Do you find yourself feeling exhausted at the end of the day with only a few items marked off your checklist? Me too, sister! That is, until I made some changes back in January. It is easy for the days to slip by wondering where on earth the time went, especially when you are a mama. If you want to find out how to run your schedule and not have it run over you, keep reading.
1. Recognize your “green, yellow and red zones”.
You may already know about the different energy zones, but I had not heard about green, yellow, and red zones until this past year. Once I learned about my different zones, it revolutionized how I planned out my days.
To summarize, we all have different energy levels. Green zones are when our energy is the highest. Yellow zones are when we can still make progress, but it’s slow. Red zones, as you can guess, are when our energy level hits empty.
When you think back on your day, what hours do you work with ease? What hours do you find yourself getting distracted? If you make a point to notice, you will begin to see a pattern of when you hit your capacity and shutdown. Write these times down on a piece of paper so you can implement them in your day.
2. Forecast your next day in your planner.
Now that you know when your energy levels change, mark off your energy zones in a daily planner. (And let me just say, if you do not have a planner, PLEASE find yourself a good one! It is life-changing!) You do not have to do this every day, but it helps when you are first starting out.
Once you have written down your to-dos for the day, it will be easier to determine what activities should be done when. If an item is high priority or seems daunting, do it during your green zone. During your yellow zone, do simple and straight-forward tasks. When you reach a red zone, limit activities as much as possible. Prioritize meetings and phone calls, if possible, too. Does this need to be a green zone meeting, or should this fall into a yellow zone time-frame? Ideas for red zone activities include starting the dishwasher, socializing with friends, and catching up on texts or emails.
3. Optimize your green zones.
Since I am a stay-at-home mom of young children, I must be very disciplined and aware of my green zones. It is a lot harder to accomplish tasks when you have a four-year-old talking non-stop in your ear or a toddler demanding to go to a park. I started keeping track of what things I needed to get done that would require 100% of my attention, and now I plan them during my green zones.
I have even found that I have different green zones in different seasons! Before kids, I could not do anything before 10:00 a.m., but, now that I have two little ones running around the house, 5:00 a.m. is the best time for me to focus on what needs to be done. Adjust your schedule accordingly if your energy levels fluctuate due to sickness in the home or new sleep schedules.
Once you have figured out what tasks need to be done in your green zones, protect your time by turning off notifications, staying off your phone, and taking advantage of quiet spots around your home or workplace. Obviously, unexpected circumstances will come up, but if we keep coming back to these routines and rhythms, we will find that our lives run much smoother.
