There are only 24 hours in a day, and no matter what you do – or how much needs to get done – there’s no way to use them all for work. So the goal becomes using the hours we have to our best advantage. But here’s the thing – what works for one person and seems productive, might not work for you and could, in fact, be detrimental to you in the long run. So before you decide how to organize your time – take the time to learn how you work best.

To create your own personal plan for maximizing your time, consider following this 4-step approach Chris Taylor presents in his article How to Make Your Days More Productive:

1. What To Do –  Start by knowing your priorities – for a project, a semester, a school year. Even knowing this, you won’t get everything done (have you ever?) but if you can get clear on what’s most important and what will get you closest to where you want to be then you can organize your time and to-do lit accordingly.
2. When To Do It – This is where it gets even more personal. What is your most productive time of the day? When are you most creative?  For me, it’s first thing in the morning.  I know other people who like to work at night when everyone else is sleeping. Schedule your high priority tasks at the times when you are most clear. Of course, if you’re not a morning person but are at work then, as best you can, do the activities that align with your energy and ability to focus.
3. Where To Do It – Environment can play a large role in our productivity. Is your office space the best place for you to work?  Do you like or not like the buzz of others working nearby?  Do you find being outdoors stimulates your thinking? Be as honest as you can and then see where you can adapt your workflow to fit. Can you clear off your desk? What about adding pictures of favorite places that you can see while you work? When can you close your door?
4. How To Do It Well – That is the ultimate challenge.  You need to turn off the interruptions that take you away from being as productive as possible.  This is not necessarily other people interrupting you.  It can be seeing stuff popping up in your email.  Or the phone ringing. Turn them off. Don’t see your email when you are working on these high priority tasks.  Turn off your phone until you are ready to attend to those messages. And when it’s time to focus on emails – stay focused on them and get as many answered as you can in the time you give it.

Like anything else, it will take practice and iteration of these four steps to make them part of your routine, but the results are worth it. Be prepared to tweak it as you work with it and learn what supports your success. Maybe you thought you could be creative for two hours at a time, but one is better followed by a break. Do what you can to limit the break, then get back to the priorities. There’s no way to add more time to the clock – so add time to your day by using what you have in the way the best supports you.

We all have full plates. So many tasks calling for our attention at the same time. New ones constantly being added. Where do you start?  What do you do next?  How you answer those questions determines how efficiently you work and how successful you feel at the end of the day.

There are lots of ways to develop your to-do list and determine your priorities. I use the tried and true pen and paper list. To help me, I break my tasks into categories such as Blog, Montana (where I am teaching online), ALA, and Personal. But where do I begin?

Starring the highest priority items helps, but there are always several starred items. The first item of business is knowing which comes first. On Saturdays, it is this blog. This gives me room to complete it by Sunday should life interfere. The imperative is to get it to my editor who edits what I’ve written as well as posts it on my website on Monday.

My second task on Saturday is checking on my students, responding to their posts, and grading their work. The rest of the week, they come first. I count on the amount of time I need with them to increase slowly through the week as they complete readings and are then able to submit work. The other tasks follow.

During the week there are other things on my schedule. Doctors’ appointments, phone calls that are important, and any other number of things which make planning essential because something is bound to throw me off course at some point. Holding onto my fallback mindset, “Everything will get done — it always does” can keep me calm (mostly) about unanticipated disruptions.

Another way to determine what to do first and what to next is to use the Eisenhower Box or Eisenhower Matrix, named for US President Dwight Eisenhower. It’s an excellent guide for helping you making the decisions on what to do first, next, and so on.

James Clear, author of the bestselling book Atomic Habits, explains how to use this  in How to be More Productive and Eliminate Time Wasting Activities by Using the “Eisenhower Box.”  To construct the Box, you work with two categories, Urgent and Important and their flips, Not Urgent and Not Important which give you a matrix with four boxes. Clear gives the following explanation to help differentiate between the two, “Urgent tasks are things that you feel like you need to react to: emails, phone calls, texts, news stories. Meanwhile, in the words of Brett McKay, ‘Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals.’”  You can easily redefine Urgent for your work environment with school-related tasks – student disruption, fire drill, call from the principal.

The Box is pictured above. If something is Urgent and Important – DO it. It’s a priority. If something is Important, but not Urgent, you can schedule when it will be done. If it is Urgent and Not Important, look for ways you can delegate this – it’s not the best use of your time. And if it’s Not Urgent and Not Important… don’t do it. Cross that off and move on to the things in the other boxes.

What is important about the Eisenhower Box is that it has you identifying the difference between what is urgent and what is important. Eisenhower said, “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” But it is wise to know when it’s both and when it isn’t.

Life being what it is, this matrix doesn’t always work. Sometimes, you cannot delegate something, and because it is Urgent, you need to do it anyway- sooner rather than later. Which may mess up the scheduling you’ve done for the things that were Important but Not Urgent. Fortunately, this won’t be an everyday occurrence and you can return to the matrix when it’s time to plan again.

If this thought process works for you, consider adding the Eisenhower Box to your time management skill set. When you consciously decide what to do and when to do it, you feel more organized and have a sense of accomplishment. I also, am aware of what time of day is best for me to do certain tasks and what small and not very important things can be dealt with when I have short periods of time available. Look for those things in your schedule and hopefully soon you’ll be spending your time on your priorities and crossing things off your to-do list.

When my daughter was in high school, I told her, “Good enough is not good enough.”  I was wrong. One reason for our stress and exhaustion is our need to get everything done perfectly. That’s not an option. We have too much to do, and we need to be honest about the importance of our tasks. From making the bed in the morning to leaving the library looking neat, we often treat everything we do equally, but that’s not a good use of our limited time. The result can be that important jobs do not get the detailed attention they need, and we are worn out.

Time management requires more than a to-do list. It means looking at what we do with an eye toward the return we get from our investment of time. In The Costs of Being a Perfectionist Manager, Anna Carmella G. Ocampo, Jun Gu, and Mariano Heyden discuss how to use perfectionist strengths without wearing yourself out trying to get everything done perfectly. They warn that perfectionism frequently leads to dissatisfaction because even when a job is well done, it still may still not meet your standards. It becomes a matter of balance and priorities.

In addition to describing several different types of perfectionists, the trio recommends the following approaches when faced with your own perfectionism:

Design the Right Goals – Ultimately, your goals should be tied to your Mission and Vison, however, as they say, your goals need to be “attainable yet challenging.” Interim goals that inch you towards your larger one will give you the best results. You learn what works and what doesn’t, and you don’t beat yourself up for not seeing your whole Mission in operation or achieving your Vision. You enjoy the process.

Recognize Failure as Part of the Process – This can’t be stated often enough. We teach students that failure is learning, then don’t apply the concept to ourselves. We won’t get it right the first time. The learning is as important as the goal. If we don’t accept this, then fear of failure will keep us from taking risks, and risk-taking is an important leadership quality.

Cultivating Mindfulness – How you think is how you feel. Meditation is what the trio recommend. This could be traditional meditation, but anything that gets you away from your desk and immediate demands on your attention can be beneficial (long time readers of this blog know that I’m a walker). Look for times in your day when you can take a break, listen to your own thoughts (or music, or a podcast) so that you come back recharged.

Using Pep Talks – We are well-aware that we speak a lot of critical things to ourselves, things we’d never say to others. Perfectionist tendencies can make these thoughts batter us too often. Ocampo, Gu, and Heyden recommend finding calming and positive mantras to help banish these thoughts. I use this technique and remind myself of past struggles and ultimate successes. Again, what you think is how you feel.

Fostering Positive Interpersonal Relationships – Although every conversation is an opportunity, you don’t have to have an end goal in mind for each one. We know how important relationships are to the success of the library program, and building them begins with casual interactions. The authors point to how good we feel when we help someone. Doing so is a natural part of being a librarian. And not all help needs to be tied to library use. It’s about being an empathetic, caring person.

Managing Emotions – This is part of SEL and is vital for us all. Perfectionism leads to stress which tends to make us irritable and unpleasant to be with. The above techniques can help reduce that as will reframing. Every cloud has a silver lining. Find it and use it to calm yourself. This may also be a good time for a walk or reading some funny memes. Do whatever you need to restore your mental balance.

How many tasks do you have that don’t need to be done perfectly? Look to your priorities, give them the time they deserve, and then let the other things go. Sometimes, and again with apologies to my daughter, good enough is good enough.