How to Plan Your Day

On average adults sleep for 7-8 hours a day and16-17 hours spent being awake. You would think that these 16-17 hours of being awake in the day would be enough time to get what you need to do done and sorted? Well for many of us this isn't the case and in fact is very easy for us to not get what we need to have done. Often we start with the intentions to get a lot of things done, but as the day passes us by and we keep delaying to do what needs doing, at the end of the day it feels as if we have wasted our time. It's having the self-discipline to go through with what needs doing and the sought after skill of being able to manage your time effectively that you will be able to produce productive days.
This is where a daily plan can be of use and of help to you to assist you with your daily-life, and is something that I would strongly recommend.

1. It may seem like a plan is a waste of time but it isn't.

It's no good deciding to make a plan if you think it's a rubbish idea and is a waste of time because you are more than likely not going to be able to properly commit to it and not be so strict upon yourself about sticking to it. If you are wanting to set-up a daily plan then make sure before you start it that you know the reasons why you want to have a plan and how it is going to benefit you - this will help to keep you focused upon sticking to your plan and following it through.

Having a daily plan will mean that you will never forget what needs doing, whether that's get some milk from the shop or to put the rubbish out, you won't forget as it will be laid out for you to see - so you will never have any need to remember what to do either.
You will also be able to sort through your tasks and decide which ones would be more effective to do at certain times and how they would be of better use of your time. Another thing is that you will often get through your daily jobs/chores/commitments etc a lot quicker than you usually would as you have everything laid out for you to see, you know exactly whats needs doing at any given moment.

2. Write your plan the night before

It's no good writing out a plan for your day on the day because you are using up valuable time when you could be being productive. There are people who do do this and can still make good use of there time, but creating a detailed plan taking 30 minutes or so is best done the night before. Evenings are also at the end of a day when more people have some a little extra free-time.
If you are not able to do it the evening before then do it at another part of your day when you are free, as long as it's the day before.

For me personally mornings are when I'm feeling the most productive and so I like to get up and get straight-on with the day and am not wanting to sit down and plan what I have to do for the day during my most productive time. Also if you start the day getting straight onto what needs doing chances are you will be more likely to continue as you are in that frame of mind to get things done.

3. Be strict about what you need to get done

Be strict with yourself about what needs to get done and write down all of the tasks that are a MUST for the day. These become your no.1 priority jobs to get completed. Next write down tasks that need to be done but aren't quite as important as your priority tasks.
Doing your priority tasks is of importance as they are things that you NEED to get done, other less important tasks that need to be done aren't as important to get done but are nice to see completed. Doing what you NEED to do and not what you want to do will lead to more productive days and you will be thankful for it.

4. Set mini plans for individual tasks

Once you have your plan set in place for the next day, try expanding upon it and going into more depth with each task, creating a sort of miniature plan for each one. This will mean staying productive and getting through each task will become all the more easier for you. 
An obvious example is with shopping - creating a shopping list. This will enable you to go through the store at a quicker rate and also helping you to not forget the things that you need to buy. 

Now I'll give you a personal example. I use my phone to help schedule my daily events and plans, on which I put most things. One of the things I put on is 'work' and also 'prepare for work'. I schedule in time to get myself ready for work and also have a further list which tells me exactly what I need to do. So for instance I have listed: get dressed for work, name badges, pen, bottle of water, wallet, etc. I do have more things listed on there that I do but it gives you an idea. I've seen an improvement to the time it takes me to get ready for work since following a list, allowing me to go from one thing to the next with ease and never forgetting to do anything. :)

5. Chunking

This is an effective technique that a lot of schedule-users like to implement as it allows you to make better use of your time. Chunking is where you group tasks into groups where you can then get them all out of the way at once. For example: You may need to go food shopping (with the help of your list) and you may also need to pick up your children from school which is near to the shops. So you could go food shopping and then pick up your children saving you from having to make two journeys. I also put shopping before picking the kids up as I know shopping with children can be a little stressful sometimes. :)
So have a look through your daily plan and see what you could chunk together to get out of the way on one clean swoop.

6. Plan larger tasks over a longer amount of time

Now you may have a large task on your plan that you know is going to take a lot longer to complete. It may be a task that will take over your day and prevent you from being able to complete your other tasks. Something you can do to make these larger tasks more manageable and still enable you to carry on with your other tasks is to split it into more manageable pieces, spread out over maybe a few days, or longer. You will have more energy for when you tackle the task each time and will be easier for you to stay motivated towards the task.  

Blog Update

This is only going to be a quick update regarding my articles on this blog. 

Since starting this blog I've never been happy with my consistency of publishing articles onto this site and have never set in place actual dates where you the readers can expect to see a blog post. As of recent this inconsistency has become even worse and I really feel like I need to do something about it. My schedule has become a lot busier than it used to be with other commitments, but yet still I feel as if I could be...let me rephrase - 'should be'  providing a better more consistent service than what is being offered at the moment. 

As I am a big promoter of consistency it seems a little hypocritical of me to be not offering a consistent service on Smart Blog. Therefore with this in mind I am going to now be submitting a blog post every Monday and Thursday, 52 weeks of the year, and am going to do my best to try and uphold this goal. :)

Klasifikasi Spam Pada Akun/Blog Blogger dan Konsekuensinya

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Cara Menyembunyikan Pesan Status di Halaman Label/Search Blogger

Selamat malam, pagi, siang dan sore buat yang baca. :) Artikel ini adalah post request oleh seorang sobat Blogger yang ingin sekali menghapus, menghilangkan atau menyembunyikan pesan status (status message) yang biasanya muncul di atas halaman label blog atau halaman hasil pencarian Blogger. Istilah dari Blogger nih, "Status Message Bar". Mungkin memang tampak kurang elegan dan menarik apabila

How to Play Sudoku

Sudoku is a great mental game that stimulates your mind and is fun to play. It's a game that once you know how to play, is very easy to pick-up-and-play and can be stopped at any time, and then re-continued at any time.

This post is merely to show you the basic rules of how to play a simple game of Sudoku and will not include advanced tips and tricks for those more challenging puzzles. This post is aimed at those of you who don't know how to play Sudoku and so I won't bog you beginners down by giving you more information than is necessary for you at the moment.

The sudoku board (as seen above) is made up of 9 squares creating a 3 x 3 grid. You will also notice that each of these 9 squares are further divided into 9 smaller squares which are called cells, creating smaller 3 x 3 grids. Each and every cell holds a value from 1 - 9, and it is up to you to determine what values they are - this is the whole concept of the game.

There are restrictions however to what number can be placed in what cell as every square (that is also a 3 x 3 grid) must contain all numbers 1 - 9, and as there are only 9 cells in each square - you've most likely realised that you can not have two of the same number if you are to include all the numbers 1 - 9. For example: a grid containing numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 would not be allowed. There are 9 numbers granted, however there contain two number fours and so would be incorrect.

Also that is not the only restriction to where a number can be placed. You may or may not have noticed but each column and row contain 9 cells (not by coincidence), and each of them must also contain the numbers 1 - 9. This means that each column and row (if done correctly) will never have the same number in twice.

You will need to look at every cell and see if a number can go there, you will be able to see if a number goes there as other numbers (in columns/rows/square) will rule out possibilities.

Have a look at the top-left square from the images that are present. You will see that it contains numbers 3, 5, 6, 8, and 9. This means that these numbers will not be able to be included in this large square as you must have all of the numbers 1 - 9. This means the numbers 1, 2, 4, and 7 are the only possibilities for the remaining four cells in that square. You must look at each of those cells and determine if numbers in other cells (from rows/columns) rule out possible cells for that number to go until you are left with only one possible cell for it to go.

You won't be able to determine where numbers can go straight-away and will require you to travel around the sudoku board searching.

Let's number every cell in each square A - I just so I can show you some examples. We're number them A - I as you would read a book. So looking at the first square; cell A contains the number 5, cell B contains the number 3, cell C is empty, cell D contains the number 6, cell E is empty, cell F is also empty, cell G is also empty, cell H contains the number 9, and cell I contains the number 8.

Let's try looking for the number 1 in the top-left square. The only other number 1 that would have an impact to our square is the top-middle square that contains the number 1 in cell D. This rules out the possibility of the number 1 being in cells E and F in our top-left square, and leave us with two possibilities to where the number 1 could be: cells C or G. We don't have enough numbers to determine which one so we'll have to come back to that later.

Some people like to pencil in small the possible numbers which could occupy that cell.

Now let's try looking for the number 2 in the top-left square. You will notice that there is not a single number 2 that is in a line or column that affects our top-left square, so at the moment the number 2 could potentially occupy any of the four cells (C, E, F, or G)  in our top-left square.

Now let's try looking for the number 4 in the top-left square. You will notice that there is a 4 in the middle-left square (cell D) that does affect us, and it rules out cell G in the top-left square to where the number 4 could appear. However it is the only cell that does affect us and so the number 4 could potentially still be in any of the cells C, E, or F.

I'll quickly do the number 7 for the top-left square too. The number 7 appears in the top-middle square and rules out cell C in the top-left square to where 7 can appear - this leaves us with cells E, F or G.

There is also a number 7 however in the middle-left square and that rules out cell G in the top-left square. Now only cells E and F remain to where the number 7 can appear. We don't have any more information at the moment so we'll have to move onto another square.

I'll now show you an example where a number can be found. Look at the bottom-left square. It only contains the number 6 and so can still house the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9.

Let's try looking for the number 8. The number 8 can appear in any of the cells A, C, D, E, F, G, H, or I. You will see however that there is a number 8 in the top-left square and that rules out cells C, F, and I straight away, leaving cells A, D, E, G, and H.

Then you will see another number 8 in the middle-left square and that rules out cells A, D, and G in our bottom-left square - and that now leaves us with cells E and H, both of which could potentially hold the number 8.

There is also another 8 in the bottom-middle square and that rules out cell H for us, which only leaves cell E. As there is only one possibility for where the number 8 can go (cell E) that means that the number 8 HAS to go there. It doesn't make any difference that there is a number 8 in the bottom-right square as that rules out cells A and C that the previous number eights did (in top-left and middle-left squares.

You just work your way around the board doing this and you will eventually have yourself a completed board. The 2 images below are of a sudoku board before and after completion. There are sudoku puzzles however where this very basic method is not nearly enough and where other techniques will be needed to be incorporated to complete them. For example the X-Wing and Jellyfish techniques.

 

Credit: Cburnett

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