A 7-Step Strategy for Structuring Your Day
Joey Justice
Cofounder and COO building Kortex - a second brain built to 10x your creativity, productivity, and profitability.
One of the best ways to improve your performance is to improve how you manage your time.
The average person doesn't manage their time. They drag themselves out of bed in the morning, survive the day by barely getting done what they have to (or what they feel like), and flop into bed whenever they tear themselves away from their screens.
It's no wonder the average person isn't performing anywhere close to their potential.
One of your three most important resources is time (I'll write about the other two - attention and energy - in future articles).
Time is the one truly limited resource in the universe. We may not know how much time we have in our lives, but we do know we all have the same number of hours in our days.
This idea is supposed to be motivating: Since you have the same number of hours as Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and other top 1%ers, that means you can use those hours to reach their level of success too, right?
Well, not quite. That statement doesn't tell the full story. The quantity of the hours in your day isn't the only thing that matters - the quality of hours matters too... and might just matter more.
Successful people are able to use their resources to increase the quality of their hours. For example, Gary Vaynerchuk can pay for a social media team, a cook, and other assistants.
This frees up his time so he can do other things with his hours, effectively increasing the quality of his hours. This also relates to the idea of spending money to "buy" time.
Of course, most of us aren't at that level (yet), so we need to find ways we can increase the quality of our hours. The first step to doing so is managing our hours by structuring our day. After changing the structure of my day more times than Taylor Swift changes music genres, I've come up with a simple strategy for structuring yours:
1) Write down the time you want to get up in the morning
For optimal performance, get up at the same time every day (including weekends). The time you wake up (and get sunlight) is the most important modulator of your circadian rhythm. A consistent get-up-and-get-going time is the best thing you can do for yourself.
2) Write down the time 7 or 8 hours before your wake time
Yes, we're working backward to start off.
This is your bedtime. A consistent bedtime isn't quite as important as a consistent wake time, but it's still important. The majority of us need 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night to be at our best.
Note: If you have a night where you're up an hour or two past your bedtime, don't sleep in later to compensate. That'll confuse your circadian rhythm and make you feel bad.
3) Write down the time 30 to 60 minutes before your bedtime
30 to 60 minutes before bed, turn off all of your screens. The blue light from screens disrupts the production of melatonin (the hormone that makes you feel sleepy). The content on screens typically keeps the brain highly active. Shutting off your screens lets your system release melatonin and lets your brain wind down.
During this evening routine (what I call "dark mode"), do things that don't take much mental/physical effort. Good things include:
4) Write down the time 30 minutes after your wake time
This gives you time to go through a morning routine that helps you be more productive throughout the day. I'll write about the best one to start with next week.
Pause. At this point, we've structured about a third of your day. We have your wake time, morning routine end time, evening routine start time, and bedtime. That was easy. Now things get a little harder.
The next two steps assume you have a lot of control over your schedule. They also require you to know whether you're a morning person or a night owl.
5) Write down a few (1 to 3) blocks for deep focused work
If you're a morning person (meaning you're more energetic and focused early in the day than later in the day), pick times in the morning. If you're a night owl (meaning you're more energetic and focused later in the day than early in the day), pick times in the afternoon/evening.
Create 30 minute, 60 minute, or 90 minute blocks. Which length you pick is up to you. Neurobiologically, we work best in cycles of around 75 to 90 minutes, but if you can't yet focus for that long at a time, starting with blocks of 30 minutes might be better for you at the moment.
Note: These work blocks include breaks. So, two 90 minute blocks back to back would have a 15 minute break "baked in" to that 180 minute period.
6) Write down a few (1 to 3) blocks for light, creative, brainstorming work
If you're a morning person, put these later in the day. If you're a night owl, put these earlier in the day. Why?
Because we're thought to be better at doing divergent/drafting/brainstorming activities when we're less energetic and less focused. This has to do with which network of the brain is active at a given time.
You know how you get sudden ideas while you're showering, meditating, or walking? That's because when you're not really focused on something, your default mode network is more active.
The DMN is relatively "random", chaotic, and creative. With this scheduling, we're taking advantage of this effect. I got JK Molina (a ghostwriter) to do this - he drafts in the evening and edits in the morning.
7) Write down the time you'll exercise, shower, eat, and take a short walk
The timing of this period depends on you. Working out in the morning s better for some people, while others prefer to work out later in the day. The length of this period depends on what you're doing and how long it'll take. Taking a short (5-15 minute) walk after eating a medium-large meal is always a good idea since it helps your digestion.
Now that you have all of these times written down, start adding them to your calendar as recurring events. The start of your morning routine block is your wake time, and the end of your evening routine block is your bedtime.
Adding things to your calendar greatly increases the likelihood you'll actually do them at the time you planned to. Otherwise, you'll forget and miss a lot of them, putting you back where you started.
This strategy gives you a baseline structure for your day. Now, you're free to fill the rest of it in how you see fit!
Here's how I did this for myself:
1) Wake up at 6:00am
2) Go to bed at 10:00pm
3) Start evening routine at 9:30pm
4) End morning routine at 6:30am
5) Deep work blocks at 7:00am-8:30am, 8:30am-10:00am, and 10:00am-11:30am
6) Brainstorming/drafting blocks at 1:00pm-2:00pm and 2:00pm-3:00pm
7) Gym, shower, dinner, and walk from 3:00pm to 5:00pm