It's about being realistic with your time and your tasks, so you can make a plan that lasts.

Here you get four steps to plan your time effectively.

1: Find out where it goes wrong.

To find out where it's going wrong, you need to know what you're spending your time on. Commit for a period of time (eg a week or a few representative days) to record what you plan to spend your time on and what you actually spend it on. (Download a form for recording planned and actual time consumption)

Record things such as: effective working time, telephone conversations, interruptions, preparation, urgent tasks etc.

With the registration you can find out:

• If you reach the planned.
• How big the agreement or discrepancy is between what was planned and what you actually spent the time on.
• How much time you actually spend on unplanned tasks.
• How much time you should set aside each day for yourself and in that way make a time-realistic plan with time for the unplanned.

Never schedule more than 60 % of your time. Research shows that up to 40 % of our working day is spent on unplanned tasks. Therefore, take this into account in your planning.

2: Time budget

Just like in your personal finances, you must also set a budget for your time if you want to be able to plan effectively: What expenses (tasks) and income (time) are there?

Typically, during your day there will be meetings and other fixed appointments that you cannot plan yourself. Make sure you keep track of these appointments and find out how many hours you actually have to deal with.

Remember to also take the 40 % rule into account in your budget. The calculation below illustrates the rule:

A working week of 40 hours corresponds to 8 hours per day.
If you deduct lunch, there are 7.5 hours left.
If you subtract 40 % from this, there is 4.5 hours of real work time left to sort out the tasks on your to-do list.
So if you plan 6-7 hours of work every day, it's no wonder that your plan rarely sticks.

3: Make a time-realistic to do list

A time-realistic to do list depends on four steps:

1. Set a deadline. Planning, prioritization and level of ambition depend on when you need to finish.
2. How long will you spend on the task? If it is a larger task, you can advantageously divide it into smaller parts.
3. Select ambition level. Choose a scale e.g. 1-5 or 50 to 100 percent, so you can quickly show yourself how many resources you need to use on the task. - How "good" does it have to be to be good enough?
4. Priority. What tasks are important to get done today?

Need more inspiration for your to do list? Here is 11 tips for a productive to do list

4: Take the time to plan - you'll never get it

Frequent objections to planning are that it takes time and that the plan rarely lasts. And yes, it takes time, but that's nothing against the time it takes to put out fires and try again and again to create an overview. Studies show that you reduce your execution time considerably when you take the time to plan.