How I Organize My Day So the Important Things Actually Get Done

(Transcript edited for clarity.)

Hi, I'm Wes with Your Life Systems. Welcome to How I Organize My Day So the Important Things Actually Get Done.

You've all probably had the same experience.

You've got plans. You want to get this done, that done. You're working toward something for personal success, your life, business success, entrepreneurship, whatever.

You're ready to go with a great day, and then all of a sudden life happens.

Something gets in the way, then something else gets in the way.

There's a business problem or a life problem, and you've got to go put out that fire.

All of a sudden, the most important things you wanted to accomplish today didn't get done.

So I've created systems in my life.

Nobody's life is perfect, but I've created systems for the way I organize my days so the important things actually get done every day.

Here's a rough breakdown of how I do it.

The first thing is that I always make sure I have concrete goals, and I never have just one goal.

I usually have several different goals for different areas of my life.

I try to have at least one health goal and at least one family goal at all times.

Then I usually have more than one business goal at a time, sometimes three or four business goals, even though I rank them in importance.

Let's say I have three business goals I'm working on.

There will always be one that's the primary goal, then a secondary goal, then the least important of the goals.

The reason I rank them ahead of time is that I need to know, if my day gets shortened and I only have so much time, which one is most important to work on.

So: always have goals, and break those goals down into steps.

I try to break them down from maybe a five-year goal to a one-year goal, to monthly, to weekly, to the day.

Every week I focus on that week and the steps I want to accomplish.

Then each day I break it down even further so I can concentrate on what's important that day.

Then I prioritize each day.

When I talk about the time management system I use, it's very simple.

I have a certain number of priorities each day, but I rank each priority so I know what my number one priority is.

That's really the most important thing if you want to make sure you get your most important things done every day.

You have to have clear priorities.

You need clear goals broken down into small steps, and you need clear priorities.

If you want to get the most important thing done every day, the first thing you've got to do is recognize or decide what the number one priority is.

Here's what works for me.

I need to write it down every day.

Every day I list my priorities in order and number them so I know what the number one priority is.

If you don't do this and you're struggling, try this.

There's something that helps me about getting it out of my brain and onto paper by writing it down.

I don't know exactly what that is.

There's probably some fancy term for it.

It's still in my mind, of course, but it feels more solid once I write it down.

So if you've never tried that, give it a try for a couple of weeks.

Write down your priorities every day and rank them.

Number them.

Once you know what your top priority is each day, that's the first thing you work on that day.

Now let's say you wake up and something has gone terribly wrong.

Your entire morning is eaten up with other things you've got to take care of that you didn't plan for, but they have to be done.

That means you didn't get to work on your number one priority first thing that day.

Here's what you do.

Work on that number one priority as soon as you possibly can in the day.

If your morning gets all messed up and you've got to take care of 17 other things you weren't planning to, fine.

As soon as you're done with those, take some time and work on the number one priority.

This all comes down to priorities.

Here's the great thing about priorities.

We get to choose our priorities.

I read something years and years ago.

I think it was John Carlton, who's a copywriter and marketing guru.

I really like his stuff, by the way.

I think he said, "You always have a choice. You might not like all of the options, but you always have a choice."

I've used that many, many times in my life, especially when I felt like I was backed into a corner.

I had to stop, settle my mind down, and actually list all of the choices.

They didn't have to be choices I liked, but I always had choices.

In every situation, I've always had choices.

Again, you get to choose what your priorities are.

Now, I can hear some of you saying, "Well, I woke up this morning, and my child was sick, and I had to deal with that."

I agree.

My children are grown now, but when they were growing up, if I woke up and one of my children was sick and needed me, then they became the priority.

I would take care of them first.

But I had already ranked, in my mind and on paper, my list of priorities.

My family is above my financial freedom, which comes from work or the things I'm working on.

So I'd already made that choice.

If the child was sick, I had purposely made that a priority over work for money.

Life is life.

The point I'm making is that I'm not telling you how to assign priorities to your life.

What I'm saying is that you have choices.

If you go back far enough, first of all, I made the choice to get married.

Then I made the choice to have children.

When I had children, I made the choice that I was putting family before financial freedom.

Those were all choices I intentionally made.

No one else made those choices for me.

So if you're in an impossible situation, or a situation you feel like is impossible, you've probably made choices that helped get you to that point.

You also still have choices.

You could make the choice not to take care of your child.

That's you.

You get to make the choices.

My point is that I list my priorities.

That's what I keep coming back to here: priorities.

I know what's the priority in my life.

So if, when my children were younger, I got up wanting to work on business but one of my children was sick and needed me, I had already decided the child was the priority over work.

I'm not telling you that has to be your choice.

Now let me give you another example.

I have this list of priorities.

I call them core values, but for this discussion, priorities.

I get up and I'm planning on working.

My number one priority for the day is one of my businesses.

Let's say I need to get a page written today.

I need to get that page done before anything else.

That's my number one priority.

If something comes up that needs to be taken care of, I get to choose what becomes the priority.

If it's something in one of my other businesses, unless it's an extremely urgent priority and I literally can't get anyone else to take care of it, or it literally can't wait an hour, then I might do it.

But in most cases, I'm going to work on my number one priority first.

The other thing is going to have to wait an hour because I get to choose what my priorities are.

None of that is super important other than the fact that I'm saying we each get to choose what our priorities are.

Once I list my number one priority for the day, I do not go to bed without working on it.

No matter what happens in my day, I will not end the day without working on that number one priority.

I might not get anything else done on my entire list.

I might have 20 things on my list.

I might have three priority things, eight secondary priorities, and nine or ten would-like-to-get-done, don't-have-to-get-done things on my list.

I might not get anything done except some work on the number one thing.

No matter what happens with my day, I work on it.

Over the past 20 years, I've probably had maybe two or three days where I didn't at least work on whatever my number one priority was that day.

At least twice, I was so sick I couldn't do anything.

I literally was so sick I couldn't function.

Other than that, if I have a priority for the day, I work on that priority at least a little bit, no matter what happens.

A few times, I've literally had to take out a pen and paper while sitting in the emergency room, waiting on something, or whatever, and handwrite things to make progress on the priority.

So that's how I organize my day so the important things actually get done.

This is really all about priorities.

You set your priorities, and you move heaven and earth to stick with the number one priority.

Then when you get the number one priority done, you can move to your second priority.

But that's the secret.

That's how I make sure the most important thing actually gets done.

I figure out what the priority is, and then I work on it no matter what.

That's how you do it.

This is Wes.

Thanks for being with me at Your Life Systems.

Like, subscribe. Good luck.

I'll see you soon.

What's Next?

·        Write down the goals you're actively working on in the major areas of your life.

·        Break the most important goals into smaller weekly and daily steps.

·        List tomorrow's priorities in order and number them.

·        Choose one number one priority before the day starts.

·        If the schedule gets disrupted, return to that priority as soon as you reasonably can.

·        Judge the day first by whether you moved the most important thing forward, not by how many boxes you checked.

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