As we are now enjoying more freedom, and the opportunity to socialise more widely, it’s to be expected that we might start to also feel a little overwhelmed with our bulging calendars. So how we do prioritise our activities, and hang on to some balance while enjoying social time as our schedules get busier again?

Good planning, time management and structure actually leads to more freedom, and importantly can help alleviate feelings of stress and overwhelm.

Weekly planning on a Sunday evening can help you start the week feeling organised.  Start by blocking out the time when you are committed to attending online meetings, have family obligations, your exercise classes etc. – anything that is in effect timetabled, and has to happen on a given day at a given time.  

Now look at the time around those things. Schedule in the activities that are important and will move you in the direction of your business goals. These might be training webinars, business presentations, contacting prospects, product launches.  The training webinars will be on fixed days/times so add those into your schedule. Look at the other activities and schedule in those around the things already in your diary. Be mindful of when the most appropriate times are (for example contacting prospects), there will be activities that aren’t time specific so you can add those in at times that suit you.

At the beginning of each day make a list of all the things that you must do that day. Tick off the important activities first if you can and work in blocks of about 55 minutes, taking a 5–7-minute break.  Try not to multi-task; hopping on and off emails as they come in is draining energy-wise, and studies actually show that multi-tasking actually harms our productivity and the quality of what we produce. Taking a 5–7-minute breaks every hour or so conserves energy so we have some left for our evenings.

Every evening review your list and acknowledge your achievements by writing them down.