Setting Priorities and Optimizing Time

We’re all busy people. Graduate school and professions can be incredibly demanding with 60+ hour work weeks not uncommon. In addition, many of us have external commitments: clubs, projects, relationships, and social lives that we must maintain. On top of that, we all have basic functions like eating, sleeping, and showering every day. Most of us don’t even have families yet. What a responsibility that is! How do people handle all of this? They set their priorities straight and optimize their time to the maximum. They understand the power of a schedule and stick to it. Teamwork also plays a significant role at this level. In this article, we’re going to discuss setting priorities and optimizing time to accomplish all of your desired (and undesired) tasks with the 168 hours each of us has in a week.

There are mandatory tasks and non-mandatory tasks. Mandatory tasks include things like basic hygiene and health functions, as well as professional tasks like showing up to your job every day. Personal mandatory tasks may include building a side business, going to the gym four days a week, etc. Non-mandatory tasks include hobbies, pleasure reading, spending time with friends, going out, TV, etc. Of course, there needs to be appropriate time devoted to each to achieve a balanced life. The time commitments provided at the end of each task are rough estimates and will vary.

Mandatory Tasks

Work

Practically all of us have to show up to work every day, whatever work is for you. To be an extremely productive person, a 40-hour workweek isn’t enough. To paraphrase Elon Musk, nobody changed the world by working just 40 hours a week. Even if you’re on top of your game and you’re at your office or lab or wherever 60-80 hours a week, are you actually productive during that time? Do you find yourself frequently checking Snapchat or scrolling through Facebook or Instagram or Reddit multiple times a day? This wasted time adds up. I’m guilty of this, too. It takes practice and determination, and it’s extremely hard to stay productive 24/7.

Sometimes work is slow and we have a few extra minutes (or hours) to kill. That’s when distractions become really attractive. To optimize your time, try to use that downtime to work on a personal project or task. For example, you could do some planning for an upcoming trip, pick up a book for a few minutes, make that important phone call (not a personal call), straighten up your space, go to the gym, etc. You’ll be impressed with what you can do in 30-60 minutes with intense focus.

Setting priorities at work is arguably the greatest source of stress in most of our lives. The best way to maximize our time is to use a calendar! A digital one, of course, since it will remind you what you have upcoming. Our productivity also increases when we take the time to carefully plan for our entire week. For a much more detailed explanation of how to do this, I highly encourage you to watch Patrick Bet David from Valuetainment explain how he does it. This information applies to any busy person, not just entrepreneurs. I recommend speeding it up to 1.25X.

At the beginning of the week, decide what is important and what is not important. What has to get done? What can wait? Organize your thoughts using Steven Covey’s priority matrix. Steven Covey is the author of the renowned book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Sometimes issues arise that must push everything else down the list of priorities. This is reflected in quadrant I of the diagram: emergencies. If you’re on a project and your boss calls you at 10 pm and says they need something by the next morning for a client (or whatever the case may be), if it can’t wait, you have to do it. What are the most important things that need your attention?

Taking the time to plan effectively will optimize your productivity for the week. This could potentially save hours that you can dedicate to other matters like your family and hobbies. That’s what setting priorities and optimizing time is all about.

Total Per Week: 60 hours

Time Remaining: 108 hours

Sleep

We all have to sleep every day. There’s no way around it. It’s recommended to get between 7-8 hours of sleep each night, but how many Americans actually do? About 54% of Americans get this much. About 40% get less than 7. Sleep is usually the first thing we sacrifice when we have other tasks to do because we know it’s not that mandatory so long as you can function the next day. For way too many people, the gym is also high on the list of sacrifices, but this is another issue.

We’re all different and require different amounts of sleep. If you find that you aren’t as productive as you want to be, try experimenting with a little less sleep, unless of course, you aren’t productive because you aren’t getting enough! If you can function on 6 hours a night, that leaves you with 18 hours of time to get stuff done. It may take some time to acclimatize, but you will, and you can use that extra time to accomplish your goals. The trick is to actually be productive – not spend an extra hour or two a day watching Netflix.

Perhaps also try waking up earlier. I find the serene silence of the early morning very relaxing and great for getting a head start on the day. Some people choose to start their day with exercise. I haven’t achieved this level of intensity yet. Working late at night is similar to the early morning in that it’s peaceful. A potential benefit of working late at night is taking advantage of the day’s momentum before calling it quits.

Total Per Week (7 hr/night): 49 hours

Time Remaining: 59 hours

Eating

Fresh cooking takes a lot of time. To make dinner from scratch, it takes 45-90 minutes to prepare, eat, and clean up. Instead of doing this every night, you can prepare several meals in the time it costs to make one. You can divide it up for lunches and easily reheat it in the microwave. You can also meal prep breakfast by making breakfast casseroles and heating up a slice each morning. I make these frequently. It gives me an extra 15 minutes or so to read before work. They’re also much healthier than frozen breakfast sandwiches or something like that. Check out this recipe for some inspiration.

Pro tip: Meal prepping foods in the oven is the most time-saving approach. You can be productive elsewhere while the food is baking in the oven. It’s not necessary to supervise it constantly.

Grocery shopping is another avoidable time waster. How long does it take to drive to the grocery store, shop for your food, get home, and unload it all? Maybe an hour or two? There are a few grocery delivery apps like Shipt and Instacart that allow you to order your groceries and have them delivered to your house for a small fee. Your orders are also saved, so in 5 minutes you can have all of your groceries ordered and sent to your house whenever you’d like. Time and money are interchangeable. For a few dollars a month, I’ll pay to save that time for other tasks. You also don’t have to battle additional traffic on weeknights and large crowds on the weekend.

Another pitfall is eating out/going to bars. I’ll be clear – I love going to restaurants. It’s one of my favorite things to do. However, if you’re going out to eat for lunch or dinner 3+ times a week, you are (a) utilizing far more time than necessary and (b) spending way more money than necessary: $15+ per meal versus $3 for a home-cooked one. $8 per beer out versus $2 storebought. Definitely go out and enjoy yourself! It’s just important to stay conscious of the dramatic surcharge for eating out and realizing how much time it’s taking away from your other tasks. Save it for an occasional leisure activity or an important lunch.

Meal prepping, taking your food to work, and eating in 20 minutes sounds more efficient than the hour it takes to go get food at lunchtime when the lines are 30 people long. Lunchtime is often social hour for many people. That’s fine on occasion. Just consider limiting the frequency of these lunches.

Time Per Week: 10 hours

Time Remaining: 49 hours

Commuting

If you’re like most people and arrive at work at 9 am and leave around 5 pm, you probably spend a significant amount of time in traffic. Perhaps 2+ hours a day in some cases. There are a few things you can do to save as much commuting time as possible, whether that’s driving or on the train (which you don’t have as much control over, unfortunately). You can avoid the densest traffic by:

• waking up earlier and getting to work by 7 am or so and leaving at 4 pm
• getting to work much later at around 10 am and leave at 6-7 pm
• getting to work earlier and staying later
• working from home some days if you can
• move closer to your job if it’s long-term

Luckily, most of us in graduate school live on-campus or very close to it. That makes it easy to walk or bike wherever we need to go in a short amount of time.

No matter your commuting situation, thanks to modern technology, this does not have to be wasted time. Instead of listening to the same songs over and over, perhaps listen to an audiobook or educational podcast. Do some research on something on your phone if you can. The capability we have on our phone is astounding. Find ways to fill commuting time with meaningful information. What would you do if you saved an extra hour a day commuting?

Time Per Week: 8 hours

Time Remaining: 41 hours

Health

In some ways, this ties back to eating. By meal prepping, not only do we save a good deal of time, but we can also spare ourselves unhealthy amounts of salt, fat, and sugar in our diet. We need our minds to be productive every day, and the proper fuel comes from quality eating. A strong body is also beneficial to the mind, so an exercise regimen of your preference should be factored into your schedule somehow. Experiment with what times of the day and types of exercise work best for you.

Speaking of a strong mind, I highly recommend readers to learn to meditate for 15 minutes each day. I use the app Headspace. It teaches you to sit back and observe the mind naturally at work. It takes a while to get used to, but it helps with managing stress and navigating issues in your life.

Time Per Week: 7 hours

Time Remaining: 34 hours

Family and Friends

Many of us have significant others and want to spend time with them. We also have parents, siblings, and friends who may not be nearby. You may even have a child! I believe we all should devote sufficient time to family. They are the people who love us, guide us, and support us no matter what. We need to cherish that. Maintaining healthy relationships with family does not have to be a 20-hour-a-week ordeal. A simple phone call to your parents on the way home from work every week or so will suffice for many. Video calling is a wonderful thing.

If you see your significant other multiple times a week, perhaps find a project of mutual interest that you can work on together instead of watching TV. We tend to not want to do anything when we’re with our S.O. That’s perfectly fine some of the time, especially after a long day. Volunteering at an animal shelter would be an excellent use of time together and a good way to help animals in need. Cooking a fine meal together perhaps on a Saturday night is also a lot of fun! Exercising together is another good option.

If you really want to take it up a notch, take some time to send handwritten letters or make a gift instead of buying one outright. Little gestures like these speak volumes to people.

Time Per Week: 10-14 hours

Time Remaining: 20-24 hours

Non-Mandatory Tasks

In my view, non-mandatory tasks are things that we want to do but don’t need to do in the same sense as our careers and other pressing matters. Undoubtedly, they may still be mandatory in your personal lives. According to the Covey matrix, these would include things that fall in the “important, not urgent” and “not important, not urgent” categories. Setting priorities includes factoring time for these into our schedules.

Everyone has different priorities and chooses to live their life how they see fit. My goal here is just to share some general guidelines about making time for whatever those priorities are.

Personal Projects

I believe that some of our non-mandatory tasks should be productive. We should grow and learn from them in a different way than we do from our primary occupation. This is the time we devote to personal goals not directly related to our primary occupation. This may include setting aside 30 minutes a day to read a book on a topic of your choice or work on a personal project of any kind. If you’re on the board of a club or something, ensure that this time is scheduled just as effectively as your career priorities. Often the lines between personal and professional projects will blur. I think it does one good to keep them distinct in some cases.

Time Per Week: 20-24 hours

Time Remaining: 0-4 hours

Digital Media and Distractions

This includes television, videogames, and social media. With the exception of a handful of high-quality educational programs like documentaries, YouTube channels, podcasts, and important news items from mostly unbiased sources, most digital media is a waste of time. It’s also addictive. Digital media often has the effect of angering and frightening societies, which further polarizes the country and decreases productivity and cooperatively. Of course, this is not broadly true. Even if you’re consuming educational content, try to multitask it with something else like running on the treadmill or on your commute home. Yes, some television shows are very good. Video games are also fun. It’s fine to engage in them, just conscientiously minimize your consumption in favor of more deserving tasks.

Time Per Week: <4 hours

Time Remaining: 0 hours

Conclusion

Here I’ve tried to outline how it is possible to achieve what you want or need to with the time available in a week. Exquisite planning and time management are key. The Valuetainment video on planning your week gets this point across very well. Corners must be cut in some areas to allow more time for others. Some things are simply more important and demand more of your time. Sometimes there just may not be enough time to squeeze things in. Time often gets away from us without us even realizing it. It takes serious discipline and personal training to set your priorities and optimize your schedule. I certainly have much to improve!

With some hard work, you can become the most productive person you’ve ever been. Please let the community know how you prioritize your time and get things done!