How to Effectively Plan Your Day the Night Before
Do you want to be productive and organized everyday? It starts with planning the night before.
For this blog post in video form, please head to my YouTube channel or check the bottom of this post.
We often don’t realize that the key to having productive days is planning, and that means planning before the day even starts. I have shared these three tips with clients, in my book and speeches and many people are surprised how easy they are to incorporate into your daily life.
1. make organizing a priority
Take 10 minutes at the end of each day to plan for the next day. Do this for 21 days and then it will be a habit.
2. Don’t over-plan your day
Rather than getting overwhelmed or discouraged from a too-full calendar, focus on your key, big picture priorities and make sure you have 3-5 tasks you want to accomplish the next day
3. Lay out your clothes
Each night, I lay out my outfit for the next day. This helps start my day in an organized way and with a lot less stress. This is especially important if you also need to deal with young kids, or if you workout first thing in the morning. Having your clothes laid out will give you one less excuse to not go to the gym, and will hopefully help motivate you.
Whatever your life situation: planning your outfit the night before will give you the extra time you need to collect your thoughts for the day ahead.
One of the biggest productivity wasters for women can be attributed to the amount of time we spend worrying about what we are wearing instead of focusing on our business. We want to look put-together in business settings, and if you know that your wrinkled skirt is really going to bother you, you need to find a way to ensure your skirt won’t be wrinkled to avoid this distraction (or if you feel uncomfortable in a blouse because you could not find the one you usually wear). These examples can lead to obsessing over our appearance instead of whatever work it is you’re meant to be doing, which can be avoided by having a laser-focused closet to begin with. employing the 80/20 rule and making sure that 80% of the clothes you wear are not only accessible in your closet but fit your lifestyle. We usually spend 80% of our time in our “business-related attire”, whatever that may be, but make sure you have the correct type of clothes for your business so that you’re not worrying about this, and then make sure it is front and centre.
Now you have my top 3 tips to plan the night before. Next week I will be talking about time tracking and how to get the most out of our precious time, including reviewing time management from CEO’s — if they can time manage, so can we!
