6 Ways to Take Control of Your Day

1. Actually USE your Calendar

Make your calendar a place where you schedule EVERYTHING. Be that crazy person that schedules what time you’re going to brush your teeth, when to have lunch, when you’re going out for a walk (do people still do that?). This will help block out chunks of time so that you don’t end up underestimating how long you’re going to spend doing a task…or not doing a task. That feeling that you get when you feel like you can’t keep up with yourself during the day and it’s already 7:30PM?— it’s because you didn’t put everything in your calendar.

2. Give Yourself Time Between Tasks (But Not Too Much Time)

If you have a meeting from 10:30 to 11:30, don’t assume that the next task begins at 11:30. Schedule tasks with a 10 minute window in between to let your mind adjust or to physically get yourself from one situation (or web browser) to another. Suddenly switching from one task to another can confuse your brain and actually make you less productive.

3. Build Good Habits

If there’s something you want to make a habit, put it in your calendar at the same time every day. Want to be that person who drinks 8 cups of a water a day? Schedule it. It will become a habit.

4. Be on Time

Being late is unacceptable. Your ability to be on time says a lot about you, and you don’t want to turn off a potential client by showing them you don’t respect them enough to be simply arrive on time. It doesn’t matter what you were doing pre-meeting, there is no such thing as fashionably late. 15 minutes early is the new “on time”.

5. Change Up Your Environment

Try taking a walking meeting. Getting up from your desk to “walk and talk” can be that unplugged moment that inspires you to think freely and more outside of the box. Seriously, recent research shows that walking leads to increases in creative thinking. Do you need a better reason than that?

6. Start The Morning With Your Most Difficult Task

I know it sounds terrible, but take the morning to tackle the daunting tasks that you won’t have the energy for later. It feels great to have the hard stuff behind you, and that feeling of success will propel you through the rest of the day.