Tips For Staying On Track Throughout The Day

[caption id="attachment_3701" align="alignleft" width="277" caption="Google Calender"][/caption]

How often do you lay in bed, think about tomorrow and plan out your day? Fairly often? Ok, now, how many times does that day turn out exactly like how you planned? Here are some tips for staying on track, being productive and crossing things off your daily routine list:

I wake up every morning and start writing, which is fine, but then I get engrossed by other work, or email, or anything else—and I'll skip right past breakfast, showering, and my morning workout. Before I know it, it's 1 PM and I'm an unshowered, pajama-clad internet junkie with a stomachache.

While that particular example doesn't apply to everyone (like those that work in an a real office), various combinations of "more pressing" matters can distract anyone from their daily routine. Maybe you end up working right through lunch at the office, or maybe you end up staying awake til 2 AM every night looking at funny cat pictures. I've found that calendaring the important-but-easily-dismissed events in my daily routine—that is, setting specific times at which I drop everything to eat, shower, exercise, do laundry, and so on—has kept me on track in a way that I never manage to do on my own. Here's how I lay it all out.

How to Use Your Calendar

I use Google Calendar to manage everything, but you can use whatever calendar app you want—though the ability to sync with your phone is a major plus. In addition, remember that while you probably already have a full calendar, today's digital calendars don't require you to view all your calendars at once. So, get used to looking at calendars individually: when you need to see the day's irregular meetings and deadlines, you can view that calendar on its own, without this new "daily routine" calendar cluttering it up. When you need to work on your "Daily Routine" calendar, you can view it on its own too (though you can probably hide it most of the time). It also works nicely for scheduling things around your already-existing routine, since you can view them both together.

To set it up, open your calendar app of choice and create a new calendar. I called mine "Daily Routine". Next, create a new event. We'll use "Eat Lunch" as an example. Again, I realize this is a very basic starting, and if you've never accidentally worked through lunch, you may not want to add it to your Daily Routine calendar. Think about those things you want to do daily or every couple of days that you manage never to get done (more on this in the next section).

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