Finally, schedule your first step for a specific date and time. When scheduling your tasks, account for the three phases of your task:

• Set-up
  What do you need to do to prepare to execute your task? Do you need to travel somewhere, or prepare your workspace?
• Execution
  How much time do you need to do the actual task?
• Wrap-up
  What do you need to clean up after the task? Do you need to travel back? Include review time to reflect on how it went and to schedule the next task.

Too often we fail to account for the work required to set-up and wrap-up a task, which eats into the time and energy we have for the task itself. Thinking through these details ahead of time sets you up to be more successful and less stressed.

Use the Schedule Your First Step Worksheet, which you can download below, to think through your set-up and wrap-up.