Episode 92: Using a Daily Priority Sheet to Simplify Your Days
Today I'm sharing one of my FAVORITE productivity strategies with you! Using a Daily Priority Sheet is a fantastic way to get more done, build self-awareness around your tasks, and fine-tune your focus in BIG ways!
Today you'll learn:
What a Daily Priority Sheet is and how to use them to your advantage
Complete step-by-step ways to use them and ideas to take it to the next level
The importance of choosing 3 top daily priorities and how long they should take you to accomplish
Ideas for color-coding your day
The importance of tracking what you did over what you have to do
Ways to use a daily intention/mantra
Transcript:
I'm so excited today because we're gonna be talking all about one of my most favorite things, and it's one of those things that might seem simple enough, but I'm telling you, it's a total game changer in your productivity and just how happy you're gonna feel throughout the day. We're gonna be talking today about how to use a daily priority sheet to map out what you're doing, keep track of what you're doing, and really kind of get to know what you're doing throughout the day with your routine and what you're eating, anything you want to track.
I'm telling you, if you're new to looking into any of this kind of stuff where you just kind of want to be reminded of what you're doing in a day, this is the perfect way to start, especially if you're feeling overwhelmed or you don't want to start into a whole new planner. Just printing off a daily priority sheet. It can be a total game changer. So I'm Super excited to tell you exactly how to use this. There's a printable that you can download and follow along with and use, and I'm gonna be going through each and every section and giving you tons of ideas on how you can use this and why it is so important.
Welcome to the Mindful Productivity podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and this is the place to be to live a more mindful and productive life. If you're ready to turn daily chaos into com and start your days with intention, then get ready to join me as we dive deep into mindful living and personal productivity. It's time to connect with your true self so you can live the life you want to live. And it all starts now.
You've probably heard that what gets tracked and measured, growth and improves, right? When we have self awareness, when we know what we're doing, and we are aware of our habits and our routines and some of the tasks that we're doing throughout the day, personally, professionally. If you run a business, any of that stuff, then those things tend to get improved. We tend to then put more energy into them. We tend to start noticing what we're doing or what we can improve. It all comes down to self awareness, and that's something I'll say again and again, gain that if you want to improve anything in your life, it comes down to self awareness.
And sometimes that can be a huge hurdle to get to, because let's be honest. Selfawareness isn't always fun, right? And we're in a place in our lives, or we're uncomfortable with something. Or maybe we're looking to get in better physical shape. It kind of starts with looking at how much we're sitting on the couch or how much we're not moving, right? And really getting clear, like, okay, there's definitely some things that I've been doing that I need to shift and change. Well, today we're gonna be talking about how you can use something I call a daily priority sheet, and I've been using these for a while.
I don't always use it every single day. But if I found myself kind of like not using my planner as much or I kind of just have found myself kind of just getting up and getting into work and doing my stuff, and I'm not really kind of clear on what's going on. Then using a daily priority sheet is a great place to start to get me back on track, and I know the same is possible for you. So let me tell you a little bit about what a daily priority sheet is.
I'm sure that you've seen them. There's a plethora of them online. You can find printables, you can search Pinterest, you can find these kind of daily Todo list with all kinds kinds of things. Honestly, it doesn't even matter which one you use, and mine is just one version of it. And I've compiled things that have helped me over the years, and the sections I have are there for a very intentional reason. And I'll get to that later. But ultimately, using a daily priority sheet is going to kind of Ping your mind.
It's going to help prompt your mind to track things and write certain things down. Now, the goal of today's podcast is to not only get you to try it out and let me know how it goes. Let me know in community like what you found out or what was helpful for you, but it's also to give you some different ideas and some variety around the ways that you can use this, because I know for me, I love learning about different little hacks and tips and tricks for how to take my priorities and my productivity to the next level.
One thing I especially love about using a daily priority sheet is that it gets you to kind of take things down to the microcosm of the tasks that you actually need to do today. And it's really nice, too, because we'll set goals. We'll think of things we need to do. Sometimes what happens is that we get so in our heads about I need to know what my annual goals are, or my quarterly goals or even my monthly goals are like this week that we don't end up doing that planning or we put off that planning work.
And so then what happens is that they're there's no trickle down, right? If we think that we don't have a big picture goal, then sometimes we just put off doing daily things and we don't look at it. So today this is actually kind of a reverse funnel way. I'm getting yourself to take action and do things. So instead of starting with a really big goal and breaking it down, which is a great way to do things, and there's multiple ways today we're going to focus on building things up with micro tasks and also using this as a self awareness activity to really get you going in any given priority sheet.
And we're obviously going to focus on the one that I've created for you today. There are a number of different sections, and the main the main reason that it's created and the main priority use for it is, what are your top three priorities? What are the top three things that you need to do today that you know, that we can't put it off any further? These things have to get done, whether they're personal or professional or tasks in your business. These things have to get done today.
And you may be thinking, I have a laundry list of things that I need to do today and this week, and I want to get them all down, and that's great. If you need to do that right, do a brain up or anything like that. But the main focus of priority task sheet is to get clear on what those three things are today. And I'm telling you, if you just focus on three things today and do them, you'll actually be getting things done. Instead of thinking, I have six things I want to do and then and not actually doing any of them for the sake of ease to I want you to think of your top three priority tasks for the day as things that you can do in 20 minutes or less.
So you may have a bigger project, but it's really important to not overestimate what you can do, because we tend to do that. We overestimate what we can do in a day. But then we also underestimate how much we can actually get done in a good chunk of focused time. So 20 minutes, 320 minutes tasks is a great way. An hour of your day is a great way to know. Okay. I can actually get these things done, and I can be realistic. So what are the top three things that you want to get done today that take 20 minutes or less?
Okay. And I will tell you I will share with you what kind of mine are today. So I have three top priorities, and these, I will admit, are they take a little bit longer than 20 minutes because I have to kind of go back. But I have one of them was meal prep, which I wanted to make this inch out of Bake, and I wanted to have it for the rest of the week. And it only takes me about 15 minutes to build the thing. It's kind of like a Mexican lasagna, and then I need to throw it in the oven, so it takes half an hour to Bake, but that's not half an hour of my time.
I can set it and forget it and come back. So that was the first top priority task. And then my second one was laundry again. Laundry can take a couple of hours, but the actual time that I need to switch the laundry in and out and fold it real quick. I'm doing my sheets and my blankets today. That's only going gonna take about 20 minutes, maybe 30. So really, these are definitely realistic things that I can do today. And then the other top priority I had today is to do, like a mega brain dump to really sit down for 20 focused minutes.
And I like to use my daily productivity and brain the book, but you can use anything. You can use a Journal, a blank piece of paper, the back of your priority sheet. Right? You can just use that and get all the ideas out of your head. But that was something I really needed to do today was have 20 focus minutes where I'm intentionally writing down all the things in my head. So those are your top three priorities, and that's simple enough. You write them down, you make sure they're about 20 minutes.
And you know that those are the main things that you're going to do. And what's great about having just three top priorities is that then you can even break them down throughout the day. So depending on what your routine looks like, if you're at home, if you're in the office or whatever you can, then look at what are your top three priorities? And when are those top three priorities going to happen? Are they going to happen in the morning, in the afternoon or in the evening?
Now, maybe there's one for each section of the day for me. I work from home, so I was able to knock out all three of these in the morning and the afternoon. But maybe you're working nine to five and maybe laundry or whatever your task is has to happen after work. Well, underneath the top three priority section, there's another section that says Morning, afternoon, and evening. And what I like about this is that you can then take your top three priorities and put them in your day.
Where are you going to do them? What time are you going to do them? So if it's helpful to do this, like the day before, you can print this out and do it like the night before and be like, okay, what are the top three things need to do tomorrow? Where am I gonna put them in my day? Or you can also just do it the morning of. So if you get up early, you can map out your day. And if you've got more of a free flow day and you're really just trying to get these things done in between things, like maybe you have kids, you have a baby or something, and it's like, okay, well, whenever nap time is that's when I know I can do this, then you can also use this sheet to write down when you do accomplish these top three priority tasks.
Additionally, in this morning, afternoon, and evening routine section, which H we can kind of just call the bulk of the day or whatever, then this is also a place where you can use this another way so you can map out when your top three priorities are going to happen. But this is also where I personally like to write down kind of like, what are some of the things that are going on throughout the day? So I like to use different colors. So in the screenshot that I'll share with you of my printable that I use today, I used a blue pen to kind of write down what I was eating throughout the day to kind of do some meal tracking, wrote down what I had for breakfast, what I had for lunch, and then what I'm planning on having for dinner because I did the enchilada Bake today for the meal prep.
So that's gonna be dinner. So I wrote that down in blue. Then I also took a purple pen and I'm writing down what are some of the things that I'm doing throughout the day for selfcare? So I wrote down in the afternoon. I took a 20 minutes break with Bella. She likes to snuggle in the afternoon. So we got back into bed and I opened up my phone and I played this cooking grades game or something on my phone for about 20 minutes while she snuggled with me.
And then this evening I want to read 50 pages of this book I'm reading. So I wrote that in with purple pen. Read 50 pages. So you can use different colored pens in this priority sheet, too, to map out or kind of color code. Like, what are you doing throughout the day for your priority task? So you can like, for example, my top three priority tasks. I did kind of in like a coral color. And then you can also use that same color in to write down when you're doing those things throughout your day.
I use blue for meals, and I use purple for self care, so that can kind of be a fun way to kind of visually track what you're doing throughout the day as well. Now, on the left hand side of this sheet, there is a list of things I did today, and I put this here because when I first created this, I see a lot of these pages, and they're like, there's an additional Todo list. And don't get me wrong, there's probably additional things that you want to do during the day.
But what I found that really helped my brain n really shifts my mindset a lot. And I have another episode on the Mindful Productivity podcast, too, where I talk about success less. But when I write down things that I did today throughout the day, it just makes me feel a lot better. It makes me feel a lot more motivated. I feel a lot less stressed, because even if we never feel like as productive as we want to. And at least for me, sometimes it's hard to have a day naturally, especially if I'm not creating that self awareness intentionally, where I just feel like I'm out of of the world.
I got so much done. So when you use this list of things I did today, I really want you to I want you to fill this up, and I want you throughout the day to use it and write down things that you're doing. So a couple things that I wrote down, I cleaned my little mini kitchen that I have right now, and I did all the dishes that were in the sink. And so when I was starting out my day, it was nice to kind of look at, like, okay, I still have so much laundry to do, but like, oh, wow.
Look, already got two of these things done, and that feels really good. I also wrote down in blue on here. And you'll see this when you look at the screenshot and everything, I wrote down other things that you can write down under things I did today. So maybe they're not things that you accomplish per se, like a task. But you can also write down realizations you have, like, maybe you kind of had an AHA moment, or maybe throughout the day, like in doing something new or in working on one of your priority tasks, you realized, oh, this wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be.
Or this actual ally was more fun. Or I thought I'd be really stressed about this meeting I had, and I wasn't. So using the things I did today column can also be a great place to write down realizations. It's also a great place to write down, like personal tasks. So write down things that you've done both personally and professionally. So writing down that you actually took five minutes to breathe and catch your breath before the day started. That's great. Or you can write down any weekly chores or errands that you're taking care of today.
But this is a really great place to write that you can also write down any routine tasks that you got to. So maybe you're really working on getting back into Flossing consistently or two times a day. Right. I know that's something that typically a lot of us sometimes put off, or we'll do it in the morning, but not in the evening. You can write down that you I did that both times. So again, this is just a really great way to look at this. And I challenge you this week or whenever you're listening to this to print out five of these sheets and try to do this for five consecutive days, and then you can staple them together.
And at the end of those five days, it's really nice to kind of flip through them and be like, wow, these are my top three priorities on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. And this is what I accomplished those days. And at the end of five days, you can really get to see how much much you're doing. And it's also going to give you awareness to notice how much maybe you've overextended yourself or you've over committed to. It's also an opportunity to see how much you can really get done in maybe an hour.
Like, one thing I notice is when I start writing down things I did today, how I can kind of fill up this list in about 2 hours of time that I've done throughout the day. I don't necessarily need 8 hours to fill all of these things up. So I think you get what I'm saying. It's like you can really be productive, even if you only have a two hour window in your day throughout the day to get these things done. Okay, underneath this, we have a Quadrant of different things to track, and these are also things that you can find in the mindful.
Productivity planner. But again, trying this out for one day and then doing it for five consecutive days, you're really going to notice how these little tiny prompts really influence and impact your day and your mindset and help you kind of coach yourself in a way to be like, what do I need to do? Or like, what's coming up for me throughout the day. So underneath this section, you'll find the first line has a note section and then an intention and a mantra. So I want to kind of share what I wrote down here and some other ideas that you could kind of use.
So for example, I wrote down that after getting back into my priority sheet these past couple of days, I really noticed that I'm feeling so much happier when I take time to physically write things down. Like writing things down on just even a priority sheet and using different colors makes me feel really happy doing that. Functional planning is really, really vital for me. And I also wrote that I want to start doing two brain dumps a day this week. So I want to try this out where I'm doing one first thing in the morning.
But I'm also doing a brain dump at night. So for me, it's kind of like my brain because I tend to have this really big creative spurt in the evenings. And I noticed that sometimes I'll bring my Journal to bed and I'll have to kind of write down all these ideas in my head. And I was thinking like, oh, I bet I get better sleep if I actually intentionally made that a part of my evening routine. So if I intentionally sat down maybe around seven or 08:00 p.m. Every night and did a brain dump then and wrote down all my creative ideas and all of that in my head, I bet you that would help me fall asleep faster, because that's, like my biggest thing is that I have trouble falling asleep at night because, like, 10:00 p.m..
I hit. I was like, I'm kind of tired. I should go to bed so I could get up early, and then all of a sudden my brain's like, but what about all these ideas? And I'm like, Yay, I'm so glad that these are here. I also really want to go to sleep. So those are two things at I want to try this week, and I also wanted to share them with you as maybe something that you want to experiment with. I also just noticed those things, so I wanted to make a note of it here.
Now, you could make a note about anything you could use this section to write down. Like, oh, I found out that there's going to be a basketball game I want to go to later this week, or maybe it's a reminder or something like that. But I think this can be a fun place to write down. Now, what you're noticing about yourself as you bring this awareness with this priority sheet. The other section here is the intention or mantra section. Now, I use this a little bit differently today because I actually had a question come up in my mind that I really wanted front and center.
But you could use this section as a way to use some specific affirmation. I'll leave a link to 40 different troops that you can use as affirmations that you might want to write one down here. But I actually had a question that I wanted to ask myself today and throughout this week thought that it would be something that you guys might find really helpful as well. And that is, who do I need to be to reach all of my goals? And I was like, well, who do I need to be to reach all of these goals?
So as I wrote down that question, and it was cool, because this was the first question I wrote down on here in the morning. And there's something about writing a question down for yourself in the morning or whenever you're starting your day, because not only are you writing it down, and then you're looking at it throughout the day. Right? Like, I bring this priority sheet with me all over the place throughout the day. I bought it when I was like, meal prepping, and then I brought it back to my desk, and I brought it with me when I was like, hanging out with Bella for a minute.
And I kept my eyes kept coming back, and I wrote it in a big, bold purple color. Who do I need to be to reach all of my goals? So all day I planted the seed in my head, and I've been thinking about it all day. Who do I really need to be? What do I need to do that micro tasks that I need to be doing every week. Okay. I want to get back into blogging, and I want to get back into revamping my Pinterest strategy and really looking at my analytics on my Squarespace site.
And I really want to look into hashtag research. I really started looking like, if I really want to expand my reach, and I don't want to do a bunch of ads right away or throw a bunch of money into that, what are ways that I can organically drive traffic to my podcast, and organically have more people gain interest. So that was just a really cool thing. And that also got me thinking, like, another question that it also brought up. We were like, well, what are my main goals, right?
What are the things that I really want to work on getting back in shape? And my fitness has been one of those. And it's been something that I've been struggling to be consistent with a little bit. And so I really started thinking, like, well, if I was gonna be that person, then I would definitely be going to bed at the same time, and I'd be getting up at the same time. And I would have a nonnegotiable morning routine where the first hour of my day I'm doing X, Y, and Z, because I really get fueled up on structure.
Not everybody's like that, right? And it's important to know that, but having an intention or mantra long ran dicier is really going to help you. And it's gonna be something you're gonna look at all day. So maybe it's an affirmation that you need to be reminded of, and you need to embody. Or maybe it's a question that you can ask yourself that you're going to like, your subconscious mind is going to chew on that all day. And throughout the day, you're going to be like, wow, like, I'm coming up with some good answers here, and you can always use the back of the priority sheet to write down some of those answers, or maybe some of those sub questions that come up from the main one you asked yourself, okay, so there are two more sections on this sheet, and they're at the bottom, and they are the highlight section.
And then the lows are frustration section. So write down. And I know, you know, a lot of times we hear I don't focus on the negative, but I really think it's important to hold space for all emotions. They talk about this a lot, but to really hold space for all of your emotions. And also, too, if you just take time every day, like, if there's, like, a ten minute window at the end of your day where you're like, I have ten minutes to let go of anything that frustrated me today, then guess what?
Like, for me, I do that. I let go of it. And then I'm not frustrated about those things anymore. It's really great. And so I actually believe I strongly believe in taking time to hold space for the frustrations on a daily basis, because then you write them down, you let them go, and it's great. And if you don't want to be reminded of them, you can write it down and you can scratch it out. Or you can put some cute washi tape or a sticker over that section.
Right. So that when you're going back through throughout the five days, maybe you don't want to look at the again again. Alternatively, it can be really cool. Like, if it's on day five of doing this, you have all your pages stapled together. Or maybe you have them in a little notebook or a binder or something like that. It can be cool to look back on day one and be like, oh, wow. I was really frustrated with how hot it was today. Or I was really frustrated that this happened.
And then maybe on day five, maybe you can look back at that, and maybe you've done some work around that, and you're like, oh, I can see how that might have bothered me five days ago, but I actually now see how I could do things where that wouldn't really get under my skin as much. Or, oh, I noticed that that day when that bothered me, I really hadn't had enough sleep, and I certainly wasn't drinking enough water. So I can see why my mood was already low and why then for that reason, bothered me even more.
So it's just, again, a really great way to build that self awareness. And then the highlight section is great because it just kind of reminds us to sit with those little things that bring us joy or those little memories a little bit longer. I talked about this before in the first 1st episode of this post. Guess. But it's like when you really hold space and you really cling on to good things, right? Because our brain, naturally, is gonna focus on the negative. When you really take time to sit with something good that happened or something that felt good that you're happy about, sit with it for as long as you can in that moment and then come back to it as much as you can, you're gonna notice that it's gonna occupy kind of more space in your mind, and you're gonna feel happier about it.
What it all comes down to ultimately, with using this priority sheet, is that you can make your day as complicated or as simple as you want. So there are definitely more things that you could track in a day. There's definitely one page sheet that have a lot more for you to think about. But I found that these are kind of the main things that really for the least amount of effort, give me the most amount of result in my self awareness, my productivity and my focus, and my ability to focus on three things I'm doing that day.
Look at what I'm doing throughout the day with the morning in the evening in the afternoon section, and then also kind of having that many place where I'm looking at what are the things that I did do today and the note section and the question or the intention or the mantra that you're looking at every day and then, like your lows and your highs. So I found that this particular priority sheet is really helpful and getting started and helping you just kind of get back on track in terms of being more productive in terms of really taking a hard look at what you're doing.
It's also a great thing to use. If you're in a new situation, you're starting a new job, or if it's a new season in your business, or maybe there's new projects you're working on, or maybe you're welcoming a new member to your family or you're moving. That's a great time to start using this priority sheet, because that's a time when a lot of things, there's a lot of moving pieces and you're going to need even more selfawareness than you normally do right before you kind of settle down into a new routine that serves you for this new chapter of your life.
I hope that today's episode was is super helpful for you in terms of getting started and using a daily priority sheet to track what your main priorities are for the day and also get clear on kind of like what you're doing and build that awareness. I'd love to see screenshots or photos of your own daily priority sheets, and I'd love to see kind of like how you're using it or what ideas that you might have come up with as well. Make sure to share your pages by tagging me on Instagram at Mindful Productivity Blog.
Head on over to Mindful Productivity Blog com. And if you go to to the podcast section and look for Episode 92, that is where you'll find the PDF to download your own daily priority sheet. As always, I'm coming back at you every single Monday with new episodes. And by the way, if you're interested in learning how to self publish your own Journal or planner, or maybe even make some of these amazing printables yourself, then you're definitely going to want to get on the wait list for the next round of publish with purpose.
You can do that by going to Mindful productivity dot com There are links there, and there's always links in my Instagram bio as well. I'll see you guys next week. I have an amazing guest joining the show. We're talking all about the overwhelmed guide that she's created. You're not going to want to miss it.
