) don’t wake up wondering why I didn’t do this or that like I wanted to. Planning also helps take the guesswork out of what’s next so I can conserve my brainpower for other important things.

Conclusion

If you’re new to planning, it might take longer to put together each day’s plans. Spending some time figuring out what your planning style is will make things go smoother in the long run. It took me awhile but now I have some processes and systems set up that help me automate what I need to do each day for each of my goals. I use Trello and Google Calendar but don’t knock a plain notepad and pen. My best tip for a newbie is to start with the Top 3 Tasks and then track what you actually do each day for a week or so, and then go from there.

How do your plan your day? What tools and resources do you use to plan your day? If you’re not a planner, but want to be, what questions do you have? How can I help?

Related:

*Note: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a tiny percentage if you make a purchase through my link at no extra cost to you. Read my disclosure policy here.