6 Simple Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Day

Hello, my lovely friends! Welcome back to another post! Time management is a hard skill to learn, but once you figure out how to make it work for you, you’ll find yourself getting a lot done. With the busyness of my senior year and juggling work, several classes, and extracurriculars, finding ways to make the best use of my time has been a must. It took a few stressful weeks, but I’m getting better at balancing my workload and getting everything done! There are several things that have made busy weeks go smoother, and I wanted to share them today to help you get the most out of your day.

use a planner

If you’re in high school, you’ve probably realized how essential a planner is by now. Between work, school deadlines, and other commitments, I need a planner and a calendar to keep myself organized and not overcommitted. What I like to do is spend an hour or so on Sunday afternoons, looking over what’s going on in the coming week and writing out my to-do list. Right now, I’m using a teacher planner that my mom didn’t need, but I love the idea of the New Chapter journals. On weekday mornings, I decide what I can/want to do that day and write a daily list. Doing these two things helps me keep track of my busy schedule and get done what I need to, without letting things slip through the cracks.

don’t multitask

Okay, I know that multitasking is a popular idea. Work on two or three things at once, and you’ll finish sooner, right? Wrong. Multitasking doesn’t help you finish your list sooner because you aren’t focused. When you multitask, your brain jumps from one thing to another, and you get tired faster because your brain isn’t meant to concentrate on more than one job at a time. Instead of trying to conquer several things at once, pick the most important task and start there. Which brings me to my next point:

do things in order of importance

Have you ever made a list, planning to do everything on it, and then get overwhelmed by how long it is? Instead of getting everything done, you start with the easy, short tasks. Then at the end of the day, all that’s left are the hard and time-consuming jobs. I’ve done this countless times and every time I tell myself that next time, I’ll do better. How to get the whole list finished? Number everything in order of importance. It’s that simple! Say your list looks like this:

• Fold and put away laundry
• Pack for vacation
• Practice piano and guitar
• Go for a run
• Help Mom with canning
• Email Sadie
• Finalize Sunday School lesson

Helping with the canning would probably be an all day job, so I’d put that anywhere. I think that the laundry and Sunday School lesson are most important. So if we put the list in order of importance, it might look like this:

• Fold and put away laundry
• Finalize Sunday School lesson
• Help Mom with canning
• Practice piano and guitar
• Pack for vacation
• Go for a run
• Email Sadie

listen to music

When I’m home alone and have a long list of things to do, I love turning on my favorite music and singing along while I’m working. My favorite artists to listen to are Leanna Crawford, Tobymac, and for King and Country. If you use Spotify, check out the daylist playlist in your music library! It’s a specially curated playlist that refreshes every few hours. Some of mine have been “fortress collage evening” and “introspective theater early afternoon.”

wake up early to get a head start

I’m not a morning person, but getting up early to start my day is something I’ve been trying. There’s something about being the only one awake, making a London Fog (my favorite fall drink!) and working on my list. I’d recommend trying this for a few days even if you aren’t a morning person! Once I’m awake and downstairs, it’s easier to get busy. A few tips: set more than one alarm (maybe 6:00, 6:15, and 6:20), make it hard to hit the snooze button (put your phone/device across the room), and lay out your outfit the night before so you can just roll out of bed and get ready for the day.

be flexible and realistic

this might possibly be the most important tip here. When you’re going about your day, tackling your list, remember to be flexible. There are days when you won’t get to everything on your list, and that’s okay! One of my favorite nonfiction authors, Donna Partow, likes to use the 80/20 rule.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, is a concept that many have adopted for their life and time management. It is the idea that 20% of the effort, or input, leads to 80% of the results or output. The point of this principle is to recognize that most things in life are not distributed evenly.

-Simply Psychology

Donna applies this rule to time management by doing the 20% of tasks that will bring 80% of satisfaction. So rather than doing all the easy things on your list and always leaving the harder things for the next day, pick 3-4 of the jobs with the most importance. By starting with those, even if the rest of your list ends up waiting for the next day, you’ll feel a greater sense of accomplishment because you got the #1 priorities done. When I tried this idea, I was honestly surprised at how well it works!

There will also be days where unexpected things come up. Your mom needs you to watch your siblings while she runs errands. The power went out and you can’t do laundry.

final thoughts

I hope some of these tips inspire you and help you feel more productive! One of my favorite books, Atomic Habits, talks about starting small and building up. Start with one or two of these tips, and as you make them a habit, add another one. If you try to do everything all at once, you’ll end up frustrated and not getting anything done. (Trust me, I’ve learned from experience 😅) Most importantly though, have fun! You might learn that you are a morning person after all.