Map your day: what for?
When you map your day, you will bring you clarity over how you spend your time daily and weekly and it is a fun and very simple exercise that you can do in 15 minutes now.
Instructions:
Take 15 minutes to draw the timeline of your typical days in a week. Feel free to use any app or tool you want. I use Miro, but Excel or a good old pen and paper is OK.
Then, next to this map, write down a few things:
- Your first impression about your weekly map? Anything is fine, but please, do your best to be constructive and embrace the mindset that “today is already better than yesterday”.
- What do you want to start?
- What do you want to stop?
- What do you want to continue?
Want more tips? share your thoughts and first drafts with me 😉
Here is a concrete example, my map from April 2020:
About this map:
- This map is probably my first one, but it is already a “clean” version. So if your first map is ugly or completely messy, do not worry! It will get better over time. Do not start blaming yourself, just draft something that can be improved later.
- It was done with Miro App in April 2020. You can use paper, a simple table, a drawing app on your phone, anything!
- “NP” means “New Perspective”: it was the name of the project I was on at that time. So basically it’s work.
- “Tam” is the name of my girlfriend at that time, now my wife. As she was working at night, I was going to bed at 2am at the same time than her.
Why mapping your day will help you?
- You cannot obtain results or be motivated if you cannot have a simple tool that helps you assess what is your current situation. This map will bring you a clear understanding.
- You can then quickly layout the problem or identify what you are doing great already.
- Mind mapping my days and weeks have helped me to constantly optimize how I spend my time, improve my daily habits, productivity and overall happiness because I was feeling more in control of my life.
Move forward: Some questions you should answer with your drawings:
- What time do you wake up, work, eat, exercise, hangout, play, learn, read, sleep?
- How do you spend your weekends?
- How regular or irregular your days are? Can you estimate the total time spent at work, sleeping, with your family/friends or alone? etc.
Bonus Tips
Here are 2 simple things that will help you improve your day NOW:
- Use daily commute to LEARN ⇒ when driving, it’s the perfect moment to listen to podcasts or audiobooks instead of boring/depressing news…
- Food moments can becomes ME TIME ⇒ make food a personal time moment with yourself and your family or friends. Eat mindfully (focus on the food you eat), eat with your tribe (share a moment without phone and TV)!
To go further, join my community!
This exercise is only a small part of what is available to accomplish with me!
For your information, I have created a free “happy entrepreneur challenge”!
This challenge invites you to accomplish 2 more simple exercise to help you focus better, reclaim your time and smile everyday!
So when you join this challenge, you are also invited to join a Facebook Group with other like minded people doing the same challenge at the same time or others who have done it already and can share some tips!
Join the full challenge below to access the community and get on track for massive changes!
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