My Work Day - How To Plan Your Week

Do any of you ever get to a Friday and think, what did I even accomplish this week? I have. I feel like I have 101 things to do. I feel like I'm jumping from here to there to this to that. Being mom, being wife, being a business owner, being a client. It's all over the place. So I wanted to share with you today how I really plan my weeks so that I can be as productive as possible and get as much done. So when Friday comes along, I'm not thinking I accomplished nothing this week. Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of Just the Tips with Trena where I provide online entrepreneurs tips and tricks on how to create a video content strategy that works for them. If you aren't subscribed to this channel yet, make sure you do so by clicking that red subscribe button. That way you'll be notified when I upload a new video with more tips and tricks for you. If you're on social media, because who isn't? And you want to see behind the scenes of how I do all of this, go ahead and check me out right up here. I'll list all the places I'm at. Because who's not on all the platforms these days? As I said, today we're going to talk about planning your week and planning your day to be as productive and effective as possible. Because I know I'm not the only one that experiences school Squirrel syndrome. So what squirrel syndrome means is you start working on something and then boom, something shiny comes up. Or boom, another thing shiny comes up and before you know it, you have 13 Internet tabs up and you have five different notebooks scattered all over your desk. And let's not Even mention the 35 post it notes that are all over your office wall because you had this idea or that idea or that idea popped into your head. So this is a strategy to really focus on getting as much done in a short amount of time. So I'm a big fan of batching work. And what I mean by batching work is putting together similar tasks all together in one time frame. So I do this with video content. I will sit down and batch out six to 12 videos at a time. I will block off two hours of my day to focus just on creating video content. And what I mean by creating it is just coming up with the ideas, the titles, doing the back end research that you need to do before you even turn a camera on. So I'll batch that kind of content. I'll also batch client calls, so I will only accept client Calls on Mondays and Thursdays because those are the days I leave open for client calls. These the other days are blocked off for specific tasks that I also have, like blog graphics or social media planning. All of those things get blocked in a specific amount of time so that I can really focus on that for a certain amount of time to make sure I get that done before I move on to the next thing. What I've really struggled with this past year is really overestimating the amount of time I have in a day. I'll put 10 things on my to do list, only get done three, and really think I failed at the day. If I didn't get all 10 of those things done, then I'm trying to focus on them the next day. I don't even get to the next day's to do list because I was doing the day before's to do list. What I've been doing to really combat this failure feeling is just focusing on three to four tasks each day, making sure I batch those tasks so that they're similar tasks so that I'm in a mindset. Especially when it comes to doing videos like filming these, you really need to get into a mindset. You need to wash your hair, you need to do your makeup. So that takes up a lot of time. So by batching them like that and focusing on small tasks in one day, you can get more done. Then if you complete those tasks and you have some extra time, then you could move on to the next day's tasks and get ahead. But if you don't, you don't feel like a failure because you did complete that day's tasks. So how do I actually plan what it is I'm going to do that day? So on a Sunday, I will sit down and write down all the things that I want to get done that week, and then I'll look at the things that need to definitely be done that week because we all have 100 things that we could do in a week, but we really need to focus on the things that need to be done. So then I'll start grouping them into different categories to start batching them and blocking time in my schedule to focus on those block times. So some of my categories are client work, client calls, video content, social media strategy, emails, and working out. Because I really want to incorporate working out into my schedule because it's so important to me to stay healthy and exercise. So. So once I start grouping these all together, then I'll start breaking them down into time periods in each day. Like I said. Monday and Thursdays are for client calls, so Monday mornings I may focus just on client work and those will be the hours I spend on client work. Tuesdays are always video content creation in the morning, so I know what I'm going to film on Wednesday because Wednesday afternoons are always film filming days for me and that's how I try to stay as productive as possible. Some of the tools I use are obviously notebooks. I use my Erin Condren planner to really plan everything out. And then another great tip that I got from my good friend Lauren from Grit and Glitter podcast is if you're feeling like you got nothing done, sit down and instead of writing a to do list, write a to done list. Write down all the things you got done that day and see how much you're doing so that you don't feel like you failed because you didn't get your to do list done but you have a to done list so you did something. So if you're really struggling and you're feeling unmotivated and down on yourself, write a done list to see how amazing you are and how much you have accomplished in a day. I want to know what do you guys struggle with when it comes to getting things done? How do you plan out your day? Is there a strategy you use? Let's talk in the comments below about planning, strategically, batching, all of that stuff. I want to hear tips from you guys. If you have other friends that are really struggling with being productive in their day or their week, make sure you share this on social media. All of the links are down below. You can just click on the Twitter button or the Pinterest button and it'll share it right out. And thank you guys so much for watching. I really appreciate you taking the time to watch my content and I'll see you next time. Bye.