How I Schedule My Calendar for Productivity

I can 100% say with confidence that my blog and business would not be where it is today without my calendar system. In fact, had I implemented this strategy when I first started blogging I truly believe I could have been full-time within 2 years. But you live and you learn so now I’m here, 8 years later, to help you avoid my mistakes.

my calendar breakdown

I have 2 ongoing calendars: one on my phone and one in my Sugar Paper planner. The calendar in my phone is definitely more structured but there’s something about writing down my to-do’s, goals, timelines, etc. that make things click, so having a physical planner and digital calendar works really well for me.

The calendar on my phone is broken down into tasks by the hour. I batch and time block so I have my entire day planned down to the minute. For example, every single day I’ll do some business development from 9am-11am. I call this my “power hour” where I reach out to old clients, new clients, potential clients, leads, etc. I find I’m the most sharp in the morning so that’s why I block that specific time.

So from 9am-11am I am laser focused on outreach and I don’t do anything else. I barely get up to pee let alone check my email, play on Instagram, or do any of the other things that distract us from getting real work done.

My physical calendar is similar but slightly less organized with little notes all over the place. Each night I’ll write down 5-6 things I need to get done for the day in the designated block (my planner has an empty space for notes every day of the week). I try to list my to-do’s in order of importance but usually as I’m thinking of things, it all gets kind of jumbled. This is where my phone calendar comes in handy.

I’ll take everything in the block from my planner and organize it into my digital calendar. I’ll include the most important tasks in the morning and everything else after 12pm that way I’m doing my hardest work first.

My workday starts around 7am-7:30am and ends anywhere from 5:30pm-8pm depending on the day.

how I stay on task

I’m not going to lie, staying on task for me can be challenging. Like, there are some days where I just want to give up and scroll on Instagram… but I don’t. So what’s really helped me has been phone alerts. I’ll set an alert at the time of the “event” on my phone calendar so it syncs to my computer and I’ll set an additional alarm on my phone for good measure.

Having a routine is also extremely helpful. For the most part, my mornings are pretty much the same until noon, so I know exactly what I should be doing and when.

I go through my day tackling one task at a time instead of getting anxious over everything I have to do in 24 hours. I only focus on the task at hand until my alarm goes off. I find it’s much easier and less stressful that way.

For example, right now is my writing time so I’ve carved out 2 hours for writing blog posts. I’m not thinking about what happened before this or what’s going to happen after this otherwise I’d get completely overwhelmed.

my typical daily schedule

6am: Wake up and complete morning routine. I’ll open the blinds, make the bed, do a 30 minute workout, meditate, and then write in my gratitude journal.

7am-7:30am: Prep for the day. I’ll look over my calendar and cross reference it with my planner and make sure I didn’t miss anything.

7:30am-8am: Emails.

8am-8:45am: Morning walk. I live for my walks and being with nature. During this time I also listen to a business podcast and/or call my mom. I HATE wasting time.

Back when I lived in NYC, I would write my blog posts on the train to work. Using every single minute is key to getting more done, especially if you’re someone who claims they “never have any time”.

8:45am-9am: Get home and make hot water and lemon and my “brunch”, (I intermittent fast so my first meal of the day isn’t until 12pm).

9am-11am: Usually this is my client outreach/power hour time but recently I’ve been using it to make final tweaks for The Blogger Blueprint (launching January 2020!).

11am-12pm: Written content. If I have blog posts, Instagram captions, email newsletters, etc. that need to be done, I’ll do it during this time because like I said earlier, I’m the most focused in the morning.

12pm-1pm: What I do during this time depends on what I have to do specifically for the week. Sometimes I’ll do graphic design work, brainstorm, organize, etc.

12pm-12:20pm: Post to feed on Instagram. Since moving to California, I’ve found my highest engagement hour is around this time so that’s when I post. My pics and captions are pre-planned so it really doesn’t take me long.

12:30pm-3pm: The afternoons are usually when I work on projects for my NAB Media Group clients. Again, it really depends what my week looks like but usually I’m doing work for them.

3pm-3:30pm: Since this is technically the end of the day for east coasters I’ll check my emails again. I used to only check emails once a day but I bumped it up once we got busier at NAB Media Group.

3:30pm-4:30pm: Post to IG Stories. Sometimes this takes the full hour, other times it only takes 30 minutes. I batch all of my IG Stories at one time so I’m not interrupting my workflow throughout the day. I also like that my Stories end up being… an actual story. You can see my whole day from start to finish which I think is really cool.

4:30pm-5pm: DMs on Instagram. I’m trying to make it a point to respond to each and every DM on IG every single day. Before, I would answer all my DMs on Fridays but once a week is just a little too long for people to wait IMO.

5pm-??: I’ll schedule client calls and do misc. work during this time. Sometimes if I underestimate how long something will take me I’ll finish it during this time.

Also, someone DMed me asking when I showered and ate dinner, which is amazing… I eat dinner around 6pm-7pm, clean up, and shower after. I like to be fresh and clean before getting into bed. 🙂

Shout out to @morasomething who asked for this blog post. If you ever want me to do a post on a certain topic, slide in my DMs and I’ll do it!

Are you this scheduled with your day? Yes or no?