3 Tools I Use To Structure My Day and Battle Procrastination

The "Ah Sh*t" Fire Storm

For the last year, I have felt overwhelmed and anxious every day. I would have no action plan, and I would prepare/tackle things last minute as they came up. This led to me falling into what I like to call the “Ah Sh*t” Fire Storm.

I needed to leave the house asap, “Ah sh*t” I forgot to do laundry and don’t know where I put my glasses.

I have to make myself some dinner, “Ah sh*t” I forgot to go get groceries.

I have an essay due in 3 days, “Ah sh*t” I forgot it was even due this week.

These “Ah sh*t” moments gave me a feeling of feeling completely unprepared for any challenge that could come my way. I would go around life, shying away from responsibility, almost like I had my hands up guarding myself against the sucker punches delivered by daily adult life.

By the time I got around to working on my priorities, the “Ah Sh*t” firestorm had taken so much of my mental energy, I would feel burnt out. It would result in me not making any real progress on my goals and leave me feeling unaccomplished.

I really only had myself to blame. My lack of preparation for the day, having no real structure or goals made me feel aimless and overwhelmed by everything. I ended up just procrastinating on all my tasks.

So, to try to find a way to get back on track, I did what any sensible person would do. I went onto the internet for help. I ran into a video by Thomas frank entitled “How to Stop Being Constantly Overwhelmed”.

If you don’t want to watch the video, although I highly recommend it, he breaks down how the cause of these overwhelming and anxious feelings comes back to a loss of structure in one's life. He addresses three things he did to get back on track.

1) A Reser Sprint - aka re-organize your life

2) Set a routine - start simpler!

3) Define your priorities and learn to say no

As someone who has never really prioritized staying organized, this would be quite the challenge. For my whole life, my daily structure was set for me by my school schedule. As an adult, this responsibility falls on me. I now had the task of building from the ground up. Rather than seeing this as a disadvantage, I see this as an opportunity.

For the month of February, my goal was to in 30 days implement and start a system to get more organized, and add more structure to my daily life.

HERE IS HOW I DID IT.

My Big Three Organization Tools

1) An Effective Google Calendar

At first, I found it overwhelming due to how much variety there is in google calendar, so to make it easier for me I decided to simplify it down to four priorities and set up my calendar in four-time blocks.

• Time Block # 1 - Work: Anything related to my job. Filling out paperwork, work schedule for the day, Emailing, and Meetings.
• Time Block # 2 - Productivity Work: This is work that I want to do outside of the job that keeps me feeling productive. Working on the Blog, learning new skills, meal prep.
• Time Block # 3 - Self Care: Often overlooked, things I need to do to clear my headspace. Reading, Working out, going on walks, and napping.
• Time Block # 4 - Personal: Going out with friends, Watching TV, and seeing family.

To Ensure Consistency

• Add due dates, and schedule in ASAP → to reduce procrastination. As soon you get a deadline, or due date, add it to the calendar.
• Start each day by populating the google calendar with tasks.
• Every weekend (Sat/Sun) Set up the time blocks for the upcoming week, and every day add tasks into time blocks accordingly.

2) A Morning and Nightly Routine

Without a routine, one bad day can snowball into many bad days.

With a routine, you can jump right back into the groove of things, it pushes you to be a goldfish.

Morning Routine

Make Bed → Read → Core workout → Populate google calendar with my priorities for the day

Nightly Routine

Make breakfast for tomorrow → Read → Stretch → Set priorities for the next day

With these routines I see myself getting into the rhythm of things a lot better, it gave me the structure I need.

3) Setting 3 Priorities for each day

We all wake up every day and set long as h*ll to-do lists. As more things come up, they get longer and longer. We try to make progress on so many goals all at once. This results in us not making any progress on any goals and staying in the same place. Often burning out and procrastinating.

To prevent this, and being slammed with a mountain of to-do's every day, I started setting priorities for each day.

Setting priorities allowed me to move towards specific goals each day. Allowing myself no more than 3 priorities in a day, and having one of them be an "I must get done" priority.

Each day there would be time set aside to work on these priorities. During this time I shut off everything else - phone, emails, texts, social media - and focus all my attention on the task at hand.

This is how I would fit this practice into my daily routine.

Sunday: Set 3 priorities for Monday

1. Work on the Blog (I must)
2. Make a presentation for work
3. Read 50 pages

Monday Morning: Set these priorities into their time blocks

• Blog Post → Productivity Work
• Reading → Self Care
• Presentation → Work

You would be surprised how much progress you can make when you singularly focus on a few goals a day.

In a world where it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of responsibilities that everyone has, no wonder people are depressed and stressed now more than at any other time in human history.

These 3 things alone have helped more than anything. Their simplicity, how they all work hand in hand, allow me to have success on the daily. They may require some work at the start, but once you have it set up, just keep up with it. I assure you by the end of it, you feel like thor after he got a storm breaker. Bad*ss and ready to kill Thanos (in our case, our priorities). Just remember to go for the head.