How to Plan Your Day: Advice From the World's Top Productivity Experts

Do you find that you lack time for all your work and personal tasks? Everyone has the same amount of time in a day, but some are more productive and successful, while others simply waste time.

Procrastination often hides behind aimless scrolling through social media, but it steals your time and leads to burnout.

If you’re tired, don't have free time for your personal life, and put things off until later, it’s time to learn how to use your time effectively. Planning your day is not about the office. It is about life, work-life balance, and living consciously.

Quick tips to plan your day efficiently:

1. Set clear goals to know what to do tomorrow

2. Plan your day the night before or in the morning

3. Prioritize your daily tasks to do important things first

4. Use a time-blocking strategy to determine a specific time in your schedule for each task to complete it accurately

5. Add useful apps and digital planners to your arsenal that will help you keep to your schedule

How to align your daily routine with your goals

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." – 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,' Stephen R. Covey

Stephen R. Covey emphasizes that achieving big goals involves consciously completing daily tasks based on priorities, not urgency. To achieve goals, you must consciously plan your time around essential tasks, even if they are not urgent, instead of constantly putting out "fires."

The best way to plan your day is to start with a clear understanding of your goals. All people have desires; if you call this desire your goal, it’s still just a desire. Only what is written down can be considered a goal. So: 

• Clearly define what you want

• Write it down

• Set deadlines for implementation

• Make a list of necessary steps to achieve the goal

• Make a plan from this list (prioritize the list, determine the sequence)

• Immediately take action

• Do what moves you toward the goal every day

"Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress." – 'Atomic Habits', James Clear

Clear advises building daily habits that automatically lead to your desired outcome without the constant pressure to achieve. So, set goals to give direction, and create habits to get to the finish line. 

You can achieve your big dreams and goals step by step, incorporating tasks into your daily schedule. For example, you want to be an entrepreneur on Instagram. Set aside time every day to write posts and stories, keep your page full, and prepare cool content to be attractive and known to customers.

Check Headway's free printable templates to organize your life and track your progress in gaining new habits and reaching goals.

When is the best time to plan your day?

There are pros and cons to planning a productive day in the morning and evening, but it seems more appropriate to do it in the evening.

It's better to plan in the evening for the next day

By planning the night before, you end your day with a clear plan for tomorrow, signaling to your brain that all uncertainties are gone and that you’re ready for the next steps. This helps reduce anxiety because you know what to expect and can prepare. Instead of feeling chaotic, you start the day with clarity and confidence.

Instead of wasting precious morning time thinking about what to do, you jump right into the most critical tasks. When you have several important meetings and functions the next day, and you plan them at the end of the day, you not only organize your thoughts, but you also have the opportunity to prepare in advance. For example, by gathering the necessary documents or making a list of questions to discuss.

Effective evening planning is not just about making a to-do list for tomorrow. It requires understanding which tasks are most important and what order to do them in.

Try a proper morning routine

Gal Elrod's book 'The Miracle Morning' emphasizes the power of morning rituals. Starting the day with clarity, silence, and focused action changes the course of the entire day.

Start by analyzing the previous day. Remember what you managed to do and what remains unresolved — this will help you determine priorities. Highlight two or three of your most important tasks that must be completed before lunch while your energy level is at its highest.

It is better to do this twice: in the evening and in the morning.

Plan for the next day in the evening, and when you are fresh, adjust it in the morning. 

How to prioritize tasks when planning your day

Prioritizing tasks is extremely important for practical work and avoiding stress. It lets you focus on the most important tasks that bring you closer to your goal and avoid being overwhelmed by secondary tasks. 

Let’s learn about three well-known prioritization techniques.

The Eisenhower Matrix 

Evaluate your to-do list and organize it based on importance, not urgency. Identify the three or four most important tasks and do them first — that way, even if everything else doesn't go according to plan, you know you've completed the most important ones.

Important and urgent: Must be done immediately.

Important but not urgent: Postpone and do after appropriate preparation. Try to spend most of your time in this square. You won’t be as stressed as when dealing with urgent matters, but these tasks are important enough to develop you, and they primarily relate to long-term goals.

Urgent but not necessary: Minimize or delegate. As a rule, these things are distracting but do not contribute to your progress toward your goals.

Actions that are not urgent or important: These have little value, if any, and should be abandoned as much as possible.

• How can you achieve maximum productivity with Ive Lee method? 

In 1918, a Bethlehem Steel executive asked Ivy Lee to help improve the productivity of his managers. He proposed a simple five-minute system that would later become a time management classic.

Ivy Lee's recommendations:

1. At the end of the working day, record the six most important tasks that must be completed the next day (no more than six – this is important!).

2. Prioritize these tasks.

3. When you come to work the next day, focus only on the first, most important task. Work on it until you finish it, then move on to the next one. Complete the following tasks on the list in the same order.

4. At the end of your working day, transfer unfinished tasks to the next day. Their priority will be higher than the new tasks on your list.

5. Repeat the process every day.

ABCDE Method

The essence of this method is to prioritize tasks and focus on the most important ones. It's simple: you evaluate each task on your list and assign it one of five categories: A, B, C, D, and E.

A (Must Do) is a super important task. These are things that cannot be ignored under any circumstances. For example, a presentation for a client or completing a project with a clear deadline. If you don't do it, you will face serious consequences.

B (Should Do) are tasks worth doing but are not so critical. For example, answering an email or visiting the gym. They should be done only after completing category A.

C (Nice to Do) would be nice, but it does not affect your success or productivity. For example, having coffee with a friend or watching a new series. These tasks will always be at the end of your list.

D (Delegate) — Delegate it! If there’s a task that can be done by someone else, pass it on. It will free up time for more important things.

E (Eliminate) are things you shouldn't do at all. Unnecessary calls, endless scrolling on social media, or pointless things that don't benefit you.

How to use time-blocking to plan your day

You can write down many interesting and necessary tasks, but have you considered the amount of time for each of them? Will you have time to do everything tomorrow? Will it be a calm, measured day or a rush?

What is time-blocking, and why does it work?

Time blocking is a time management technique that divides your day into time blocks. Each block is designed to address a specific task or group of functions. For example, you might set aside time from 9 am to 10 am for a call with colleagues, from 10 pm to 12 pm to work on a specific project that needs your focus and attention, and from 1 pm to 2 pm to have lunch with your friend.

• Balance your daily schedule. In addition to work responsibilities, you can include personal breaks and rest. Be sure to include time for rest and recuperation!

• While deep working, turn off your phone whenever possible. If you need to have it on at work, leave it across the room or use tools that make it less distracting, such as black-and-white mode, or logging out of your social media feed. 

• Time blocking with notifications turned off allows you to focus on a task for a set amount of time. When you dedicate time to a concentrated work session, you focus solely on that task. Similarly, if you're spending time with your children, you are fully present with them. This approach enables you to live more consciously and fully engage in your activities.

"Treat your time with respect. Schedule it. Defend it. Don't let the shallow work invade it." – ​​'Deep Work', Cal Newport

• For complex work or study projects, using the Pomodoro technique is convenient. This helps you establish focused blocks of time, allowing you to concentrate on the task as much as possible. The Pomodoro technique involves setting an alarm for 15-20 minutes. During these 20 minutes, you perform only the assigned task. Then, you take a short break. After that, another period of working time follows, repeating the process. 

• Combine similar tasks into one time slot — batching or task bundling. Combining similar tasks makes it easier for your brain to stay in one mode. For example, in the admin block (1 hour), answer an email, sort out finances, and update a spreadsheet.

• Observing a typical day can help you understand how much time you spend on unproductive activities. This exercise will also tell you the times of day when you are most effective. Choose these times to work on projects that require the most focus and creativity.

Top 5 mistakes when planning your day

1. Overloading your schedule

   If you try to do 10 crucial things in a day, you will most likely not do any of them in depth or quality.

2. Forgetting buffer time

   A schedule packed down to the minute seems efficient, but in reality, it leaves no room for unforeseen events. Have a 15–30 minute buffer between blocks. This gives space for adaptation, breathing space, and unexpected tasks.

3. Prioritizing easy tasks

   When you cross off a task, you feel successful. But often, this is just an illusion of productivity: you are busy but not moving forward with the main thing. We put off big/essential tasks because they require more effort, energy, focus, or decisions. Start the day with one important but challenging task, even if it takes 30–60 minutes ("Eat That Frog").

4. Ignoring your energy levels

   You might plan complex tasks for the evening when you are exhausted and cannot focus. Everyone has their peak productivity: some are most effective in the morning, some in the afternoon. Ignoring this rhythm leads to exhaustion.

   "Your ability to focus is only as good as your ability to rest." – 'Deep Work', Cal Newport

5. Failing to review or adjust

   When you don't review and adjust your plans, you make the same mistakes repeatedly. Priorities become outdated, and you continue to act on the same old course. Introspection increases awareness of what's working and what's not.

Best tools to help you plan your day

One of the best ways to learn how to plan your day effectively is by using the right tools. Here are some suggestions: 

1. Google Calendar

Track your meetings, events, work blocks, and rest periods in real time to help you assess your capacity without overcommitting. Receive notifications on your phone, smartwatch, and browser, and easily add events through calendar integrations. Use color coding for events and meetings to orient yourself with your schedule quickly.

2. Notion

Notion is a versatile assistant program. It allows you to store information about your projects and customers, create to-do lists, monitor your personal or family budget, plan trips, keep a diary, and work with code. Notion offers many templates that can be quickly integrated into projects, saving time and effort.

3. Todoist

Convenient software that can be used on any device. It allows you to set deadlines, prioritize tasks, and attach various files. The application’s interface is minimalistic and convenient, and all tasks are structured and distributed by dates.

4. Headway app 

Headway contains summaries of top books on time management, habits, and focus. The app can be integrated into your morning or evening block as a habit — for example, listening to or reading summaries instead of scrolling social media. It helps you plan what to do and why, and how to do it better. Check daily planning book summaries in the Headway app. 

How to improve your daily planning over time

Time management habits don't just work in the moment; they build momentum for the future. Here are some tips for continuously improving your daily planning: 

• Daily review 

A daily review is a short evening ritual that helps you feel satisfied with getting things done and shows that you're making progress. Reviewing your day builds a sense of accomplishment and confidence, even if it's been chaotic.

"The faster and busier things get, the more we need to build thinking time into our schedule." – 'Essentialism', Greg McKeown

• Weekly planning

Weekly planning is not just a to-do list; it's about creating a structure that safeguards your focus and time. Begin by writing down everything on your mind that you need to accomplish this week. As with your daily highlights, choose one to three key weekly goals that are truly important. After weighing your essential tasks and focus, write down a primary goal for each day — you can highlight it in red or any other color.

"A schedule defends from chaos and whim." – 'Make Time,' Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky

• Learning from mistakes

Through mistakes, you see what doesn't work for you, and you have a chance to build a real, personal system, not a copy of someone else's. Determine what didn't work, bearing in mind that your schedule, rhythm, and workload change. It's normal if one system works in the winter and not summer. Change your approach or system to bring you joy, not stress.

Plan smarter, grow faster: How to use Headway for effective time management 

Want to go deeper? Check out Headway's book summaries on time management and planning — all condensed so you can apply key insights today. 

The app will be helpful in your daily planning because it saves you time. You can study in small doses — just 15 minutes — and you will get the main ideas of top-rated self-development books.

Both text and audio formats are available, allowing you to listen to valuable information on the go, somewhere on the road, while playing sports, walking, or cleaning.

Set goals in the Headway app, and you will receive a selection specifically tailored to your preferences. Try our convenient and user-friendly app today!