Manage Your Tasks by Dividing Your Day Into 10 Parts
If you feel like there isn’t enough time for whatever you want (and need), one solution – as paradoxical as it sounds – may be to cut back on the number of hours per day.
Not literally, of course. We cannot stop the passage of time. But with the NewDay time system, we can restructure our days into ten equal chunks, which surprisingly made it much easier for me to do everything I want to do in a typical day.
This is how the NewDay system works:
- NewDay divides waking hours into ten 100-minute segments. (You have 440 minutes, or 7.33 hours, of sleep.)
- Each of your ten 100-minute segments has an intent. If your first segment starts at 6:30, for example, the first 100 minutes of your day can be devoted to “yoga, shower, breakfast” or, if you want to be more holistic, “morning routine.” “
- Fill in the remaining 100-minute segments with what usually happens during a typical workday. I know this will not be perfectly flat – for example, you can take a lunch break for only 30 minutes, which means that you cannot devote the entire time slot to “lunch”. (Of course, this means that your primary intent for this time slot is actually “work” and should be coded accordingly.)
What I love about the NewDay time system is that it helps you clarify exactly where your time is going. Do you have the opportunity to devote more than a few minutes to yourself, or do you fill most of your 100-minute segments with work? Have you ever spent a full 100 minutes with family, exercise, relaxation, or a sumptuous meal? (Remember, if you don’t take the time to do these things, you risk burning out.)
To make your daily routine even more obvious, NewDay lets you add a visual icon (person at table, person eating, person exercising) at every 100 minute interval. Unfortunately, the number of icons is limited – for example, there are no icons representing a family – but they are still decent tools to help you visualize what you usually do with your time.
Once you know how you usually spend your ten servings day, you can start adjusting it. Instead of cluttering your workflow with short, unfulfilling breaks, you can tell yourself, “I’m going to focus on my work for the next 100 minutes, and then I’ll take a 100-minute lunch break and this romance. long wanted to read.
This is a radical change in the situation – and why I love the little time tracking program in the NewDay browser so much. When you divide your day into 10 chunks and truly focus on one activity for each, you may find that there is actually plenty of time for everything on your list.
Of course, it’s helpful if you have enough control over your daily routine to take a 100-minute break after a 100-minute work session. If you are a parent or guardian, it will also help if you have the kind of support that allows you to spend 100 minutes at work before spending the next 100 minutes with your family.
But if you can divide your day into ten parts and set a clear intention for each of them, you may be surprised at how much you’ve gotten done – and how much time you have left, both in the middle and at the end. day for rest and relaxation.