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When you look at the day in front of you, it’s easy to think you have a very busy day planned. You have emails to respond to, a staff meeting in the morning, maybe a lunch meeting and you need to buy cat food at some point in the afternoon. Your day looks cluttered, so you think it’s jam packed. but really that’s all it is - clutter. If your day was better laid out, you’d be amazed at how much time is freed up.

A simple trick anyone can use — at work, in school, or even during the grace period after graduation while you’re looking for work — is to come up with a plan. Make a template in Excel with three columns that breaks your day down by the hour (the left-most column), task (in the middle) and comments/reactions (to the right). Save the template to your desktop and open it every morning when you get up or get to work and fill it out for the day in front of you.

photo credit: quinn.anya

Most importantly, be honest. Schedule in down time and a lunch break (if you get one). If you don’t have something planned for an hour, leave it blank. And, once your schedule is complete, stick to it. If you schedule responding to and writing emails for 1:00-2:00pm, only check your email during that hour. If you planned to write and mail cover letters from 9:00-11:00am, write and mail your cover letters from 9:00-11:00am and nothing else.

Once you see your schedule right in front of you, broken down by the hour, you’ll be amazed at how seemingly busy, stressful days work themselves out, and you will see just how much time you waste each day by lacking focus. By scheduling your day every morning and sticking to it, you’ll free up more time to be more productive.

Technorati Tags: career, productive, schedule, self improvement, college, graduation, real world

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