How to plan your time mindfully?

Do you feel like your day doesn’t have enough hours? Do you feel like you never complete all your “To Do’s”? Now’s the moment to change: How to plan your time mindfully?

Today’s blog is an additional concept or actually an important previous step to the articles I wrote around how to integrate more mindfulness into our day and time management. If you haven’t read the others, take a look at “How to live in the moment in our agenda society” (click here) and “How to manage your expectations” (click here). Despite these intentions to manage our time effectively, I’ve had many conversations with people around how our flow is still often disrupted – mainly because of unexpected events or because things take more time than anticipated. By the end of the day, we feel drained and “behind”. And half of the tasks need to go on the next day’s list. How can we improve this?

As Rick Warren wisely said, “Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money, but you can’t make more time.”
Today, I’d like you to focus on the mindfulness aspect: Observe without judging. I invite you to take a step back and look (back) at your day with more awareness. I have realized that before we can manage our expectations and plan our agenda, it’s crucial to monitor how long we actually spend with each activity. What does this look like in practice? Ask yourself these three questions:

• How long do I take for each activity?
  I recommend to track this especially for tasks that are important to you but that you never seem to have enough time for. Start by noting the time when you begin, and then record how long it actually takes to complete the task. This applies to work-related activities, your wellness routine (eg. going to the gym or for walk), meal breaks, reading, studying, quality time with loved ones, hobbies etc. Reflect: Does the time spent align with what I expected – or hoped – would happen? I believe we often cause ourselves unnecessary stress because we underestimate how long certain things take. When we plan more time for each activity and to be fully in the moment – especially when we enjoy a certain activity – we feel less rushed, and the next task doesn’t feel like it’s already looming over us.
  
  
• How did I spend my time today and how do I feel about my day?
  What activities did I complete? What were the highlights of my day? Which activities made me feel motivated, and which ones did I keep postponing or procrastinating? How much time did I spend procrastinating, and how did I use that time? How much of my day did I spend on social media? What tasks did I not have in my agenda that actually took up a part of my day eg. household responsibilities, time in transport, reading interesting articles, preparation time, journaling or just reflecting. (More insights in the article “How to prepare mindfully“: click here). How do I feel about my time management today? All these questions are necessary to get closer to the next point.
  
  
• What does an ideal day look like for me?
  Perfection doesn’t exist. But if you could design your preferred day – one filled with the activities you truly want to focus on – What would that day include? How would you structure it? How much time would you dedicate to each activity? And the next questions are: What do you need to learn, do, or adapt to make this day a reality? Is there someone you can ask for help, or perhaps something you could delegate? Believe that it’s possible to bring this vision to life, and start with these questions (just observing, feeling, writing your thoughts down without judging) – they are the first steps to make it happen.
  
  
  To sum up:
  If we want to be more mindful, enjoy the moment and live with less stress – we need to observe: To change our agenda, we need to know what is actually on our table. An alternative to point 1 and 2 is that you take a big blank paper (you can also do this exercise on your electronic device, I just personally prefer hand-writing) and write down all the activities and tasks of your whole week. You might want to categorize your paper in areas: Work tasks, home duties, quality time with loved ones, hobbies, health routines, personal development etc. We (hopefully all) sleep about 8 hours so we have 16 hours a day, 112 hours a week. Why do we sometimes act and plan as if we had 140 hours? I’m sure you’ll be surprised once you start observing.