For most of us, time management is a far-fetched goal, rather than a reality. We’re juggling a million balls – and all of them are made of glass.
I’m a bit obsessed with time management (so much so that I started my own intuitive planner, Forzeit), and I think I’ve cracked the code to successful time management: templates. I made a video about how I use templates to plan my entire week – from my to-do list to my weekly plans and important tasks, and I want to share that with you as well.
Because let’s face it: most of us don’t have the time to spend hours planning every detail of our weeks every Monday morning.
The plannning conundrum
There are two major issues that hinder time management: planning taking too long, and overplanning. I want to focus on the first issue today. But keep an eye out, because I’ll have a post on how to help you avoid scheduling too many tasks soon!
We all know that planning is the key to success, but the truth is that it’s simply not a priority. I get it! When you have a business and a family and a life, your precious free time is most likely not spent planning. Which means most of us end up with a subpar weekly schedule.
Well, whoever said you can’t have your cake and eat it too was wrong, because you can! At least, you can if having your cake means saving time and eating it too means still having a good weekly schedule.
the superhero: templates
This is where templates come in. Most of us have a lot of recurring events that carry on from week to week. That annoying Monday meeting, your child’s soccer practice, your grocery shopping day, your meal planning, your yoga session . . . you get it.
So, instead of writing or typing these things in your weekly schedule time and time again, why not have a template that allows you to simply add these repeatable tasks and take the effort out of it?
You can still have a to-do list that changes depending on what you need to do on a specific day or week, but your weekly tasks will already be scheduled in your upcoming week thanks to your template.
here's how it works
- Identify repeatable elements: Figure out which tasks repeat each day or on the same day each week. Prioritise tasks that recur every week.
- Create your template: use whatever tool or weekly planning app you like to create a template based on these elements (I, of course, recommend Forzeit, but I might be slightly biased). Think of these templates as frameworks so that you don’t need to start your weeks from scratch every time.
- Integrate calendar events: Forzeit allows you to integrate your calendar event with your template, but if your templating app isn’t as cool as that, simply manually add these in to ensure you have the full picture.
- Iterate and optimise: your life isn’t static, so your template shouldn’t be either. Make sure to regularly check in to see where you can finetune your template. Look at your past week, and think of ways to effectively plan your week ahead.
benefits beyond saving time
If the idea of saving heaps of time isn’t enough to convince you to use templates in your weekly planning, there are a few other things that might bring you over to my side.
- Improved focus: if you have a template, you can spend more time doing what actually matters instead of trying to set up a weekly plan.
- Consistency: you’re much more likely to stick to new habits if you have them in your templates! They’ll form part of daily planning and weekly routine.
- Adaptability: your template is a base. You don’t need to follow it to a T. If you have a week that’s very different from the norm, remove the parts of your template that aren’t relevant for that week and get back to your normal weekly routine the following week.
in conclusion
Templates are life-changing when it comes to planning, and I for one don’t know why more people don’t utilise them!
Seriously, if you haven’t already tried it, please do. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s fine, but I’m willing to bet you’re going to wish you’d discovered this method of planning much sooner! It will help you complete tasks effectively, set achievable weekly goals, and balance your professional and personal life.