Be More Efficient: Euforia Day Planning 101

Man, it feels like I’m flying back and forth to Gothenburg like a ping pong ball. It’s really a nice city though, so I can’t complain. Now I’m back down here again, and I’m stealing a few minutes from my beauty sleep to hang out with you, dear reader, before heading off to bed. And today, I thought I should share with you a new efficiency trick that I’ve fallen in love with. Ready? Here we go:

Sail When There is Wind

There are really two periods of the day when I write: in the morning, or late at night. I rarely find inspiration in the afternoon. What I realized though, is that my whole life is built a little bit like that. There are parts of the day when I’m really really pumped to take on whatever comes my way, and there are parts when I’m pretty darn slow. And I have a feeling that you, dear reader, may perhaps share this experience?

When I started asking around what people thought of these phases of the day, I realized that we’re all built a little bit like that, and that I (and perhaps you?) should start planning my day around it. It all started out as something of a joke, but I soon realized that there was amazing power in this way of structuring my life.

Euforia Day Planning 101 – This is How It Works

I wake up at 6.30-ish and head out for a morning run. I then have until about noon to get the most demanding tasks of the day, mostly creative work, done. This is when I have my V8 running at top RPM. I also try to make check my task lists and add tasks to them (Google Tasks kick ass).

After lunch I get noticeably slower and try do get routine stuff done and check off all the easy stuff from my lists. At around 3 in the afternoon I’m more or less ready to pass out, and therefore I do! A fifteen minute powernap here gets me back to sync and up to speed for a pretty effective couple of hours before leaving the office at around 6. After dinner I do most of my reading and occasionally write stuff – like now.

This may all sound pretty obvious and straightforward, but the trick is to say no to attractive but non-demanding stuff that wants to enter my 8-12 sweet spot. And there is A LOT OF STUFF that wants to claim that sweet spot! Saying no here can be quite tricky, but it’s really where the power comes from.

And that’s it. A short and dead simple piece of advice, but one that actually works. Simple things often do.

Tagged as: Google, Inspiration, ph