There’s only so much work that I can do in a week. Every Monday, I enter into the new week with a set number of hours that I want to work. If I work evenly throughout the week, my template leaves me enough time for all the other things that I need to do, with the weekend free to boot.
The problem is that life is never that clean. Although a tightly regimented schedule feels right when written down on paper, it immediately gets mugged by reality when put into practice.

The truth is, no schedule can withstand the demands of our days. Kids wake up sick, urgent tasks percolate to the top of our lists, and my manicured email inbox gets wrecked as soon as everyone else gets to their desk.

Setting unrealistic expectations only increases the sense of drowning that we all feel, when in the moment we’re trying to decide the next thing to do, but there’s too much happening all at once.

The only way to succeed each day is to inject plenty of flexibility. There may be an “ideal” time to get something done, but there are also plenty of other acceptable times, too. Most importantly, there’s a limit to how much you can and should do each day. When you hit that limit, stop, defer everything to another day, and move on.

Tags: Productivity