Why daily schedules can be helpful
Many of you have asked me, 'Scott, what does your typical workday look like?'
Well, in this video, I'm gonna walk you through hour by hour what an average workday looks for me.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
And I'm gonna be using Google Calendar here.
I'm gonna throw on emojis and titles so you can see exactly how I sort of structure and break out my day.
I have always found it very helpful to take a glance at other people's schedules, whether they're famous people such as Benjamin Franklin, or just my next door neighbor, just to get some ideas and inspiration as I've experimented on my own schedule.
So hopefully, you find this valuable and maybe there's some ideas in here as well.
Morning Routine
Now I used to start my day off bright and early at 5:00 a.m.
This was particularly useful when I had young children and I wanted to get a number of things done before they awoke, and before the rest of my family awoke in the morning.
However, over the last few years, I've adjusted that a little bit, and I start my day off sometime between 6:00 a.m and 6:30.
So let's find something like a sunshine icon here, and I'm going to say, 'wake up.'
Now, you're probably asking yourself, what do you mean you're getting up sometime between 6 and 6:30?
Don't you set an alarm?
Yes, I do.
But it's a little different than what I did in the past.
About a year ago, I purchased what's called a wake up light, meaning that it tries to mimic the effects of a sunrise.
So this little light alarm starts off very dim, but over the course of the half hour it gets brighter and brighter and brighter.
So depending on how deep I am in my sleep, it will awake me sometime within that half hour range.
I really, really like this wake up light and prefer to wake up this way rather than adjusting an alarm or being tempted to hit the snooze button multiple times.
So I'm certainly up by 6:30, sometimes it's just a little bit earlier than that.
The next thing on my list, the way I like to start my day is to doing just a little bit of reading, and you know what?
I forgot to include the emojis.
So let's go add, let's go add something like a book emoji, something like that, a stack of books to start off my day.
Now, this is usually relatively short, sometimes as short as only 15 minutes.
I like to read something that is non-fiction and something that is uplifting in the morning.
And I make sure that it is not social media.
It is not a news site.
I would much rather read a physical or a tangible book, probably something that I was reading earlier the night before for example, or earlier in the week.
But I just find it a nice refreshing and positive way to start my day.
After I've done a little bit of reading, it's time for me to do some exercise.
And my favorite exercise is running.
So, it doesn't happen every single day, but if I'm not running, I'll do some other type of aerobic or body weight workout to start my day.
Now, when all is said and done, it probably takes me roughly 45 minutes to complete this step or to work out this entire time.
I'm gonna hit 45 minutes there and then drag it down just below where the reading stops there.
So 6:45 is roughly when I'm starting my exercise routine.
I used to be an outside runner, last year we purchased our very first treadmill and I've really enjoyed it, not only the convenience of being able to run in just a few minutes time, but I find it keeps me a little more honest as well as I'm going through the different inclines and going through the different programs on the machine.
Now, after running, if that's going to take me to about 7:30, well, next up for me is breakfast.
And let's see, let's type in something like, maybe an egg.
I'm not usually eating an egg.
In fact, I usually start my days with a smoothie, but I don't believe that there is a smoothie emoji that we can use.
So breakfast, in my case, probably when all is said and done is roughly 15 or 45 minutes in length.
And what I mean by that, it doesn't take me that long to eat breakfast, but this is also a time where I can spend it with my kids.
I can spend it with my kids before they're off to school.
I can spend some time speaking with my wife, sharing a few laughs, talking about what we're going to do later in the evening.
So, roughly 30 minutes to maybe 45 minutes of a family time slash breakfast.
Next up, because I'm still sweaty at this point, it's time to jump into the shower.
So I think there's a shower emoji here.
So, let's just say, 'shower and get dressed,' I guess is exactly what we're doing at that particular time.
And, no, it doesn't take me very long at all.
This should only take me roughly 15 minutes in total.
Let's see if I can drag that one down.
Start of the workday
There we go.
Perfect.
So, roughly 15 minutes to get myself ready, and now it's time to jump into work.
Now I'm fortunate that I get to work from a home office.
So there is no commute, there is no transit, there is no driving.
And the way that I start my workday off is jumping into email.
Now you might be surprised by this because I used to tell people to avoid email at all costs first thing in the morning, I used to advise people and coach people that they should be doing something much more productive than dealing with email.
But what I discovered, not only for myself, but for other people as well, is that if you avoid email too long in the morning, a lot of us start to worry about, well, what is there, what's going on in my inbox, is someone waiting for an urgent reply?
And we often struggle to focus on those first things as a part of the day.
So even though for a number of years, I would avoid email for at least the first hour of my day, now I actually start my day with 30 minutes of email.
But I am very strict with myself, meaning I only do a maximum of 30 minutes of email.
I wanna try and do as much as I can, but I know I've got a lot more important things to get to as a part of my workday.
So by roughly 9:00 a.m. I'm done with email, even if I haven't read everything that's come in overnight, or from the last time I checked my email, it's time to start my day.
So at 9:00 AM, I'm gonna categorize this as a deep work and I'm gonna grab something, this bulls-eye emoji here, and I'm gonna call this deep work a, a term that, Cal Newport, author Cal Newport has certainly popularized in the last number of years.
Now, this is a much bigger stretch of time.
In fact, I'm gonna put about two and a half hours here, and I'm just gonna define sort of what I mean by deep work.
Obviously, there's a variety of activities that I could be doing during this morning block, but it's often things that are a lot more focus intensive.
It's things that require a lot more energy on my part, maybe a lot more research.
This is often when I record many of my videos, such as this one here.
This is often when I'm delivering classes, virtual webinars, it's when I'm running the RESET Productivity Masterclass.
So, almost all of those types of activities are happening first thing in the morning, I realize that it's a big block of time, right?
It's two and a half hours, and it certainly doesn't look the same each and every day.
But if there's something that I think is at risk of being deferred into another day, so for example, if I don't get to it until later in the afternoon, and I know that there's a high chance that I'm gonna push it to another day or another time, I'll try and do it first thing in the morning, that's where I wanna do my toughest work or my most focus intense work at that time of day.
Then at around 11:30, I'm going to return to email.
So let's grab that email icon again and type in, I think I need to get rid of the emoji, the emoji window here and type in email.
And we're only doing that for another half hour, sometimes not even a half hour.
In fact, often I'll work right up until about 11:45 or 11:50.
This is just a super quick check-in with email.
In fact, I'm often not even replying too many of the messages, I just wanna scan through my email, see if there's anything urgent, if there's anything that's going to change what I'm gonna be focusing on for the rest of the afternoon.
I'm a firm believer that we should be spending as little amount of time, as less time as possible within our email inbox, and that only a small handful of us actually need to be dealing with email on a regular basis.
So, again, after my morning half hour, this is sort of a quick check-in, again, a half hour at most, but I'd say on average, it's only taking me a roughly 15 minutes.
Afternoon schedule
At 12, it's time to break for some lunch.
So let's put in something that, especially over the winter, I eat an awful lot of, I'm a big fan of soup, not only eating soup, but making soup as well.
So this is gonna be lunch slash break because I certainly don't spend an entire 45 minutes eating and, or making my lunch, but I wanna be able to step away, get out of my office, eat something, hopefully, nutritious, and hopefully delicious as well as I step away from my work.
But there's a few other things that I'll include in this block of time.
Often I may go and check the mail or do some other household chores such as empty the dishwasher or throw another load into the washing machine.
Just try to tidy up a little bit, help the rest of the family.
And again, just sort of physically get away from my office and get away from my work.
Now this last little 15 minute increment, roughly, roughly between 12:45 and 1:00 p.m. is something that I rarely, rarely miss, and that is a quick power nap.
So let's throw in some Z's here, and I'm gonna call this one nap.
Now I used to nap for close to a half hour.
I've reduced that to only about 15 minutes.
And what I mean by that is that in fact, most days I don't even get to sleep.
That's not enough time for most cases for myself to even get into a sleep state, but I simply just lie down, dark room as quiet as I can make it and just, just relax, right?
Just sort of relax and be still for 15 minutes.
Now, depending on where you are in the world, there are different cultural norms when it comes to napping.
And I know that especially here in North America, we still sort of frown upon taking a nap, even if it's a short nap in the middle of the day.
I find this has been one of the biggest boosts to my personal productivity.
This is something that I've been doing for nearly 15 years is including a short power nap.
It gives me the energy, it rejuvenates me for the rest of the afternoon and really for the rest of the day, even if you don't get to sleep, just taking that short break can have a massive impact on the rest of your day.
Next, we've got another sort of section of work in here, and this would really what I would call sort of slash creative or admin work.
So, maybe I'm gonna do something like files.
We've got like a sort of a file folder here.
I almost feel that I also want to put in something like a, a paintbrush or something along those lines.
I'm gonna say this is admin and creative work.
It's gonna change day by day, but this is sort of roughly what I'm doing in the afternoon.
Now I'm gonna be doing this for roughly an hour and a half.
So I'm gonna put that 1 to 2:30 p.m.
So these are things that I need to get done.
It's not exactly crucial like the deep work I'm doing in the morning, but these may be things related to budgeting for my business.
It may be taking a look at invoices and doing some more administrative tasks.
The creative side of things is when I'm having to maybe edit a video or maybe revising a PowerPoint slide deck, or maybe posting some social media content to be scheduled in the future.
I find that I really have a lot of energy, much more energy for that type of work later in the afternoon.
Now that I've done all that focus work in the morning.
So whether it's more admin tasks or creative tasks, I'm gonna save that for later in the afternoon.
Lastly, at roughly 2:30, we are going to return to email for the third and only time that I will touch email for that day.
So this is only gonna be, again, a maximum of half hour finishing up at around 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon.
This is where, again, I will be replying, I'll be trying to get through as much as I possibly can, but I space out the times that I deal with email so I can focus as much time as I can with my work.
End of work and evening activities
Now I try my best to end my workday at around 3:00 p.m.
Why?
Because by that time, most of my boys are home from school and I wanna spend it with them.
I wanna hear about their day, maybe help them with their homework and also start to get ready for the evening, whether that's some food prep for dinner or whatever else is going on in the evening.
So it's a lot harder for me to fill in the blanks here on a typical average evening.
I will tell you that I avoid work at all costs, and I stop my workday as much as I can at roughly three in the afternoon.
Why?
Because I wanna be completely refreshed when I returned to work the following morning, and not just get into this cycle of checking my work emails and replying to things and working on other things during the evening.
I have an awful lot of activities and often a lot of driving to do when it comes to my boys' activities.
The only other two things I will add, two things that I rarely miss out on my daily schedule is a return to reading later in the evening.
So let's grab this book here, and we're gonna call this one reading.
I try to read for about 45 minutes to an hour before I finish my night.
And for me, it's my goal to get my head on a pillow, no, not a pill, a pillow, let's put sleep here by 10:30 at night.
So that is bedtime for me to try and get into bed at 10:30.
So I can get as close to eight hours of sleep before the start of the next day.
So now that you know what an average workday looks like for me, I would love to hear from you, what was the biggest surprise as you take a look at my typical schedule?
In addition, I would love to hear from you and what does your workday look like?
I'm sure others would be interested to know, so they might want to adjust their own personal schedules.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.
In fact, it's very simple.
