Plan Ahead

One of the most powerful tools for gaining more control over your life and increasing your productivity is plan your day the night before. Decide what you want/need to accomplish. Take on the Girl Scout’s motto, “Be Prepared” as a way to keep yourself on track. Planning ahead is one of the best and easiest ways to create better work/life balance.

Decide the night before exactly what you are going to accomplish during that first critical, uninterrupted hour of the day. Ask yourself, If tomorrow gets cluttered with a chain of emergencies what one task would I be thrilled to tackle? In other words, what can I do to earn my salary by 10 A.M.? Deciding the night before will give you an opportunity to think it over in your sleep and on your way to work.

By creating your to do list the night before, you can start your day running. You don’t waste your precious hour figuring out what you should do. You know exactly what you’re going to do and in what order. If you have three telephone calls to make, you would then have them organized in order of importance with phone numbers, the names of the people and all the supporting material at hand. By midmorning, you would be way ahead of most people who waste the first half of the day clearing their desk, making lists, finding the necessary paperwork—in other words, just getting to work. Try it.


An enormous amount of time is lost wondering what to do next. Without a clear plan you don’t know. The best to get your work done is to have a plan for your day or week that determines when you will do what. A to-do that not connected to a when doesn’t get done. When you plan your day you find that time stretches—you’re suddenly able to get much more done, yet you feel calmer. You can focus with confidence in the moment in the knowledge that there is a time and place for your other responsibilities. Having a plan frees you from confusion and distraction over what you should do next or anxiety about what you might be missing.