How I Plan My Day

A reader recently asked how I plan my day and the tools I use. Well, to start with I get up early every morning, I treat my business like a job and am usually at my computer by 7 am. Sometimes earlier, depending on my morning chore load. I start by checking my multiple email accounts and blog comments. Depending on the amount I have to reply to, it can take upwards to an hour and a half. Next, I move on to the forums such as BANS and PHPBay to see if anything is worth reading and help those I can help on the BANS forum. This usually takes another hour. Once all of that gets put to bed, I move on to my list. I hate to disappoint, but I have found good old pen and paper as my best tool. Now I do use Google calendar for very important time sensitive things such as domain renewals and such, but my day-to-day work is a list. It just works for me. I constantly add things to my list in 3 different categories. Very important, need to do and not important. The very important are things like errors on sites, 301's, platform updates and etc. The important is the largest, it includes the most of my daily work and what sites I might be planning or re-doing. Daily work like blog post and the sorts. The not important list includes the likes of new plugins to try, articles to read and etc. I try to keep my Very important list cleaned up daily, but of course not everyday am I able to do it. If it is super urgent, I do not go to bed until it is done. This could be a server problem or security problem.

Every hour, I will browse the BANS forum, smoke a cigarette and perhaps brew coffee. Like a 15 minute break per hour. There will be times, especially like when I write my own content, I can work 3 straight hours. Just depends what I am doing.

Now just because all of this works for me, does not mean it works for you. You have to come up with your own system and own set of priorities. I will tell you this though, I am a workaholic. I bad one. 15 hour days are not uncommon for me. I do take time on Friday's to thoroughly check stats and archive reports. Also we usually go out for a nice dinner on Friday and lunch and shopping on Saturday. My wife does not need me usually throughout the day. She usually runs errands or works on her stuff. She knows it needs to be important to interrupt me. Usually she just sends an email from the other office. We do break for dinner everyday at the same time, but usually fend for ourselves for lunch. Often times I do not even eat lunch.

I may or may not have the radio on while I work, depends what I am working on, but never the television.

In closing you need to have a schedule, a schedule for you. Just because I use pen and paper does not mean it will work for you.

Related Posts by Categories