Craft Your Ideal Schedule: Tips to Create Your Intentional Schedule and Master Your Time
Do you ever feel like there are not enough hours in the day? You may have ambitions and goals that you want to accomplish, but it can be difficult to find the time to make them happen. If you want to take control of your schedule and maximize your productivity, creating an intentional and optimized schedule is a great place to start. Crafting your ideal schedule requires some thought, planning, and flexibility, but it is certainly worth the effort. With an intentional schedule, you can not only accomplish your goals but also make time for relaxation and self-care. This blog will provide you with tips to help you craft your ideal schedule and optimize your time.
Benefits of creating an intentional schedule
Creating an intentional schedule has many benefits. First, it will help you to define and prioritize your goals while staying aligned with your values. Next, it will help you to assess your current schedule to see if it is aligned with your goals. If not, you can then make adjustments to bring your schedule into alignment.
If you need help clarifying your values you can snag my free Core Values Workbook here.
An intentional ideal schedule will also help you to identify areas of your schedule that need improvement. It will also help you to maximize your time by allowing you to plan ahead and be as efficient as possible.
An intentional schedule will also help you to feel more in control of your time and your life.
You will know exactly how you desire to spend your days, when you are meeting with clients, and how much time you have to do it.
An intentional schedule will also help you to avoid the problem of over scheduling and over committing, which can often lead to stress and overwhelm. It will also help you to avoid the problem of under committing, which can lead to feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and frustration.
An intentional schedule will also help you to avoid the problem of procrastination, which can lead to feelings of shame, guilt, and frustration. With an intentional schedule, you will be more motivated to get started on your work, knowing that you have cultivated your schedule on your terms.
Steps to creating your ideal schedule
In order to craft your ideal schedule, you first need to understand your values and goals. What are your top values and what are your top goals? Next, consider your strengths and your energy cycles. What are your strengths? What are your energy cycles? You may also want to consider your weaknesses and barriers to productivity. Are there certain times of day when you are more productive than others? Are there certain times of day when you are less productive than others? What hours of the day do you need to focus on non-work-related tasks such as cleaning, grocery shopping, paying bills, scheduling doctor’s appointments, etc.? What hours of the day do you need quiet time? What hours of the day do you have commitments such as family time, child care, etc.? What hours of the day do you have tasks that need to be completed? Are there certain days of the week where you have more commitments than others? What days of the week are best for completing tasks? What hours of the day do you have bandwidth for extra-curricular activities like classes, volunteering, or any other activities that are important to you? What hours of the day do you want to dedicate to rest and self-care? Do you want to create a schedule with daily, weekly, or monthly rhythms? Do you want to create a hybrid schedule with some elements of a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule? Do you want to create a strict or loose schedule? Do you want to create a flexible schedule?
It is your schedule so the options are endless.
Theme Days
Theme days are days where you focus on specific types of tasks or activities. For example, you may want to dedicate one day to focusing on socializing and strengthening your social connections, one day to focusing on self-improvement, etc. You may also want to dedicate one day to family-related tasks such as helping with homework, spending time with family, grocery shopping, etc. You may want to dedicate one day to work-related tasks such as catching up on emails, attending meetings, working on long-term projects, etc. You may want to dedicate one day to rest and self-care such as taking a break from technology, getting enough sleep, relaxation, etc. You may want to dedicate one day to miscellaneous tasks such as paying bills, organizing your home, etc.
These are just a few suggestions to get the theme day creativity flowing.
Prioritizing tasks
I love the saying that if everything is important than nothing is important. It is essential to prioritize your time and what you give your energy to. You may want to create a to-do list where you prioritize your tasks according to their importance, urgency, and/or interest. Typically, not everything that is on your list is actually urgent. I love doing these prioritizing sessions with sticky notes. I will brain dump during my Sunday Success Session on all the ideas, tasks, and separate them out based on urgent, delegate, or to-do.
Here is a reel to see a peek behind the scenes of my Sunday Success Session
Scheduling breaks or blocks
Here are some ideas around this to possibly consider incorporating into your ideal schedule. You may want to schedule short brain breaks every hour or every 30–45 minutes to help you to avoid procrastination and increase your productivity. You may want to schedule longer blocks of time to complete specific tasks such as cleaning your home, doing household repairs, etc. You may want to schedule longer blocks of time to rest and relax. I suggest you really look back at what your discovered through the values workbook or what you know is important to you and intentionally block of time for this.
Scheduling time for self-care and fun
Fun and Joy should be non-negotiable. Her are some ideas.
You may want to schedule time for self-care and rest throughout your day or week. I do this on Friday to help with the transition of the work week to weekend. It lets me refuel and best show up as the intentional mom and wife that I desire to be.
Pro Tip : Open your notes in your phone and brain dump simple, low cost, easily accessible things that bring your joy that you can access at any time. Personally, it is my favorite soda, hype playlist, or a walk in nature.
How to stay consistent
When you first start creating an intentional and optimized schedule, it can be easy to get discouraged when you are not able to stick to it. In order to stay consistent with your new schedule, there are a few things that you can do. First, when you are creating your schedule, try to be as realistic as possible. Second, write down your schedule and post it somewhere visible so that you can monitor your progress and stay accountable. Third, reward yourself when you are able to stick to your schedule. Fourth, don’t be too hard on yourself when you are not able to stick to your schedule. Being consistent with your schedule can be challenging, but it is worth the effort.
I am a huge fan of my 15-minuets of intentional focus. This is daily set aside time to pre-pave my day ahead and helps me remain consistent in working inside the frameworks I have cultivated.
Automating and Delegating tasks
These are two of my most favorite words in business.
If you want to learn how to master your time, money, and energy then this my friend is your secret recipe.
You may want to automate tasks such as scheduling social media posts, creating consistent content, cleaning up your email inbox, etc. You may want to delegate tasks to other people. You may want to delegate tasks to your partner, a family member, a friend, etc. You may want to delegate tasks to your assistants, employees, or virtual assistants. Using a calendar that works for you
Pick a platform to master your time
You may want to use a paper planner. You may want to use a digital planner. You may want to use a combination of both a paper and digital planner. My personal favorite is Artful Agenda and I even have a referral code if you want to give it a spin, (code: RD561681) You may want to use a combination of several calendars which is my preference and why I use Artful Agenda.
If you found this helpful I would love to know also if you are not already in my free Facebook community Ladies Conquering Goals then join for more tips, free live trainings, first updates on things I am working on, and a place to share, connect, and conquer your goals alongside amazing women.
Lastly, if you are looking for support in your business and want to explore working with me as your business strategist then apply here for your free strategy and connection call.
Danielle Throckmorton is a business strategist, coach, speaker and luxury retreat host. A two-time NextGen Under 30 award winner, Danielle now offers business strategy and coaching services to female entrepreneurs through 1:1 mentoring, workshops and retreats.