Ten skills that employers want

hen it comes to our daily schedule, most people fall into one of two camps:

The over-scheduler: Their calendars look like a kindergartener’s finger painting. Meetings overlap meetings while reminders for events, breaks, tasks, and more meetings are going off like it’s New Year’s Eve. Their days are determined from the moment they wake up to their evening routine.

The minimalist: Also known as “The Dreamer.” They’ve got one or two recurring events, but a whole lot of whitespace so they’re “free” (at least on paper) for long stretches of work.

The problem is that both of these are terrible. For their own reasons.

Being over-scheduled leaves us no time for ourselves. The more “in control” we are of our calendar, the less control we feel like we have over our lives. Not to mention we’re notoriously bad at knowing how long tasks take us to do. When your schedule is this jammed, even going 15 minutes over on your morning task will throw your whole day out of whack.

And the minimalist? Well, they’re just living in la la land, aren’t they? They’ve offloaded their schedule to some other format–most likely a to-do list, scheduling app, or series of angry emails asking “Where is this?”

A good daily schedule is a blueprint for a successful life. Knowing what we’re doing and when empowers us with a sense of purpose, meaning, and focus.