We currently find ourselves in an environment where our psychology and our emotional well-being have a major importance. This is why we are offering you today a simple yet imperative psycho tip for June 14: Plan your day by establishing a list of tasks to accomplish!
Clearly define your daily ambitions
Each day offers its share of missions to accomplish, whether they are professional or personal tasks. Patients in psychopathology, parents grappling with children’s concerns, delegates preparing for a congress, everyone has their own battle to fight. Thus, it is necessary to establish at the beginning of your day, a clear list of your ambitions, as if you were preparing a real application. They must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
- Specific: They should not be vague or ambiguous, avoid generic terms that do not imply any concrete action.
- Measurable: You should be able to quantify or at least assess the progress of your goal.
- Achievable: Don’t set the bar too high, your goals should be ambitious but realistic.
- Relevant: Your mission should have meaning and value to you or your work
- Time-framed: Having a deadline provides a precise framework for your daily ambitions
The importance of a structured program
Once you have clearly defined your desires for the day, it is essential to determine the schedule that will lead you there. Think of projects that you can divide into small tasks. Assign them a priority order: What is urgent? What will take the most time? It is similar to a telecommunication package- you have a limited set of data (in this case, time) that you must distribute wisely among your various tasks.
This plan must contain the following elements :
- Identify each mission and its place in the priority scale
- Break down tasks that seem enormous into smaller tasks
- Allocate time for each item
- Include breaks to avoid burnout
The psychology behind planning
Deleuze said, “There is no event, there are only acts”. In this perspective, your active involvement is essential for achieving the desires of the day. Modern psychiatry acknowledges the importance of an organized planning in maintaining a healthy mental state.
- Anticipatory processing: When we mentally anticipate an activity, our brain tries to predict possible outcomes and this allows for effective management of the unexpected.
- Sense of control: Planning gives a sense of control over the chaotic flow of daily life.
- Intrinsic motivation:With each task accomplished reducing the size of the mission list, a sense of satisfaction is felt which strengthens self-generated motivation.
- Stress management : The visually set daily program helps to ease anxiety by rationalizing your obligations.
Succeeding in its implementation
It’s not enough just to structure one’s ambitions and program, it’s especially necessary to be able to implement them. Beyond establishing priorities and determining tasks, there are a few tips that can increase your productivity.
- Start with the tasks that are priority and important
- Use time management techniques, such as the Pomodoro method.
- Stay flexible. If an unexpected event occurs, you can adjust your schedule accordingly.
For the morning profession of faith not to be in vain, don’t forget that forecasting also involves considering the unforeseen: leave free time slots that will allow for the inevitable unexpected events.
Useful tools for implementing your program
Many tools can assist you in designing and monitoring your daily tasks. This can range from a simple paper notebook to the most sophisticated digital task management programs.
- Notebooks: A good old notebook and a pen will suffice for most people. You can write down your ambitions, quickly sketch an outline of your day, and tick off the tasks you’ve accomplished.
- Digital Applications: There are numerous applications that help monitor productivity, like Asana or Todoist, which are perfect platforms to note, organize and track your daily tasks.
- Visual planning tools : The bullet journals, mind maps and other visual tools can be beneficial for people who have a predominantly visual thinking.
Make each day a success with planning !
To conclude this exploration on planning your days, let’s remember that it is primarily a tool at your service and not a constraint. Each day is a new opportunity to fulfill our ambitions, whether they are small or large. Therefore, it’s up to you to inject your dreams, desires and goals, and transform them into concrete actions through a well-structured program.