8am: sit down at your desk, check some emails
9am: get pulled into a meeting about something that has nothing to do with your job
Whoops, it’s lunch time.
1pm: review notes from yesterday’s to-do list, start 3 different projects
Aaaand now it’s time to go pick up the kids.
Ever had a day like that? Where, at the end of it, you feel like you know you were working all day but didn’t get anything accomplished that you wanted to?
As working moms, we know the importance of efficiency in our days, right? We know that we have a limited amount of working hours (that could get cut down at any moment if a kiddo gets sick) so we have to make sure that we’re using them wisely.
I’m going to give you 5 tips for your most productive day and tell you how to weed through the things that are making it a lot harder on you to have intentional priorities at work. Let’s shift from busy to productive.
1. Ask yourself, "What am I producing today?"
You should be asking yourself this question every day. This is the main key to making the shift from busy to productive because we often don’t have enough clarity around what we’re trying to accomplish.
You should have a specific, actionable, list of deliverables for your day. If you don’t, that’s when you end up floundering and doing a lot of things, with nothing getting accomplished.
2 . Plan Your Day The Night Before.
Science has shown that when you make your to-do list for the next day right before you go to bed, your brain actually starts working on your next tasks while you sleep! This goes for mom-life too! Before you leave work, sketch out what your needs are for the next day and then re-read them right before bed.
Hear me when I say this: don’t obsess over it. If thinking about your to-do list before bed stresses you out or keeps you up, don’t do it! Make your list the day before so you can hit the ground running and then be done with it!
3. Plan For Your Energy Levels: Make sure you're scheduling your to-do's for the right time of day for you to complete each task based on your energy levels and habits. Super creative-heavy brainstorming meeting right after lunch? Prob not your best bet.
Hot tip: This doesn’t have to stay just in your day to day planning. Pay attention to when your cycle will be and plan around it. Don’t schedule any high energy tasks or events (like long meeting days or video recording sessions) on the days right before or starting your period. You can thank me later.
4 . Every Item On Your To-Do List Must Be Actionable.
It's really important to write your tasks in the form of ACTIONS you can take. For example: "Clean Garage" is not a specific action, it describes a goal. Instead, you should have a list of tasks that you need to complete to accomplish your goal of cleaning the garage. In this example, you would write things like "dispose of old paint cans", "schedule an appointment to have the refrigerator picked up with City Recycling", "sweep the garage floor."
This is important for two reasons: so you know exactly what you need to do to achieve your goal AND so that you can identify when you're done.
So instead of “yearly reviews” on your calendar, you’re going to make sure you have listed all the scheduling and researching that will go into that for each person you need to review. Give yourself easy wins by actually giving yourself more to do on your list–but easier to cross off! But also…
5 . Cut Your Daily Task List By 30%.
We often overestimate what we can achieve in a day. Until you get really comfortable with figuring out how long it takes you to complete your routines and project tasks, you should audit your plan for the day and cut your to-do list down by 30%.
Lastly, let’s chat about what we, here at Modern Mommy Doc, call Contaminators. These are the things you have to do or maybe even want to do, but they don’t fall within the bounds of your centered life–even at work.
These are tasks or commitments that fill up your schedule but don’t actually have to be accomplished. At your job, they eat up your time and keep you unnecessarily busy. This could be meetings that you don’t really need to be at, but somehow you always get added to. Or even something that you love like a “women of the office lunch” that always turns into a three hour sesh.
Things both good and bad can be time sucks.
The solution: Perform a monthly audit to determine where you feel overwhelmed and stretched too thin. Commit to creating a physical environment and daily schedule that gives you space for reflection, re-evaluation, and mindful presence.
And then stick to it!
Because when you have breathing room at work, that lets you have breathing room at home. And then you can really start living that
Centered Life.
