One of my favorite exercises I do with my clients is what I call the “Perfect Day” exercise.  Before we start any organizing or planning, I ask them to sit down and imagine what their perfect day looks like in great detail and write it down, no matter how unreasonable it seems.  This lets me get to know them a little more but also gives us some goals for our organizing time together, and it’s something that you can use to set your own goals.

Write it Out

Starting when you first wake up in the morning, imagine what your perfect day would look like in great detail.  Is the coffee maker already percolating so you wake up to the warm smell of fresh coffee?  Are your clothes already laid out and ironed for the day?  Is your lunch already packed?  Do you have time to read the paper or play with your kids?  Continue for your entire day writing out every detail.

If you’re anything like most people, you will want to cram entirely too much into the 16 waking hours you have in a day assuming you’re getting your 8 hours of sleep in (but who’s doing that?).  But, you can make your day more like that ideal day you described with a little planning ahead.

Next Steps

After you’ve finished describing your day, look over it and make a list of the things that would need to happen in order for your perfect day to happen.  For instance, if “coffee already brewing” was part of your description, then what needs to happen is you have to set the automatic coffee pot the night before.  You’ll also need to be sure you have coffee, filters, and any creams or sugars that you enjoy and clean mugs.  That means you’ll need a trip to the grocery store, so you might go ahead and choose one day a week that will consistently be your grocery shopping day and put “run the dishwasher” on your evening schedule.  If having your clothes already ironed and laid out was on your list, then choosing and ironing your clothes the night before goes on the “what needs to happen list.” But, you’ll also need to have the laundry done, and own an iron.

Go into as much detail as possible and depending on what’s on your list, you may need to create a shopping list of tools you’ll need to make your perfect day possible and if they’re expensive tools, you may even need to design a savings plan for yourself to reach your goal.  Take your “what needs to happen list” and use it to create a daily schedule for yourself.  In the evening portion, list out all the things you need to do: run the dishwasher, lay out your clothes, set the coffee maker, etc.  Then use your checklist to get everything done in the evenings.  Once you’ve done it for a while, it will become habit and you won’t have to keep checking your list.  Try adding one thing at a time instead of making a bunch of changes all at once, it’ll be more likely to stick.

This exercise is a quick way to help you determine what’s really important to you to include in your days and take some steps towards making your life look the way you want it to.  As I mentioned before, you will probably want to fit more into the day than is practical, but you may also be surprised how much more you can get done by planning ahead and making sure you have all the tools you need in place and in order to get through it.  Don’t put pressure on yourself to be “perfect,” because no one is, instead take a look at what is “perfect” for you and take some steps to get there.