Imagine waking up in the morning, being in control of your daily schedule and being organized. Does this sound like a stress-free day? This can be done by compartmentalizing your day.
Compartmentalization can be used to separate components of your daily tasks, activities, projects to virtual buckets allowing you to focus on them one at a time with limited stress. In order to do this, you will need to be able to organize your day so you are able to have a deep focus to accomplish a task at a time.
The goal is to be to have a stress-free day and regain control of your day.
Remember, you can only influencing whats in your control so there is not excuses for not making your day more organized. In order to practice compartmentalization, there are concepts and techniques you need to grasp.
1. Visualize Your Long Term Goal
Always start with the end in mind. Work out what you want in life. Why you want it. What are your goals? How do you achieve it? Now once you have this in mind, create a road map to get from today to your goals. This is quite detailed but I will write another post to cover this. The purpose here is to ensure you have the drive to make the changes necessary to live a stress-free life and be in control.
“First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends: wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” – Aristotle
It’s important to organize, plan ahead, and be clear about your goals. Link them to your what you do each day. For example, if my long term goal is to be fulfilling life, I will ask myself what does it mean to be fulfilling? This is just my own definition. It may mean I want to spend quality time with my family, I want to gain knowledge through reading books, I want to be financially self-sufficient in 5 years.
For Goal 1 – This can translate to spending dedicated time each day with my family
For Goal 2 – This can translate to being able to spend 30 minutes a day reading
For Goal 3 – This can translate to designing a plan to achieve the income and set long term and progress goals. In order to reach the progress goals, I need to dedicate 10 hours a week on projects that will get me there.
I will write another post on planning but essentially the first step is to get your day to day task optimally executed.
2. Focus On What You Can Control and Ignore Things Out of Our Control
We can only focus on what we can control and should not be distracted by things out of our control. To put this simply, we can think like this. There are two buckets. Things that are influence by us for example how we spend our time and things out of control for example how the economy will be next year. Once this is clear in our minds we can continue on our compartmentalize journey.
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own . . .”
—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4–5
3. Reduce Anxiety by Eliminating Distractions
In today’s busy world we get bombarded with information, emails, messages, and people trying to take our time away from us. Do you know what is the most important asset we have? It not your house, car or even the amount of money in your bank account. Its your time. Let’s look at each one of the time wasters that add to your daily stress and creates anxiety.
To Improve Focus – Put Away Your Smartphone
Do you really need to look at your smartphone first thing in the morning? or before you sleep? What is so urgent you must focus your attention on it?
Action to take: For the first hour of the day and the last hour of your day and put your phone on silent or airplane mode. What difference does it make if you do not respond to some random message?
To Reduce Anxiety – Do Not Watch the News the first thing in the morning
Yes, the news or social media. There might be a natural disaster 10,000 miles away or some Hollywood Celebrity has a scandal. Do you need to know this first thing in the morning? Probably Not. Why don’t you limit your news intake later in the day but only for a short window of time?
Action to Take: Make a rule for yourself and limit your news or social media a few times a day.
To Avoid Distraction – Do Not Read Emails In the Morning
This also applies to your work emails if possible. Who would expect you to respond first thing in the morning? Can’t it wait until your in the office? If find emails the most distracting and reading it first thing versus 3 hours later when you’re at the office sipping on coffee makes very little difference.
Tip: Take control of your smartphone and emails rather than these devices and tools dictating what you do.
4. Batch Your work
Being able to save time is a big one for me. By having more time for yourself you can use the time to do other things.
Batch your food preparation
Let’s think about every night you go home and wash the vegetables and prepare for your meal. This is at least 20 minutes a night just to prepare for food. Why don’t you try batch preparing your meals or at least wash all vegetables and cut up your food portions so it’s easy to cook. Preparing for one portion vs three or four portions is about the same time. Why not use one or two nights a week to prepare for all the meals for the week.
Batch your laundry
This is also a good idea where you can have a couple of days a week dedicated to washing. This will save you time and water.
5. Be Organized and Plan the Night Before
Planning ahead is important. A good way is to plan your day ahead of time. Planning the night before eliminates any decision fatigue in the morning so when you wake in the morning you know what you need to do. List the tasks you need to do the next day and prioritize based on importance and urgency. If it’s important and urgent do it goes on the top of the list, followed by important and not urgent. If they are not important and urgent or not urgent and not important just delay the task or delegate it.
6. Separate the Time of the Day to Focus on Different Task
The time of the day is very important. It is best to reserve your energy in the morning to focus on things that are important and will help you move the needle ahead. The menial task should be done after all your energy and concentration is used upon the important task
7. Separating Your Spaces and Tools Based on Your Activity
Use different spaces for different work. For example, I do my work at home in my study and only work there at home. I go to the same Starbucks every day to work on my blog and nothing else. I go to the local library to study Italian. I sit in the same lounge to read.
I only use my laptop for work and nothing else. I use my tablet for entertainment. I use my smartphone to either listen to Audible Books, Podcast and Educational Videos.
8. Bundle Your Tasks
Use the principles of Timeboxing and bundling your work into a routine.
Timeboxing
Timeboxing is a powerful approach where you set a time on a task you are working on. I find it works well with household tasks where you give yourself 30 minutes to vacuum and tidy up. I find when I do not set a time limit it can often lead to me doing extra things that are not necessary at that time.
Bundling work
This is where I can group similar tasks I need to do and find synergies. An idea is to create a routine out of this. For example, you can crat a Bi-Weekly Cleaning Routine. I’ll give you an example:
Final thoughts…
Here are just a few suggestions to help you get some ideas. It’s very important to remember to not be overwhelmed with the hive of activity around us. We need to take a step back, look at where we fit in the whole scheme of things. Focus on what we can control and ignore the rest. Separate our task and focus one thing at a time. Split our activities into buckets and remember to schedule that activity and allocate a place and a time for each activity.