So as you may know my schedule has had a dash of busy-ness injected into it in the form of a monday night college course.
It leaves me waylaid for time for the rest of the week.
Sundays and Mondays are usually my busiest days for exactly this reason, on Sundays I do a fuck tonne of laundry to set me up for the working week and on Mondays I leave the house at 7:15 and get home for half past 4. That's my work portion of my day done. Mondays allow me to have around 30 mins of house time interrupted, before I have to set off again at 5pm for my college class in the evening. My partner has stepped up his game on monday nights in order for me to just come home and eat, I am extra thankful for this as it allows me time to not worry about feeding us or tidying as Mondays he does a really good job on resetting the home.
Monday Schedule
Alarm 5:30
Get out of bed: 6:00am
Leave House: 7:15am
Lunch: 12:30- 1:15pm
Finish Work: 4pm
Arrive Home: 4:30
Set off for College: 5:00
Course: 5:30- 8pm
Get home for 8:30
Eat/Watch TV/ Read/Hobbies- 10pm- Bedtime
My secrets to sleeping well
I make sure I have a similar bedtime each night so I can successfully wake up recharged and willing to tackle the day. A lot of people get stuck over a regular bedtime scenario, yet still want to achieve a regular waking schedule, that means that sleep isn't regular and you can find yourself in a deficit if you're waking the same time on some nights with less sleep. I find to get up at 5:30 I will have to go to bed at 10, otherwise the 5:30 isn't achievable and my society and working life, dictates that morning hours are gonna be more productive to me than midnight hours.
I am very fortunate, to be able to go to sleep as soon as I get in bed, sleep is the best relationship I have ever had, I am very consistent. I don't have to try, I don't need to exhaust myself to sleep, and I don't oversleep. Sleep is good for me, because of one simple rule, I don't worry about it. I let my body do what it needs to do, and I trust it will do it.
Time Blocks
So already you know that my work day looks like 7:15 to 4:30- I consider commuting to and from work as work. That time monday to Friday is blocked out! Mondays- The college course 5:30-8pm is blocked out also. So is sleep. Everything else that I need to do, to live is also blocked out but isn't as permanent as work and college. I have a flexible schedule. I don't like rigidity when doing for myself, I just go with the flow. When I have children this will obviously change as parents have to account for their schedule too, but for everything that isn't fixed I aim to spread my other three categories (Study /Hobbies/Exercise) out over my mon-fri week. I like to leave my weekends as a free for all.
Create my TimbeBlocker
Get a Piece of A3- this is recommended as it allows you to see your time blocks better, and some post it notes- standard size. OR alternatively you can use THIS notice board from IKEA and print your timetable categories. Make either medium you use, paper or board, landscape in orientation
Paper Method
Write Mon, Tue, etc to Fri on your paper, equally spaced.
Underneath the days write the time you will wake up and at the end of the page, write the time you will go to bed. Block out your Work Time and any other "Commitments" that are none flexible. Courses/ PT sessions/ Dog Walks- everything that has fixed time that is set by others. Block this out with markers on the page. Make the borders stand out.
With your post it, place on your week what your flexible tasks are, the things that can be done at any time, mine is Study/Hobbies and exercise.
Board Method
Print on A4 Paper your Week Days- Mon-Friday
Pin them across the long top edge, remember your board should be landscape, You can either write or print your time block items. I printed e.g:
5 sets of 5:30's and 4:30's and 10pms as I knew these are my anchors for the time blocks.
I printed 5 lots of Work rectangles, a college rectangle, and a smaller version of study, hobbies and exercise. And of course I left a space for chill out.
To get this layout and change the wording you can download it from here
My rule here is, do at least one, never three. The work ones are going to shift if you do shifts, if you have a set time, they will stay in a set place. There's loads of blank space for you to doodle on, change the font, the colour, even the shape, but this document gives you a general idea of placement for optimal cutting and least wastage. Of course if you have families and children you can add their bath and bedtime routines as fixed times, and if you like to schedule your cleaning in you can do that also.
Another rule is, leave a bit for yourself. I find personally if I have a busy journal or week, I throw caution to the wind and everything gets waylaid and I just chill out for the week, leaving me with a physical bigger pile than what was mentally in my head.
When you are happy with your layout, take a picture of it! It's as simple as that! Then you will know what you have to do next, just look at your phone and there it is. Another thing you can do is, print the picture and prit-stic it in your BuJo. It can act as your weekly planner.
If you liked this productivity hack and you would like to see more, please leave a comment below!
It leaves me waylaid for time for the rest of the week.
Sundays and Mondays are usually my busiest days for exactly this reason, on Sundays I do a fuck tonne of laundry to set me up for the working week and on Mondays I leave the house at 7:15 and get home for half past 4. That's my work portion of my day done. Mondays allow me to have around 30 mins of house time interrupted, before I have to set off again at 5pm for my college class in the evening. My partner has stepped up his game on monday nights in order for me to just come home and eat, I am extra thankful for this as it allows me time to not worry about feeding us or tidying as Mondays he does a really good job on resetting the home.
Monday Schedule
Alarm 5:30
Get out of bed: 6:00am
Leave House: 7:15am
Lunch: 12:30- 1:15pm
Finish Work: 4pm
Arrive Home: 4:30
Set off for College: 5:00
Course: 5:30- 8pm
Get home for 8:30
Eat/Watch TV/ Read/Hobbies- 10pm- Bedtime
My secrets to sleeping well
I make sure I have a similar bedtime each night so I can successfully wake up recharged and willing to tackle the day. A lot of people get stuck over a regular bedtime scenario, yet still want to achieve a regular waking schedule, that means that sleep isn't regular and you can find yourself in a deficit if you're waking the same time on some nights with less sleep. I find to get up at 5:30 I will have to go to bed at 10, otherwise the 5:30 isn't achievable and my society and working life, dictates that morning hours are gonna be more productive to me than midnight hours.
I am very fortunate, to be able to go to sleep as soon as I get in bed, sleep is the best relationship I have ever had, I am very consistent. I don't have to try, I don't need to exhaust myself to sleep, and I don't oversleep. Sleep is good for me, because of one simple rule, I don't worry about it. I let my body do what it needs to do, and I trust it will do it.
Time Blocks
So already you know that my work day looks like 7:15 to 4:30- I consider commuting to and from work as work. That time monday to Friday is blocked out! Mondays- The college course 5:30-8pm is blocked out also. So is sleep. Everything else that I need to do, to live is also blocked out but isn't as permanent as work and college. I have a flexible schedule. I don't like rigidity when doing for myself, I just go with the flow. When I have children this will obviously change as parents have to account for their schedule too, but for everything that isn't fixed I aim to spread my other three categories (Study /Hobbies/Exercise) out over my mon-fri week. I like to leave my weekends as a free for all.
Create my TimbeBlocker
Get a Piece of A3- this is recommended as it allows you to see your time blocks better, and some post it notes- standard size. OR alternatively you can use THIS notice board from IKEA and print your timetable categories. Make either medium you use, paper or board, landscape in orientation
Paper Method
Write Mon, Tue, etc to Fri on your paper, equally spaced.
Underneath the days write the time you will wake up and at the end of the page, write the time you will go to bed. Block out your Work Time and any other "Commitments" that are none flexible. Courses/ PT sessions/ Dog Walks- everything that has fixed time that is set by others. Block this out with markers on the page. Make the borders stand out.
With your post it, place on your week what your flexible tasks are, the things that can be done at any time, mine is Study/Hobbies and exercise.
Board Method
Print on A4 Paper your Week Days- Mon-Friday
Pin them across the long top edge, remember your board should be landscape, You can either write or print your time block items. I printed e.g:
5 sets of 5:30's and 4:30's and 10pms as I knew these are my anchors for the time blocks.
I printed 5 lots of Work rectangles, a college rectangle, and a smaller version of study, hobbies and exercise. And of course I left a space for chill out.
My rule here is, do at least one, never three. The work ones are going to shift if you do shifts, if you have a set time, they will stay in a set place. There's loads of blank space for you to doodle on, change the font, the colour, even the shape, but this document gives you a general idea of placement for optimal cutting and least wastage. Of course if you have families and children you can add their bath and bedtime routines as fixed times, and if you like to schedule your cleaning in you can do that also.
Another rule is, leave a bit for yourself. I find personally if I have a busy journal or week, I throw caution to the wind and everything gets waylaid and I just chill out for the week, leaving me with a physical bigger pile than what was mentally in my head.
When you are happy with your layout, take a picture of it! It's as simple as that! Then you will know what you have to do next, just look at your phone and there it is. Another thing you can do is, print the picture and prit-stic it in your BuJo. It can act as your weekly planner.
If you liked this productivity hack and you would like to see more, please leave a comment below!
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