I made a small adjustment to my planning routine recently - to simply do things in priority order. This is a simple principle but incredible difficult to execute in practice. I’m sharing the method I use.

First, I start with writing my global priorities. For me this is - my physical and mental health, the well being of my family and friends, and then the things that give me professional and creative fulfillment. Within this structure, I put down the tasks that I need to do during the day.

So for my physical and mental health - this is working out, a short meditation and writing. For my family, these are the things to maintain and improve my most important personal relationships. For professional fulfillment, these are the things I do at work with a team trying to realize a collective vision.

Then I start working on them in order.

This means I start my day with a workout, meditation, and writing. Then, I do the family & friends stuff - whether it’s ordering diapers on Amazon or getting back in touch with someone. And then I move on to work tasks, which I also try to prioritize.

This only applies to weekdays. Weekends follow a very different structure when you have kids. This isn’t perfect and I still get distracted (noting when that happens is also critical). But I really appreciate getting the most important things done first.