You might be wondering why a fitness website would have an article about productivity.
Many people struggle to “find the time” to workout consistently.
Years ago, I had the same struggle and eventually learned that my schedule would never magically clear up providing me with hours of extra time to dedicate to my fitness.
In this article, I’ll share with you the process I learned to make time for your fitness, or anything else you need to incorporate into your busy schedule.
Peter Drucker famously said there is nothing quite so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
If you aren’t crystal clear where you should be spending you time, I highly recommend you check out this post on Rocks, Pebbles and Sand. I’ve found this to be one of the most powerful exercises you can do both personally and professionally.
Once you’ve identified your most important projects (ROCKS), you’ll want to decide if you’ll work on each project simultaneously or if certain projects should be planned for different months.
Planning Your Week In Advance
Prior to your week starting, you’ll want to identify the Top 3 Things you need to accomplish for the week. Ideally, completing your Weekly Top 3 tasks would move you closer to achieving one or more of your Rocks.
Without question, everyone does significantly more than 3 things in a week, but this is about making time for what matters most.
Now that you’ve identified your Weekly Top 3, you’ll want to decide what day of the week you’ll work on each of these. If possible, you don’t want to work on more than one of your Weekly Top 3 on a given day.
There are more than 3 days in the week which allows you to spend more than one day in a given week on a particular task if needed.
Planning Your Day In Advance
When you plan your day the night before, it helps to alleviate feelings of overwhelm and it allows you to both sleep more peacefully and hit the ground running when you wake up.
Similar to your weekly planning, you’ll want to identify your Daily Top 3 Tasks and one of these (your Most Important Task) should be a task from your Weekly Top 3. Schedule the time on your daily calendar so you know when you’ll work on your Daily Top 3.
Use time-blocking (working on one project with zero distractions) for 45 to 90 minutes for your Most Important Task of the day.
This was initially very difficult for me but over time, I’ve been able to incorporate two separate time blocks into most of my days. Time blocking (shutting off social media, email and all other distractions) is an absolute game changer for your personal productivity
Daily Review
This should take less than 5 minutes daily and can be incorporated into the process of Planning Your Day In Advance.
Did you achieve your Daily Top 3 Tasks?
If you didn’t, what kept you from getting these accomplished? What can you do differently to successfully get these done?
Weekly Review
Use this as a tool to help you Plan Your Week In Advance.
Did you achieve your Weekly Top 3?
If you didn’t, what kept you from getting these accomplished? What can you do differently to successfully get these done?
Monthly Review
The Monthly Review is different from the Daily or Weekly Reviews. With this perspective, you’re simply looking at your trend and trajectory.
Over the last 4 weeks, how many times did you accomplish your Weekly Top 3 Tasks?
Score your month (from 0 to 4) so you can monitor your personal productivity on an ongoing basis.
At the end of every quarter, I recommend going through the process of identifying your Rocks. While there are several daily planners available, I’ve found the Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt to be the best planner for implementing this process.
What ultimately matters is that you find a system that works for you and allows you to spend more time on the things that matter most.
