How I Get Things Done

I wrote a post about productivity a few days ago but I thought I'd go a little more in depth. I'm not a productivity guru by any means. I'm just trying to show another way of getting things done.

Maybe you have a great system in place already or maybe you've been trying things out and this might be just what you were looking for. I don't know. My current plan will probably change but it works for this season of life that I'm in.

The first thing I do is front load my week. That may sound odd and it certainly makes Mondays and Tuesdays a little bit busy, especially since I don't do email or texting on Sundays. It has advantages for me though.

By putting more things earlier in the week, I have them in my head sooner and when things come up, as they invariably do, I don't have to stress about getting it done in time. In addition, I know that I don't actually have to get all those things done on Monday and Tuesday. I plan to and if it happens, great! But if it doesn't happen, I know I have time later in the week to get it done. This sounds kind of vague, so let me give you an example.

I lead a girls' group that meets once a month. I don't like to plan out my lesson too far in advance because I want in fresh in my mind. So the week before our meeting, I plan to sit down and work on the lesson. I'll put it on my planner for Monday or Tuesday, to at least start on it. Let's pretend that instead, I was planning out my week and put it on Thursday. I didn't think about it until Thursday and then something came up and I never got to it. Friday was already a busy day and I had stuff all weekend. Now we are at Monday of the week of the meeting and I haven't planned my lesson. I have three days to get it done and two of those are busy days. See the stress?

This ;might sound like a complete contradiction of the previous paragraphs, but I try to only schedule a few "big" things per day. I might have a day with seven or eight things written in, but they are all small, quick things, that won't take much time. It looks like I have a lot to do, but realistically, I could knock them all out in an hour or two. Then there are days where I only have three things written down, but they are time-consuming. The reason I try to keep it to only a few items per day (a trick I learned from Phylicia Masonheimer) is so that when something unexpected comes up, my whole plan for the day and the week is not thrown out the window.

There are still times when I get a little stressed and things get complicated. No planning or productivity will ever eliminate problems. But if you can find a system that works well for you at your stage of life, so that you can get things done yet still have breathing room, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how nice life is.

Do you have a system in place that you love? How does it work? I'd love to hear about it and other people might like to know about it too!