How to Build a Schedule That Works For You

I did not know when it happened, but I felt there were a couple obstacles in my journey that were inflection points to my growth.

Many of my peers have asked me how I get so much out of the day. One glance at my LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram would have you think I don’t sleep at night - that I am constantly on the ball. However, it is when I defined my identity that enabled me to pursue my aspirations.

It all started around my junior year of high school. Each day, I would wake up 5 am to travel 30 miles to get to school by 6:00am for swim practice. During that time, I was involved in 2 AP classes, varsity soccer, swim team, and helped the associated student body with events & programming.

This appears exhausting upon first glance; yet, I felt exhilarated. I was making the most of myself and not allowing the time to pass.

Why get up so early? Why do all of this? Why now?

Being present in the moment and being involved - that was my why. It seems easy, but it took me nearly ten years to arrive to this understanding. 

I know I love djing because it brings people together through a shared experience. I also want to pursue a career that empowers me to develop myself and the people around me.

This is my identity. This is the compass of which guides my journey. Yet, my experiences continue to shape my identity through each step I take. 

In knowing myself, it has taught me how to be intentional and craft a personal playbook in how to manage my time and energy. This is not a one-size-fits-all by any means, and I would challenge my peers to uncover what works for them.

What I’ve shared below is a reference of what I am doing to get shit done. This may change overtime, but above all, I define my destiny based on where I see myself in the future.

Evaluate your schedule

Once you have defined your identity, it is important to know how your schedule is building toward it. For instance, it’s tough to be an entrepreneur when your schedule is optimized toward your 9 to 5. There is nothing wrong with that, but take a second to think of your 7pm to 2am.

Like many of us in high school, it was through my growing pains that I started to realize what mattered to me most. Prior to my junior year, I spent roughly 3 hours every night watching sports and playing the latest video game.

I learned that in order for me to pick up extracurricular activities without dropping my grades, I’d have to drop most of the video game time and only watch the sport games that I really cared about. In short, I made time for the activities that mattered to me most and built my schedule around them.

Make your schedule work for you

Another piece of developing my personal playbook for time & energy management was learning when I thrive in different areas. I tend to be much more creative later in the day (past 3 PM) and even more creative as the night progresses (10 PM - 1 AM). Similar to goals with a plan, schedules are most effective when we keep ourselves accountable to them and adhere to the time we allot ourselves toward each activity. Therefore, I adapted my schedule so that my DJ practicing, brainstorming, and personal event planning takes place when I can be the most productive or creative.

Outline your non-negotiables

Your non-negotiables are scheduled activities that you are not willing to replace or put off for another matter. For instance, you are more likely to stick to a workout routine if you block that time out on your calendar. Your non-negotiables are the standards of which how you choose to invest in yourself. Given our work schedules, how do we allocate time for our non-negotiables? For me, my those pertain to family & friends, career, fitness, passion projects, and downtime. Making time for these aspects of my life meant doing less or dropping other things that may not have been aligned with my priorities. In making my non-negotiables a priority, I understood there would be tradeoffs in activities that ran in conflict with them.

Sharpen the saw

One thing that I’ve learned about productivity is that, similar for many of us, motivation is a limited resource and we can become fatigued overtime.

For example, I love listening to audiobooks while I commute to work because it allows me to refocus my intentions and mindset for the workday. Stephen Covey once introduced the concept of sharpening the saw as way for many of us to dedicate time toward activities that give us renewed energy.

My good friend, Zach Roberts, enjoys walking home after work every day, and he chooses to allocate that time to call his family. Although public transportation would be more efficient, Zach prefers to use this time to decompress and touch base with his loved ones. Let’s be real - burnout is common among professionals; thus, it’s important to invest time toward activities that remind us of our why.

Keep the end-goal in mind

“How will this action get me closer to my goal?,” is a question I tend to ask myself when I think about my schedule. My schedule is a living document - it bends to my will and where I see myself in the next 3-5 years. There is an intent with each action. One way I think about this is in reference to my own career transformation into social media marketing.

Four years ago, I knew that I wanted to pivot my career to the realm of social media. First, I set up a slew of informational interviews across sales, recruiting, and marketing. The goal was to learn more about their respective worlds and understand where I could see myself. Eventually, I saw that through social media marketing.

Although I was an event coordinator at the time, my manager supported my decision to take on side projects in social media marketing that related to my core role. Additionally, I took online courses in my free time, attended networking events, and listened to podcasts on social media marketing. All of this learning became muscle memory once I started to apply it in my day-to-day: sharing content through my own social networks. My team looked to me as the go-to person to all things social media-related, and, overtime, I built my skill set applicable for the role I am in today.

Many of us think of goals as the destination, but it is best not to forget the journey we take to arrive there. It’s okay to get out of your routine once in a while. Above all, a schedule will set you up for success in the long run as long as we are being present in those moments. This is one way how we can make the most out of each day toward goals we initially thought were not feasible because of limited time and energy.

Setting the schedule is the easy part; the difficult part is sticking to it.

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HUGE thanks to my good friend, Zach Roberts for helping me put this piece together. I appreciate you, Z!????