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Planning your week for maximum impact on the things you care about

July 16, 2018 //  by Zoey//  Leave a Comment

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Ages ago I was listening to a podcast with someone who highly advocated never checking your email in the morning – and having it be an afternoon activity (and that it should only be a once a day activity – unless you have a specific job that requires you to check more regularly than that). The reason was that if you check your email first thing, then it tends to set everyone else’s priorities for your time for the rest of the day, rather than you pursuing your own priorities first. Often that first part of the day (especially for morning people like me) is my most creative time of the day, so it’s important that I prioritise it for that type of work.

This isn’t strictly about running, but the better organised you can be with your time, the easier it will be to fit the training that you want to do in. So I thought I’d share a little bit about how I structure my priorities and my week to get the most out of it. Because let’s face it, I have a full time job, two kids (thankfully at school, most of the time!) and my personal preference is for a high volume training week, so I need all the productivity I can lay my hands on.

This is what is working for me at the moment.

Write down your priority list

I don’t like thinking of it as a to do list. To do lists are stressful. Priority lists are about making sure the most important things are the things that get done first. I tend to look at my list from the week before to get in all the things that are weekly things that don’t really change and then I add in anything else that is particular to the week or in preparation for a bigger monthly or quarterly event. Next to each thing, I estimate how many hours it will take me. I also write down training sessions in my priority list, because they are important too and note down how long they will take as well. I like to make sure that everything is written down there. So if I need half an hour a day to respond to emails, that time is not going to come out of thin air, it needs to be on the list. And then I number everything from first priority to last priority.

Break up your day into 1 hour blocks, with breaks.

I find that I like to separate out my different things into sections so I might be working on the website for an hour, then I might have lunch, then I might do a weights session, then I might come back and do an hour of programming. That’s for a few reasons. It keeps my mind nice and fresh by switching between things. It allows me to be pretty focused because I’m only working on one thing at a time for at most an hour and it means I’m not sitting down at a computer for hours at a time. An interesting study found that when you think you are being hyper-productive with multi-tasking you actually end up losing about 40% of your time by switching from task to task, and you are much better off single tasking. So that’s really what I try to do.  But make sure you have time in between your slots because you aren’t a machine, you need to create a bit of buffer space between activities which also allows for wiggle room when something comes up unexpectedly.

Before I start adding things into blocks, I add up the total hours and make sure I have enough time through the week. In a typical week I might have about 25 hours on my hands once I take out appointments, stuff for the kids, school pick up and drop off and all the rest of it. So if my number is higher than that, then I’d need to make some adjustments to my priority list and move a few things that are low down the list into next week.

Start slotting your priority list into your time blocks

Now it’s time to start adding your priorities into your time slots. I like to put the things that require the most creativity first thing in the morning when I am fresh and the things that are more purely administrative in the afternoon. It’s good to work out what your sleep style is to work out when you work best through the day. As a classic early to bed, early to rise type of person I’m pretty good for anything I need to get done in-between 5 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon but after that I don’t really have the attention for it. If you can, structure your day around what is going to work for you. I also like to put things that I have a high level of resistance to (like rehab) earlier in the day. If I leave it to the afternoon I can get decision fatigue and really struggle to push myself to do it. Whereas if I do it earlier, I find it easier to get going and then I get to feel really smug about it for the rest of the day.

The good thing about this system is you can put in all of your appointments or meetings so you can see from the outset whether you have a fair amount of time through the week or if it’s a week that is jam packed and you are only going to be able to get the necessary things done through the week. I do tend to stack things a bit more at the beginning of the week so that Friday can be a bit more of a relaxing day or a day to do errands.

If you are able to: alternate between sedentary and active things and it will make a huge difference to what you are able to get done through the week.

And remember, nothing is set in stone

Planning is all about giving yourself the maximum opportunity to get things done. But life has a way of not going according to plan, regularly! I do find it’s often necessary to move things around through the week or if something comes up get rid of things that aren’t absolutely necessary from my schedule. Remember it’s there to make your decisions easier through the day, structure the day so it’s the most enjoyable and help you to get through what you want to get through, but don’t let it become an albatross around your neck either. If a friend comes over for coffee, or if you need to just not be doing stuff for a day, don’t sweat it. It’s a priority list, not a to do list.

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Category: Goal SettingTag: goal setting, planning, time management

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Zoey | Running Coach 🏃‍♀️ and Podcast 🎙
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I didn’t do my run yesterday because I had an An I didn’t do my run yesterday because I had an Anatomy exam and I figured my brain could use all the sleep it could get. I’m not sure if it helped! 

The thirds progression run is my favourite. This was 15km but I’ve done a lot of different distances where it’s first third comfortable, middle third steady state, final third tempo. 

I think you always have a little bit of resistance to runs you’ve pushed back even when they are your favourite. But once I was out there today I was reminded of all the things you love about it when you get out of your own way.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that wh One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that when I’m struggling in the mental health stakes you won’t see my face. It’s not purposeful, I just lose the ability to look myself in the eye. 

I think we are all in it at the moment, one way or another. So taking my wins. I did run 94.9km this week. I was the soft place for my kids to fall this week when they were struggling with pets dying and staring down the barrel of a neurodiverse diagnosis. And I just showed up. For them. For me. Did my best. And allowed peoples kindness. Was grateful for friends holding my hand in the lab at uni, was grateful for my brother who always listens and sees me, was grateful for people at the gym who let me know it was okay to be sad, grateful at parkrun for people who told me they paced off me. Grateful for all the people who gave me space for imperfection. 

Give yourself space. And compassion. You don’t have to earn it.
There is no secret, keep going. Photo thanks to There is no secret, keep going. 

Photo thanks to run club today where we got very lucky with the rain holding off until we made it to the car. Sometimes it’s worth taking a gamble on the weather, or yourself
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“I do not know what I may appear to the world, b “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” - Isaac Newton

I came across this quote this week and it reminded me that what we don’t know is where the magic is
All business in front with a party out the back. J All business in front with a party out the back. Just kidding. We consider both running and chatting and fun all as equal partners in run club! 

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There is no such thing as yarn problems, only storage problems.
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My overwhelming thought on running in Melbourne: y My overwhelming thought on running in Melbourne: you spoiled bastards 🤣 Such a great running city 💜
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Getting in a run club session on a Tuesday before Getting in a run club session on a Tuesday before I head down to Melbourne for a week. How good is not daylight saving?

Always my favourite hour of the week! 💜
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