Planning your day the night before is crucial for productivity. You must have heard of this productivity advice before and might have ignored it. But in this article, you’ll learn why you set your day up for success when you plan your day the night before. After learning about this productivity booster, you’ll likely never lessen your productivity by randomly choosing your tasks or creating a plan on the same day again.
1. Reduces Decision Fatigue
Decision fatigue happens when your mind makes more decisions than it can productively handle. It starts breaking down decisions from the moment you wake up: what to eat, what to wear to work, which errands to run, what tasks to work on – it depletes much of your energy.
When you plan your day first thing in the morning, you use up a lot of energy your mind could put into the main tasks. But when you plan your day the night before, you can minimize decision fatigue and direct all your energy to the DOING of the planned tasks.
2. Enhances Your Ability to Prioritize
Productivity in your daily duties is about working on priorities according to the big picture. And smart prioritization mostly happens when you’re not rushed. You’re only obligation before the morning hits is to rest so that you’re less in a hurry than when you wake up.
You need a settled mind when creating your to-do list. It’s important to keep in mind what to do at times of the day when your energy is higher and to realize what’s irrelevant to your end goals. Ditch the irrelevant tasks to open up time for better possibilities.
3. Helps You Overcome the Task Completion Bias
The task completion bias is in all of us. We love the small tasks that make us feel good quickly because they took minimal time or effort to work on. When faced with multiple task choices during the day, our minds readily encourage us to take the smallest job, pushing the challenges to the rear of the to-do list.
However, when you choose to prioritize the night before, it’s easier to overcome the task completion bias. It forces you to view the big picture and know that you have to do even the hardest tasks to reach your goals.
4. Mentally Prepares You
Mental readiness isn’t just effective for productivity in athletics – it also works in other areas of life. By planning ahead of execution time, you’ll create a more confident mindset.
Therefore, when you plan your day the night before, it allows you to be mentally prepared for the tasks you need to execute and the challenges you may have to tackle. It is motivation by itself.
Closing Thoughts
You need to avoid pressure, decision fatigue, and task completion bias whenever you plan your day for ultimate productivity. Fortunately, you can create an effective to-do list a day ahead of time to set you up for success.
When you plan your day the night before, how does it impact your productivity? And if you don’t practice this yet, don’t forget to come back and share your experience with us to let us now how it worked for you!