How To Achieve More In Less Time: Process Scheduling

Most PCVs in their second year are finding their secondary projects have become their primary projects.  For me its my teacher trainings, for my friend its teaching yoga.  Both of these are projects we are interested in and dedicated to, willingly filling up hours of our free time in order to see them succeed.

Really, most second year PCVs are freelance workers.  At this point in our service the primary placement is a part-time job providing a few consistent bucks for rent and food.  The bulk of our work happens outside the office, outside the school, on our own schedule and our own time.

And, as written a million times before by those in the similar situations, this can be a blessing and a curse.  Having the luxury to do your work anywhere at anytime can easily lead to procrastination and inefficient work habits.  Aside from the times of lessons, everything in my schedule is pretty fluid, which too often can result in tasks and projects flowing into future days and weeks.

So, I've begun rigorously scheduling myself again.  When my manager at Apple decided all managers must schedule their days I resisted greatly.  I hated the idea of my day already being planned for me regardless of what I personally felt that day.  I needed flexibility, I needed choice.

But man did it work.  And it worked because my weeks and days are strikingly similar, and if they're not, I probably wanted them to be.  The idea of scheduling 365 days and 52 weeks to me is a terrifying thought, but putting a process in place that schedules a week template that simply repeats is something I can get behind.  I hate schedule, I love process.

My favorite benefit of this strategy is how much more efficient and productive I am with my time.  Instead of needing time for a specific project, I schedule numerous '90 minutes of work' segments throughout the week (inspired by this great 99% article).  Then, on Sunday, I just fill in what I'll be doing in these 90 minute segments.  I find myself not only accomplishing everything I wanted for the week, but also working on longer term, more future-oriented projects, the easiest types of projects to procrastinate.

When it comes down to it, my day-to-day life isn't that spontaneous, in fact, its actually pretty repetitive; spontaneity in my day-to-day life usually translates to 'not doing what you actually wanted to do'.  Though this type of process schedule reduces the amount of choice in my day, it also ends up increasing my sense of accomplishment for each day.  Spontaneity still has a place in my life, but process scheduling ensures that it stays as that magic, spur of the moment, type of event.

How I Did It

I use iCal for scheduling myself. I recommend a digital calendar program because of the ease in setting repeatable events, which are the essence of process scheduling.

1) Set repeating events for those items in your schedule that are necessary, that you have no control over.  For me, it was my class schedule and an already existing conversation club.

Oh school, how I wish you always started at 9:40.

2) Note, for the next few steps (steps 2-7), do not schedule repeating steps; we will edit this schedule for next week.  Schedule your lunches and (if you want) your dinners.  Azerbaijan doesn't have the eating out culture that US has, so I scheduled my dinners too.  This is important because it forces you to acknowledge your meals as important times that have every right to not be encroached upon as any other event you schedule.

Yes, I do include washing dishes.  Its amazing how much it encourages me to wash my dishes right after.

3) Schedule those items that you know can easily can lost after scheduling other things.  Often these are items for your personal well-being which we put off in order to 'do' work (read: watch tv).  For me it was yoga and exercise.  When I practice with my friend its basically a 3 hour commitment, 90 minutes + 40 minutes of walking + 50 minutes of socializing, so this is a very real time commitment.

4) Schedule various '90 minutes of work' segments throughout your week.  At this point, these are simply blank segments you will be working on a single project for 90 minutes.  Steps 1-4 serves as the template we will edit from.

Notice how some of my workouts changed based on new events plugged in.  Also, I schedule my laundry because hand-washing is a total pain.

5) Now fill in the actual work you will be doing this week in these 90 minutes of work.  I try and schedule my meetings to fit within these times as well.  Don't leave any blank; if you don't have the work, either choose a future-oriented project or delete the event and give yourself some extra free time.

Finished schedule, with plenty of room for free time.

6) Refer to this schedule multiple times a day.  And as you follow it observe where you change it.  Do you exercise earlier rather than later? Are you taking longer for lunch?  Change this week's schedule to reflect the true times you are taking.  The exception to this rule is the '90 minutes of work' event, stay at that task for 90 minutes.

7) Towards the end of the week, create next week's schedule in this described style but adjusting it to be more realistic with your past week.  A process schedule should enable you to work effectively, not force you to work in a specific way.  If you can only commit to 3 '90 minutes of work' segments in your week, accept that.  If you take 1.5 hour lunches instead of 1 hour, accept that.  Just like in the first week, monitor and adjust to reflect the actual weekly schedule.

8) As you create the third week's schedule, create repeating events.  You already have those times you cannot change, now add meals, then personal wellness, and finally '90 minutes of work'.  Set an end date for this schedule (for me it was the end of school) where you can reflect and adjust your process the new condition of your scheduled life.

9) Once a week plan your '90 minutes of work' for the upcoming week.

10) Bask in the luxury of lack of choice.