How to make a schedule
How to make a schedule
How To Create A Daily Schedule To Organize Your Day
Founder and CEO of JotForm, sharing entrepreneurship and productivity tips at Lifehack. Read full profile
When I was young, I had a pink piggy bank on my dresser—and a very important goal to buy a shiny, red bike. Each time I earned money on chores, I ran to the piggy bank. Over time, thanks to my small, consistent habit, my coin collection wasn’t just spare change any more. I finally came up with enough money to buy the bike.
What my piggy bank was then to me, my daily schedule is today.
We all have a vision for the future, and it can feel overwhelming to stare it down from afar, especially without a plan. The best way to accomplish goals is to break them down into smaller, daily habits. That handful of coins might seem trivial today, but what you do repeatedly ultimately creates the quality of your life. [1]
Everyone’s personal routine will look different based on their individual goals and values. But applying a few general principles to your daily schedule can help maximize your effectiveness and productivity and, over time, help you accomplish your goals.
Table of Contents
What Is a Daily Schedule and Why It’s Important
Humans are creatures of habit. We crave daily routine and function best when we have clear guardrails on our time.
A daily schedule puts you in control of your day. It gives you the structure and discipline you need to make the most out of the hours of a given day. When you have a plan to stick to, you get more daily work done and ultimately inch closer to your goals.
As the father of productivity, Paul J. Meyer, put it:
“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort.”
What’s more, a daily schedule is predictable, so it reduces decision fatigue. You’re not wasting brain space deciding what task to do next. That means you can keep your mental energy level for the tasks that really matter.
So set your day up for success by planning your day and organizing your daily time.
7 Practical Tips to Create a Daily Schedule
Here are 7 practices to help get you started in creating a daily schedule.
1. Prioritize Your Values
“Success” is as unique as the person pursuing it. But all successful people have one important thing in common: They strategically design their lives to align with the things they care about the most. [2]
Practically, that means before you can create a daily schedule that helps you accomplish your goals and live the life you want to live, you have to define what you value. An understanding of these things will help you pinpoint priorities that make sense for a work life balance and, ultimately, organize your day accordingly.
As a first step, carve out some time to think about what’s important to you. Make a list, in order. Then, find ways to incorporate those things in your daily and weekly routines in time blocks that honor how important each value is.
For example, if your biggest goal is health and fitness, then you should prioritize working out and healthy eating before other, less important hobbies. If your top priority is family or friends, then you’ll want to make sure you carve out time each day to connect with people you love before you jump into your daily work.
Defining your personal priorities prevents the things you value from slipping off your to-do list and into the margins. It also allows you to delegate and outsource the tasks that aren’t in accordance with your values. [3]
2. Include a Morning Routine
It’s not uncommon for productivity gurus to boast of their 4 AM wake-up calls and elaborate pre-sunset routines. But there’s no perfect time to rise and grind—your morning alarm will depend on your own, individual rhythm. No matter when you start your day, though, there’s something to be said about including a morning ritual in your daily schedule.
Why is morning so important? The first thing you do after getting up ultimately sets the tone for the rest of your day. If you roll out of bed, half-awake, and jump right into your email, you’ll likely struggle to focus and engage, and you’ll run out of steam before too long.
But if you regularly make your bed, meditate, and eat a healthy breakfast each morning, your brain will learn to pivot from “rest mode” to “productivity mode” quickly—and you’ll probably be in a better mood.
It’s up to you what you do in the morning. The goal is to kick off your day by doing the same thing. Ideally, that’s something that both aligns with your personal values and prepares you for the tasks ahead.
3. Designate a “Most Important Task”
Your day will inevitably include essential tasks that don’t propel you toward your goals—taking phone calls, hopping into meetings, answering emails. To make sure these things don’t derail you, always define what you absolutely need to accomplish every day and incorporate them into your daily schedule.
Every week, when you plan your schedule, consider your goals. What needs to get done to keep you on track? Then, choose an MIT (most important task) for each day. [4] When you know what you need to accomplish to stay on track, you’ll waste less time on non-essential work.
It helps me to schedule my most important tasks during the times I’m most focused and productive and focus on tasks that don’t require as much brain power when my energy level wanes.
There’s plenty of research showing that our ability to function cognitively shifts depending on the time of day. [5] For most people, including me, peak productivity time occurs between 9 and 11 AM, which is why I always reserve that block of time for MITs rather than less-demanding busy work like answering emails.
If your productivity levels heighten later on in the day, you can take the opposite approach. Either way, make an effort to understand your peak work times and schedule your MITs accordingly. [6]
4. Schedule Time for Things That Normally Distract You
If you’re anything like me, you end up in your inbox or on Twitter several times throughout the day (and end up staying there for far too long). There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks to check social media, and we all need to respond to emails to do our work. But these things can also be a significant distraction from the most important tasks.
Instead of allowing yourself to mindlessly scroll, take a proactive approach by building blocks of time to engage with potential distractions. For example, your daily schedule could include time frames where you can “process” your email or social media accounts two or three times a day. The important thing is to treat these items like any other task—just another line item on your daily schedule—rather than allowing them to infiltrate your day.
5. Include Breaks
Every day, I schedule an hour-long lunch break and several 10 to 15-minute breaks to meditate or go for a walk. It might seem useless to plan out time in your day when you’re not working, but remember that nobody has endless capacity to work at full steam, constantly. And if you try, you won’t be as productive as you want to be.
There’s scientific evidence that the occasional pause can actually enhance productivity. [7] For one thing, pausing from time to time can boost your ability to think creatively and strategically. Sometimes, the brain needs a change of scenery (and a break from constantly thinking) to come up with fresh ideas.
Scheduling breaks throughout your day also provides something to look forward to—an end in sight. When you know you’ll have a chance to rest at the end of a work block, you’ll be much more likely to muster more energy—and focus—for the tasks at hand.
6. Avoid Multitasking at all Costs
Here’s the thing: multitasking doesn’t work. Studies show that your performance suffers when you’re hopping between two tasks. [8] Not only do you take longer, but you end up making more errors.
What does that mean for planning your daily schedule? Plan to do just one task at a time – and don’t try to squeeze in anything else.
One reason why we struggle to switch between tasks is that our brains can’t adapt that quickly to a new type of task. That’s called the ‘switching cost’: we fumble when we transition to a different skill and lose time in the process.
Avoid this by scheduling similar tasks back-to-back. For example, when planning your day, lump all your meetings into one block of the day, or devote an hour or two to responding to emails. Batch working like this means you work more efficiently, wasting less time overall.
The daily time saved is significant. One study showed that you get back around 40% productivity which, over the course of the day, can really add up. [9]
7. Use a Daily Schedule Template
Lastly, make your life easier with a daily schedule template. Try out these free downloadable templates to help you schedule your day and help with time management:
How to Stick to Your Schedule
Creating a daily schedule is only half the battle though. You’ve got to stick to it too, which has become increasingly tough in the age of distraction. Here are some tips to do that:
1. Distraction-Proof Your Work Environment
As remote work becomes the norm, the boundary between home and work life has broken down. One way you can prevent that is by designating a single space for work. Declutter that space, and avoid doing anything other than work there to keep your brain from getting distracted.
2. Be Realistic About What You Can Accomplish in a Day
If you’re too over-ambitious and cram too many tasks in, your schedule is doomed to fail right from the start.
3. Add in ‘Cushion Time’ Between Tasks
Instead of scheduling back-to-back tasks, add a buffer of 15 or 20 minutes. That way, if something ends up taking longer than you anticipated, you won’t derail your entire schedule.
Best Scheduling Apps for You
Leverage technology to help you. With tons of calendar and time scheduling apps available to help optimize your productivity time, scheduling has never been easier.
1. Google Calendar
is a great organizational tool – and it’s user-friendly. Don’t underestimate this free app: it has a surprisingly wide range of features. Add new events, set reminders, track time, and link up with colleagues. Plus it integrates seamlessly with other Google services.
2. Calendar
If you’re looking for something with more features, Calendar is another great bet. Just like Google Calendar, the app lets you create and edit meetings on an hourly schedule, and view what’s on your plate. But it also offers a useful analytic tool: Calendar Analytics. This shows you how you’ve been spending time, so you can assess and optimize your time management to be more efficient.
Final Thoughts
As author Mason Currey writes in her book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, a routine “fosters a well-worn groove for one’s mental energies and helps stave off the tyranny of moods.” [10]
Even the most successful people can fall prey to getting off track. Designing your ideal daily schedule ahead of time is an essential practice for preventing distraction and prioritizing what’s most important to you. Think of your schedule as an investment in your future. It may take some time to “save up” for the life you want, but little by little, you’ll see your goals come to life.
How to make a schedule: 7 easy scheduling strategies to master your day
Productivity ‘experts’ love to tell us that we all have the same 24 hours a day. But what they don’t love to talk about is how few of us are actually in control of that time.
You might start the day planning to finish a project or code a feature only to get swept away by meetings, calls, emails, and “urgent” tasks.
Especially lately, with so many other things competing for your attention, your schedule shouldn’t be up for grabs. Instead, as Annie Dillard wrote, your schedule should be the scaffolding to your days–a stable platform you can use to focus on what matters to you.
This is more than just a good metaphor. A great schedule isn’t uncertain or at the whims of others. It relies on structure, process, and routine to give you mental space to focus and get the right things done.
In this guide: We’ve put together some of the most practical and actionable ways to make a schedule that brings more stability and support to your day. Pick the one that works for you, or combine them into the ultimate daily schedule for focus and clarity!
How to make a schedule: 7+ scheduling strategies for better days
The 5 core elements of how to make a schedule
Before you jump into learning how to make a schedule, you need to be able to answer a simple question:
What does a good day look like to you?
Do you need long periods of uninterrupted time to focus?
Or would you rather spend your day in meetings brainstorming and collaborating with coworkers?
Do you want to stop work at 5 pm on the dot? Or are you happy to hack away at projects late into the night?
Knowing the ideal version of your day will help guide how you make a schedule that supports it. It also helps you understand why you want to spend your time the way you do.
Of course, we don’t live in an ideal world. Instead, we have to take into account all the other things that get in the way of our ideal day.
Your workday schedule needs to include:
Now that you’re ready to create a realistic schedule, let’s dive into the methods you can use.
1. MIT (Most important task first)
This is probably the most underrated scheduling technique out there: Do your most important or impactful work first.
Your MIT (Most IMportant Task) won’t be the only thing you do in the day. But it should be something that you know is hanging over you or will move the needle forward in a meaningful way.
There’s a ton of good reasons why you should use the MIT scheduling method:
Of course, it’s not always easy to take any time for yourself. That’s why to support your MIT, you need to make sure it’s truly the first thing you do and that nothing else is competing for your attention at the time.
This means blocking out time in your calendar to work on it (30–90-minutes is good) and also not opening email or chat before you start (that’s where other people’s priorities take over).
If you know you’re bad at checking social media or news in the morning as well, you might want to set up a distraction blocker like FocusTime to block them during your MIT time.
FocusTime blocks distractions like social media, news, and entertainment when you need to focus
2. Time blocking
Time blocking takes the MIT idea even further by filling out your entire schedule with dedicated “blocks” of time for different tasks. This means you start your day with a “full” schedule with time set aside for:
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
A time blocked schedule looks intimidating but provides structure to your day
So why would anyone want to fill their schedule on purpose?
When you fill your schedule with tasks and activities you want to do, it’s harder for others to steal your time. Instead of being reactive to outside requests, you know exactly how you want to spend your time and can more easily say no.
The secret to making time blocking work is to be realistic but also reactive.
A time blocked schedule is just a template and not set in stone. It helps you stay focused on the bigger picture instead of getting swept away in “urgent” tasks and busywork.
3. The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique is a relatively simple scheduling method that can work alongside most of the other ones here.
A “Pomodoro” is a 25-minute block of uninterrupted work where you focus on a single task, followed by a 5-minute break. The goal is to string together 3–4 Pomodoro “sessions” before taking a long break to recuperate.
When it comes to how to make a schedule with the Pomodoro Technique, you can schedule them into an open slot. For example, if you have a block of free time after lunch from 1–3 pm, you can dedicate that to Pomodoro sessions.
Supercharge your Pomodoro sessions by using our calendar integrations to automatically trigger a FocusTime session. Learn more here!
At the start of the session, choose 4 tasks you will focus on and then start your work timer.
What’s great about this method is that it helps you focus intensely without burning out. Twenty-five minutes is a relatively short period of time to block out distractions. And even if you only complete two during the day, you’ll still have a solid 50 minutes of focused work.
If you want to start using the Pomodoro Technique, check out our list of The Top 7 Work and Productivity Timers.
4. Energy flow (50–90-minute sprints)
Our energy levels aren’t consistent throughout the day (as anyone who’s hit the dreaded afternoon slump can tell you). Instead, we follow what’s called the “Ultradian Rhythm” of 90-minute cycles where our energy is at its “peak” before we need to take a break.
This means there are certain times during the day where you’re naturally more alert and ready to work, and times where you’re better off taking a break.
Once you understand when your body is at its peak, you can start to plan your day around this rhythm. This means working in 50–90-minute sprints before taking 20–30-minutes off to rest.
There are a few ways you can work this cycle into your schedule. If you’re more of a “maker” and need long periods of focused work to write, design, or code, you can schedule those blocks to work with your natural energy cycles to get more out of them.
Schedule 90-minute focus sessions to take advantage of your body’s natural energy rhythm
However, if your days are usually a bit more scattered, you can do the opposite and use the Ultradian Rhythm as a guide for when to take a break.
Match your break schedule to the Ultradian Rhythm to stay energized all day long
5. Task flow
While the Ultradian Rhythm is all about working with your energy flow, you can also work with your task flow. This means bundling together similar work so that your brain doesn’t have to deal with so much context switching.
Here’s how author Paul Jarvis describes it:
“The longer you can focus on a single type of task, the faster you can get it done. So grouping all the writing I have to do into a morning means I can write 5–6 articles in one fell swoop.”
You can even spread this out across your entire week. For example, you could batch all your admin work into a “Catchup Friday” or book all your sales calls for Tuesdays and Thursdays.
As you batch work, be aware of your own energy habits and preferences. If you’re better at creative projects in the afternoon, batch your relevant tasks then.
6. The Chatfield Method
One of the biggest challenges of any scheduling method is that we’re notoriously bad at knowing how long a task will take to complete even if we’ve done it in the past.
But this is the cornerstone of time management. If you don’t properly estimate your time, you’ll always be behind on tasks and playing catchup.
Prolific comedian, cartoonist, and voice actor Jason Chatfield came up with a solution to this issue:
“I make a habit of ensuring that on completion of a task, I adjust the calendar event to reflect the ‘actual’ time it took. ie. I may have allowed 30 minutes and it took an hour.”
That in itself is a good exercise, but here’s where this method becomes even more powerful.
“I then copy and paste those similar or identical tasks that I’ve completed before when I’m scheduling for the week ahead.”
Most of us have tasks that repeat each day or week. And this method lets you dig into how long they actually take to do.
If you want to automate this process, use a tool like RescueTime to automatically track your time in apps, websites, and even specific projects. For example, if I want to see how long I spent writing this article, I can look at my Activities Report in RescueTime and see.
RescueTime automatically tracks how long you spend on apps, websites, and even specific projects
7. Bursts and Flow
Most of us spend our days bouncing between emails, chat, and our “core work” (aka the stuff in your job description!) In fact, our research found that on average, most people check email or chat every 6 minutes!
But this puts a serious strain on your ability to get through your daily tasks.
Instead, communicating in bursts helps teams be more productive and more creative.
In this scheduling technique, you would set aside specific times a day for checking email and responding to chat messages. A good rule of thumb would be:
This might feel like a hard shift to make, especially if you’re a part of a communication-heavy culture. Make sure you talk to your team about why you won’t be online and how they can get in touch if there’s a true emergency.
Bonus: The A/B schedule
Sometimes, we’re better off scheduling for the week rather than each individual day.
The A/B schedule is a way to differentiate your goals and priorities each day. This way, you won’t feel guilty about putting off important work.
Here’s an example. Splitting your time between coding features and managing a team can split your attention. Instead, split your week into days with an A schedule (coding) and a B schedule (managing).
If your work doesn’t fall neatly into two categories, try the Free, Focus, Buffer system. This means you schedule:
“Professionals stick to the schedule. Amateurs let life get in the way.”
A schedule is so much more than just a filled-in calendar. It’s a statement about what’s important to you and what deserves your time.
As Deep Work author, Cal Newport, writes:
“We spend much of our days on autopilot—not giving much thought to what we are doing with our time. This is a problem.
“It’s difficult to prevent the trivial from creeping into every corner of your schedule if you don’t face, without flinching, your current balance between deep and shallow work, and then adopt the habit of pausing before action and asking, ‘What makes the most sense right now?’”
How you make a schedule doesn’t have to be up to other people. The more control you take over your time, the better you’ll feel about your progress every single day.
Jory MacKay is a writer, content marketer, and editor of the RescueTime blog.
How To Create An Effective Schedule For Time Management
Coaching To Help Professionals And Organizations Change Their Beliefs So They Can Get Results. Read full profile
Are you excited by the fact that you have the same 24-hours in your day as the likes of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey? Or do you find yourself more concerned about the fact that you only have 24-hours in a day to get everything done? There are those who are able to accomplish so much in their day, and there are others who seem to always be running out of time. If you have not achieved the success you seek in life, a great place to start is knowing and improving how you spend your time each day. By learning how to make an effective schedule for time management, you can be sure to focus your time and effort on the tasks that matter to you the most.
1. A Commitment to Your Schedule
The first thing you need to do each day is to make your schedule—know what tasks you have to do and prioritize so you can have a more organized day. Those who have mastered making an effective schedule have made it a way of life, not a way of convenience.
Many people limit their scheduling time to when things already get really bad or when they have the “extra” time. However, you will find that scheduling your day is the best way to ensure that you have the “extra” time you’re looking for.
To decrease the likelihood of procrastinating, make sure that everything you write on your schedule or calendar is something you are committed to completing. [1] By filling your schedule with items you will do, you will have a sense of urgency about adhering to your schedule.
The problem that many people face is that they schedule their ideal day, but most days are not ideal. Each day has unique problems and situations you were not planning to deal with that day. For example, you scheduled time to go to the gym before work, but you had to stay up late the night before working to meet a deadline, or you received an email late the night before about needing to come in early the next day because there was a problem discovered in your report.
When you make an ideal schedule, you look for an ideal day to implement it. That is why you should instead make an honest schedule each day about the things that will be done. These tasks are essential and, therefore, you have to complete them regardless of the unexpected problems that may pop up throughout the day.
2. Find Your Focus
The first step to learning how to make an effective schedule is to spend more time creating time blocks and less time creating to-do lists. When you create a to-do list based on tasks, you run the risk of not completing everything on your list. Despite your best planning efforts, some of the tasks you listed may take longer than anticipated. As a result, you may find that you haven’t completed many of your tasks at the end of the day.
A better approach to effective scheduling is to set blocks of time (time blocks) to complete your most important tasks each day. Instead of listing the tasks you want to complete each day and working on each one until it is completed, you will set a certain amount of time each day to complete the tasks.
For example, you can check and respond to emails from 8:00 am to 8:30 am each day. Then, you can work on a project due later in the week from 8:30 am to 10:30 am. From 10:30 am to noon, you can then work on a different project that you also have to prioritize.
Studies show that time blocking is a more productive way of managing your schedule because you are working in concentrated blocks of time. [2] By grouping similar tasks, you allow yourself to use the same side of your mind, and this is the more ideal approach than frequently switching from your analytical side to your creative side.
3. Say No To “All Work and No Play”
Productivity isn’t the only thing that matters when learning how to make a schedule. It is also important that you leave yourself some time for fun. This is not a contradiction to the idea your schedule should be realistic and not ideal. In fact, this is the secret to making a schedule that works.
Too many people fill their schedule with tasks and professional ambitions that leave them feeling out of balance. Bring balance to your schedule by allotting time for your friends and family. Whether it is as simple as a walk to the park, watching a movie, or playing a board game, make sure that you are leaving some time with those people you enjoy spending time with.
Think of making a balanced schedule as you would think of starting a diet to lose weight. How likely are you to be successful if you restrict your diet to fruits and vegetables? Many studies show that drastically changing your diet usually results in you relapsing back to your previous eating habits and may even cause other health problems. [3] As a result, you run the risk of losing all the gains you previously made.
The same holds true for determining how to make a schedule that’s effective. If you make significant changes to your daily schedule overnight, you run the risk of losing all your gains in a short period of time.
4. Leave Some Time for Yourself
It is vital that you leave time for yourself—and only yourself. [4] Oftentimes, there is a negative stereotype surrounding the idea of being alone. However, alone is where you have a chance to slow things down. Life is always moving at such a fast pace that you may often forget why you are moving in the first place. Allow yourself some alone time to contemplate your motivations, goals, and aspirations.
Humans are blessed above all other creatures with the gift of being conscious of their existence. We know we are living, and we know we are going to die. We can swim upstream or down—just because. We can also fly north or south—again, just because. The problem is that most people do not take advantage of this amazing ability. We fall into patterns and habits and continue to remain in those patterns.
By devoting time to yourself, you give yourself the necessary time to evaluate how you spend your time each day. Don’t fall into the pattern of living a life based on decisions you made years ago that are no longer aligned with your current goals.
Final Thoughts
Making a schedule is more than just writing a list of tasks that you are going to complete each day. It is also about allocating your time in a way that gives you the best opportunity to live a life without regret. You need to allocate your time in a way that increases your productivity while leaving you time for yourself and those you care about.
Take control of your time so your life is more aligned with those you respect and admire. Remember, we all have the same 24-hours in the day, whether you use those 24 hours to create the life of Jeff Bezos or you use those time to create the life of someone who is wasting time. Either way, it is your life, so treat it like the treasure it truly is.
How to make a daily schedule that won’t ruin your day in 5 steps
When it comes to making a daily schedule, most people fall into one of two camps:
The problem is that both of these approaches are terrible for their own reasons.
Being overscheduled leaves no time for the inevitable “urgent” tasks that pop up. One task takes longer than you assumed (thanks to the planning fallacy) and your whole day is thrown into chaos.
And the minimalist? They’ve simply offloaded their schedule to some other format—most likely a to-do list, scheduling app, or series of angry emails asking “Where is this?”
The truth is that a good daily schedule is a blueprint for a successful life. Knowing what you’re meant to be doing (and when) creates a sense of purpose, meaning, and focus. It helps you avoid procrastination, stay motivated, and properly manage your time.
Unfortunately, few of us have total control over our days. Instead, you need something flexible. You need a daily schedule template.
In this guide, we’re going to cover how the most successful founders, creatives, and deep thinkers use a templated approach to their day to stay focused, organized, and productive (and how you can do the same with your day!)
How to make an effective daily schedule in 5 steps
Ready to truly take back control of your time? RescueTime is the world’s most powerful time tracking and productivity tool. Find out how it can help and sign up for free today!
1. Start your day with your most important work
The most successful people consistently get their most important work done first.
This could mean “swallowing a frog” (i.e. getting your most difficult task out of the way) or blocking out time for meaningful work before anything else. What they don’t do, is start the day with distractions, emotional triggers, and stress (i.e. email, social media, and Slack).
As Farnam Street founder Shane Parrish explains:
“If I got up in the morning and the first thing I did was check email, I’d be allowing others to dictate my priorities for the day.”
There are a ton of great examples of this in practice, but one of my favorites comes from founder and academic Kevin Taylor, who sets recurring daily, time blocks for writing in the morning:
As Taylor explains:
“If you’re like most, you schedule what others demand of you first and only later look for empty slots in the calendar where you might ‘fit in’ what is important to you. (Good luck finding focus time in that type of ‘reactively-designed’ calendar.)
“Instead, flip the paradigm by scheduling what is important to you first.”
Setting a recurring commitment to yourself first thing in the morning starts your day with the right intention and ensures that no matter what else happens, you’ve done something meaningful.
But maybe even more importantly, this is usually the most effective time of your day. For most people, their energy is naturally higher in the morning and there are fewer distractions, which means you can really dig into important work.
According to Alex Pang, author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less:
“Two hours where you can really get into the problem yields solutions that are going to be better than if you spent 10 hours broken up by meetings and bouncing around on Slack channels.”
Making progress like this has a domino effect of motivation and productivity that carries you through the rest of the day.
If you want a tool to help you commit to this time, try the RescueTime Calendar integration. Simply add #focustime to the title of your morning block on your daily schedule template and all distracting websites (like social media, news, and entertainment) will be blocked for the duration of it.
Lastly, you don’t always have to know exactly what you’ll do during this time. It’s enough to just commit your best hours to meaningful work.
2. Map out your perfect daily schedule according to your personal “productivity curve”
The reason most successful people dedicate their first hours of the day to meaningful work is because that’s when their energy levels are highest. However, with a little bit of work, you can use that same approach to match the rest of your daily schedule template to your energy levels.
We all go through ebbs and flows of energy throughout the day thanks to something called our Circadian Rhythm. This is an internal clock that sends our mind and body through moments of alertness and sleepiness.
The key to a successful daily schedule template is to match your energy levels to the type of work you’re doing.
When our energy is low, we’re less creative, have a harder time making decisions, and get more easily stressed and overwhelmed. On the other hand, studies show we’re up to 500% more productive when our energy is high and we can get in a state of flow.
So how do you discover when your energy levels are naturally higher and lower throughout the day?
1. Experiment with your Circadian Rhythm
The majority of people follow a similar Circadian Rhythm throughout the day.
After waking up and breaking out of our sleep inertia our energy levels start to naturally rise. By around 10 am we’ve hit our peak concentration levels that ride out until a natural post-lunch energy dip between 1-3 pm.
In the afternoon, our energy levels rise again until falling off again sometime between 9–11 pm when most of us go to bed.
So for example, you might create a daily schedule template that follows this pattern:
This is a pretty good start, but what if it doesn’t work for you or you want to be more accurate?
2. Use your personal productivity data to map out your “Productivity Curve”
Instead of relying on self-reporting or mood tracking, it’s much easier (and more accurate) to use a time tracking tool like RescueTime to automatically gather data for you.
After gathering a bit of data, your RescueTime dashboard will show you what apps, tools, websites, and projects you spend time on, when you’re being productive (or distracted), as well as trends in your activities, and more.
For our use case, the productivity trends over a week report will show when you’re most likely to be productive vs. distracted on any given day. This is under Reports > Productivity > Time of Day.
Looking at this report, we get a clear daily trend of productivity and distraction so we can create a daily schedule template that matches:
In essence, you’re switching from scheduling your day around time to scheduling it around your energy.
3. Use “time blocking” to switch from being reactive to in control of your time
Your productivity curve is a map of how you can fill out a full day in your daily schedule template.
This isn’t the same as the daily schedule of The Overscheduler who fills their days with other people’s priorities. Instead, this is a template of when you’re most suited to do certain types of work.
One example of this kind of daily schedule template in practice is what designer Jessica Hische calls her “Ultraschedule”:
This daily schedule template is like a skeleton on which you build your week. And if you match it to your daily productivity curve, you know you’re being as productive as possible with your time.
For Hische, this meant keeping Monday as “Admin Day” for regular calls and meetings, while setting aside time on Wednesdays and Fridays for “Analog Work”:
“There are scheduled times during which I can be fully immersed in email and for the rest of the day I’m forcing myself to ignore it. Most of all, there are scheduled blocks of time where my wifi will be off.”
One of the best parts about this approach is that it helps you visualize your ideal workday—an important skill that few of us practice, according to author Ryan Holiday:
“So many people have big goals for the future. I think it’s better to know what your perfect day looks like. Then you can ask yourself with each opportunity and choice: Is this getting me closer or further away?”
The impact isn’t just that you know what you should be doing, but that it helps you say no to the things that take away from your ideal day. As designer Brad Frost explains:
“Accepting a meeting invite requires me to take time away from something else, and now that is actually visualized.”
You can use a technique called Time Blocking to create your own daily schedule template like this. Check out our step-by-step guide here.
4. Set your availability to the minimum you can (10-15 minutes)
With your meaningful morning and daily schedule template set and matched to your productivity curve, the next question is: How do you fit in the inevitable tasks, appointments, meetings, and responsibilities that creep up and throw your daily schedule out of whack?
An ideal daily schedule protects your time. For Facebook VP of Product, Fidji Simo, this means changing the default time for meetings to the minimum possible:
“Many people don’t check in to figure out how much time should be realistically allotted to something. They just default to 30 minutes for a small conversation and 60 minutes for a larger conversation. This contributes to calendars looking like Swiss cheese.”
Instead, Simo sets the minimum time for meetings at 10-15 minutes (Elon Musk famously breaks his entire day into 5-minute chunks). This way, it’s up to the person booking the meeting to request more time if they feel they need it.
This makes both you and the meeting’s organizer responsible for deciding how much time you really need. (Which is a great place to start when fixing our obsession with meetings).
Simo also recommends setting buffers around your meeting times, as well as setting aside intentional open slots into your day for last-minute surprises. This way, you’re not being naive about the distractions you’re bound to face.
In Google Calendar (as well as many other Calendar apps) you can even change the default duration of meetings and add in automated buffers.
An effective day isn’t ruled by the tyranny of the 60-minute meeting. As Simo explains:
“I’m most focused when I set my own agenda versus when I let others set my agenda.”
5. Follow your flow (of both tasks and energy)
When done correctly, your daily schedule should give you momentum, not take it away.
However, we often forget to think about our state of mind when scheduling meetings, events, or tasks. Yet, think about the cognitive leap it takes to go from a deep-thinking exercise like coding a new feature to a daily catch-up calls.
According to the American Psychology Association, recovering from shifting tasks like this can take up almost 40% of our productive time.
While we already talked about the importance of protecting your energy flow (and matching the right tasks to your energy levels), you also need to be aware of your task flow.
Our brains take time to get into the flow of a task. But once they’re warmed up, it’s easier to keep going and stay motivated.
For author Paul Jarvis, this means “chunking” his day up by activities. An afternoon might be dedicated just to writing, while a morning might be customer support.
“The longer you can focus on a single type of task, the faster you can get it done. So grouping all the writing I have to do into a morning means I can write 5–6 articles in one fell swoop.”
This is also what Y Combinator Paul Graham calls “Maker Time”—the long stretches of time needed to work on cognitively demanding tasks like writing or coding (vs. Manager Time, which is chopped up into short segments).
As you fill in your daily schedule template with your tasks and to-dos, try to group together similar tasks. And when it comes time to actually do the work make sure you’re focused and free from distractions.
There are lots of tools that can help support your task flow. Four Hour Work Week author Tim Ferriss has his phone in airplane mode 80% of the time. While RescueTime’s FocusTime feature can block distracting sites and notifications from derailing you.
Personally, I like to use FocusTime for Pomodoro sessions where I work intensely for 25–30 minutes and then take a short break.
BONUS: Do a regular calendar audit to clear out dead time
Finally, this daily schedule template means nothing if your calendar is already full of recurring meetings and tasks.
Most people use their calendar as a forward-facing tool to plan what’s coming. But it’s also a great tool for reflection. A calendar audit is a simple exercise where you go through and audit past obligations.
Every three months, Facebook VP of Product Fidji Simo does a calendar audit to find out:
With this data in hand, she can see if her time spent matches up with her intentions. And if not, she adjusts.
“All of the other things on my calendar were less important but were taking more time for legacy reasons.
“There were recurring meetings that didn’t require my attendance anymore, meetings to make decisions on less important topics, etc…”
The RescueTime Calendar integration gives you quick insights into how much time you spend working each day, total meeting time, your average productivity, and whether you hit your daily goals or not.
Look at your weekly or monthly schedule right now. How many of those recurring meetings could be shortened or scrapped?
Do your time commitments match up to your goals?
If not, it’s time to take those hours back.
Lastly, keep all your time commitments in one place
It might seem like a good idea to separate your personal and professional calendars, but this is just asking for trouble when commitments overlap. Instead, use color-coding to differentiate between activities or create a different “template” calendar to keep things clean.
You can think of your calendar as a big empty jar. Each task you add—whether personal or professional—fills up space. And while you might assign different levels of importance to tasks, your calendar doesn’t.
An hour is an hour no matter what you spend it on.
Ready to truly take back control of your time? RescueTime is the world’s most powerful time tracking and productivity tool. Find out how it can help and sign up for free today!
Jory MacKay is a writer, content marketer, and editor of the RescueTime blog.
How to make a work schedule (+ work schedule templates)
Last updated on: June 13, 2022
Research shows that managers spend about 3.14 hours per week creating work schedules, which translates to about 20% of a manager’s time at work.
But three hours seems like a small amount of time for such an important task.
And it’s true — the amount of time does seem little — but, for planning and creating a perfect work schedule, you don’t necessarily need to go above and beyond.
But where to begin? Your mind must be full of questions, especially if you are new to team management. From What is the perfect work schedule to Can I schedule employees outside their work hours — the concerns you might have are only natural.
Still, it doesn’t have to be like that. We’ll go over each and every question you might have about employee scheduling, talk about different types of work schedules and all the points you need to cover before you issue a schedule.
As a special safety measure — to ensure that everything goes as planned — we’ve prepared 6 free work schedule templates that you can download and use as many times as you need.
🔽 Quick access to free downloadable work schedule templates:
Table of Contents
A quick introduction to work schedules
Before we dive into the question of how to effectively schedule employee time, let’s look at the basics of work schedules:
What’s a work schedule?
A work schedule (also known as a rota or roster), is a list that contains employee information such as:
The process of creating a schedule is referred to as scheduling and is usually carried out by a manager. Many types of businesses require schedules, including:
Why is work scheduling important?
When you think of work schedules, it’s easy to come up with dozens of reasons why they’re important right off the top of your head.
But there’s even more to work scheduling than meets the eye — so let’s get right into the benefits you can reap if you invest some time in creating an employee schedule.
Work scheduling ensures efficient operation
When employees understand their work hours and their responsibilities, as well as the location of their work (in case they perform fieldwork), they are in the position to maximize their productivity.
Work scheduling helps plan work according to employee availability
Proper work planning should be about establishing a work schedule that requires minimum changes along the way.
This is usually achieved when the manager takes into account employee attendance, their expected work hours, and requests for PTO.
💡 Clockify Pro Tip
Although a great PTO policy does not come out of thin air, there still are tricks for creating a perfect one while wasting minimum energy. Make sure to check out:
Work scheduling eradicates the idea of favoritism
Work schedules make shifts transparent, so the team members are able to see everyone’s shifts/tasks and understand that no one is (hopefully) getting the best shifts/tasks every time.
Work scheduling helps you better manage your time and meet deadlines
Proper time management is important for maintaining high productivity — and, work schedules help you organize your workload better, thus making you more productive.
When all the tasks are well organized, none of the employees remain buried under piles of deadlines. Instead, they meet them according to the plan and always keep the workload under control.
Work scheduling helps employees strike a work-life balance
When employees are aware of when they are scheduled to work, they’re able to plan and balance their work obligations, but also their doctor appointments, personal errands, and family activities. This also helps in retaining a healthy work-life balance and keeps your team members’ stress levels lower.
Work scheduling decreases employee turnover
Employees who have low stress levels and feel like they are as appreciated as their colleagues are less likely to leave their jobs.
Work scheduling helps increase customer/client satisfaction
A well-thought-out schedule helps keep the workflow running like clockwork. It goes without saying that, when everything functions smoothly, the customers or clients get the expected quality of service.
An organized schedule is especially beneficial if your business requires you to communicate with customers over the phone — because it can contribute to reducing your average handle time and increasing your customers’ overall satisfaction.
What are the types of work schedules?
Even though work schedules come in different shapes and sizes (especially now that remote work is here to stay), we can still pick out 12 main types of work schedules:
1. A full-time schedule
A full-time schedule has employees work between 35 and 40 hours per week. It is usually tied to job positions whose amount and type of workload requires full-time specialists.
Many US states mandate that employees working on full-time schedules receive employee benefits. Most such employees work the same number of days per week and the same number of hours per day. However, their exact working hours may be fixed (e.g. 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.) or flexible (e.g. 8 hours per day, in no fixed order).
Example: An in-house designer scheduled to work 40 hours per week, 8 hours per day, from Monday to Friday.
2. A part-time schedule
A part-time schedule has employees work less than the full-time equivalent schedule prescribed by the company (e.g., in companies that count 35 hours per week as full-time, anything fewer counts as part-time). It is usually tied to job positions whose type of workload permits several part-time employees to carry it out, or whose amount doesn’t require full-time employment.
Employees with part-time schedules may not get employee benefits usually associated with full-time work. Such schedules may be consistent (e.g. 9:00 – 2:00 p.m. every workday), or not (e.g. 8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. from Mondays to Wednesdays + 1:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays).
Example: A restaurant hostess who works 25 hours per week in total, during the busy times of the day.
3. A fixed schedule
A fixed schedule has a timetable with the same number of working days and hours per week. May be used for any type of business that requires employees to work together at the same time, or be at service to customers/clients during fixed open hours. A fixed schedule may involve full-time or part-time work.
Example: A team of HR specialists who are scheduled to work Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
4. A flexible schedule
A flexible schedule prescribes that an employee needs to work a specific number of hours per day, as a minimum requirement (e.g. 6 hours). But, the actual hours will depend on the employee’s time of arrival at the workplace (e.g. The employee arrives on Monday at 8:00 a.m. and then works until 2:00 p.m. But, she arrives at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday and then works until 3:00 p.m.).
Such schedules may be full-time or part-time. May be used for any type of business that DOESN’T require employees to work together at the same time, or be at service to customers/clients during fixed open hours.
Example: A customer support specialist is scheduled to work Monday through Friday for 8 hours per day, from the moment of arrival to the office.
5. A floating schedule
A floating schedule involves a fixed, main part (the employee being at the disposal of the employer) and a variable, “floating” part (the employee can choose his/her start and end times during the workday).
In practice, floating schedules have been in use for some time. But, they were only given a legal framework with the introduction of the “Flexible and Workable” act (FWW-act) — at least in Belgium.
Example: A maintenance technician is scheduled to replace a vital part of an ice-cream machine after every 20,000 gallons of ice-cream created, which happens every two weeks. While the ice-cream machine maintenance is a fixed assignment that occurs every two weeks, the maintenance technician performs other work in the meantime.
6. A shift-based schedule
A shift-based schedule is usually implemented in businesses that operate for 10 or more hours per day. If a business operates 24/7, they usually implement a three-shift approach: employees always work or take turns working in the first shift (morning shift), second shift (afternoon shift), and third shift (night shift).
Example: 3 gas station attendants who take turns working in three shifts (7:00 a.m.– 3:00 p.m.; 3:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m.; 11:00 p.m. – 7:00 a.m.) Monday through Thursday.
7. A seasonal schedule
A seasonal schedule may be shift-based, flexible, fixed, part-time, or full-time, but it is limited to a specific season or time period (e.g. the winter holiday season in November and December).
Example: Two Santa Clauses scheduled to work in a shopping mall throughout November and December, in two shifts (Shift 1: 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.; Shift 2: 2:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.).
8. An overtime schedule
An overtime schedule involves working for more than the standard 40-hours per week. Depending on the day or length of overtime, but also the US state where the worker is employed, overtime is paid either 1.5. or double the regular employee rates — this applies only to employees who are not exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Example: A waiter scheduled to work 45 hours in one week — the 5 extra hours scheduled are considered overtime.
9. A compressed schedule
A compressed schedule involves working the traditional 35-40 hours per week, but in fewer days.
Example: A window washer scheduled to work 40 hours per week, 10 hours per day (7:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.) Monday through Thursday.
10. A rotating schedule
A rotating schedule is usually tied to shift-based work. Employees are assigned shifts based on a predefined pattern, usually on a weekly or daily basis.
Example: A doctor working ER is scheduled to work 12-hour day shifts on Mondays and Saturdays and 12-hour night shifts on Tuesdays and Sundays. Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays are off.
11. A split schedule
A split schedule involves parsing a workday intro three distinct points:
Example: A taxi driver scheduled to work from 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., takes a break from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and then starts working again from 2:00 p.m. to 9 p.m.
12. An on-call schedule
An on-call schedule involves employees being available during specific times of day, or days in general, when they may, or may not be called in to work.
Example: A firefighter scheduled to work on-call needs to be in a 5-minute vicinity from the fire station during the scheduled days.
How best to create work schedules?
In order to effectively schedule employee time, you’ll need to:
Let’s look at each point in detail.
#1: Make the time to understand your team
You may think that having enough people during a shift is enough for success. But, you’ll also need to make sure that they are the right people for the type of tasks, amount of workload, time of day, or type of customers.
So, the first real step in creating efficient work schedules is knowing your team. Make a list that includes their:
With such a list, you’ll be able to pick the ideal teammates for each shift/task.
Example: Tasking the extroverted full-stack developer, who tends to come in at a later time and finish work at a later time, with the 5:00 p.m. daily call with a client who’s just starting her workday due to the time zone difference.
#2: Make the time to analyze the workload
Now that you understand the skills, qualities, and traits of each member of your team, it’s time you analyze the workload and the resources you have to handle it.
One option is to make a chart of workdays and hours your team has at their disposal. So, if you operate on a flexible, 8-hours-based schedule Monday through Friday, your team members will have 40 hours each to carry out their work.
Then, you can identify the busy hours or the most important tasks that need to be done, and schedule your most needed specialists accordingly.
Alternatively, you can always stay in the loop with everyone’s availability and workshare by making use of Clockify’s project and team scheduling feature.
You can either take a look at separate projects and see who’s actively involved in them, or check up on individual team members and quickly figure out who is overbooked, who is working over capacity, and who is available.
#3: Track employee clock-in and clock-out times
Not only does recording employee time help track the overtime hours (if your business authorized overtime), but it also provides the employees with a clear log of the hours worked.
Before setting up your work schedules, you’ll need to instruct your employees on how to track their clock-in clock-out times. For this purpose, you can use an employee time clock app, such as Clockify.
Clockify helps you define your projects and tasks and assign tasks to team members. Once all the tasks are distributed, team members can keep track of their progress in 2 ways:
1. By tracking time in the timer mode — just have everyone start/stop the timer as they start working/finish work on an assigned task/today’s shift.
2. By logging time after work manually, also in 2 distinct ways:
In the manual mode — just have everyone add the duration for each assigned task/shift manually.
In a timesheet — just have everyone add shift duration for each day in a weekly timecard.
All the time entered can later be viewed in visual and weekly reports that can assist you in creating even better schedules in the future.
If your employees log billable hours, you can also use Clockify data for payroll — since the tracker will automatically calculate how much you need to pay employees based on their tracked time.
💡 Clockify Pro Tip
To learn more about how best to set up and carry out a clock-in clock-out system, check out our detailed blog post about it:
#4: Follow a set of rules to schedule employee fairly
Although there’s still a lot to be done to ensure employees are able to maintain a healthy work-life balance, Predictive Scheduling Laws are one step further in protecting the employees from overworking.
These laws mandate certain scheduling practices to be followed, such as an advance notice of work schedule.
In case the employee was not timely notified about their upcoming schedule, they receive a guaranteed predictability payment.
Despite only a handful of US cities currently enacting them (e.g. Chicago, Emeryville, Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle), and only certain industries (e.g. food service, retail, and hospitality), the 10 scheduling rules prescribed by these laws may be a great addition to any scheduling practice:
Rule#1 — Provide “Good faith estimates” for the schedules of all new hires.
Rule #2 — Have employees state their work time/day and location preferences.
Rule #3 — Notify employees in advance about their work schedules.
Rule #4 — Offer additional hours to existing employees before hiring someone new.
Rule #5 — Notify employees about their work schedule changes.
Rule #6 — Offer premium pay for schedule changes you’ve had to make without timely notice.
Rule #7 — Provide a rest period in between two employee shifts, unless the said employee agreed to work during this time.
Rule #8 — Keep the records of previous schedules, for future reference.
Rule #9 — Have a list of schedule-related rights posted at the workplace and/or easily accessible online.
Rule #10 — Don’t retaliate against the employee for trying to enforce schedule-related employee rights.
#5: Establish an efficient team communication system
One of the keys to team productivity and proper employee time management is ensuring the team feels connected and well-informed about recent developments, updates, or changes to the expected workflow or workload.
So, make sure you always communicate any changes related to the work schedules, and give everybody a chance to reach out to you with their own questions and requests.
To establish an efficient communication system, don’t forget to:
Of course, to manage all this communication, you’ll need to establish a well-organized communication system, which may involve:
💡 Clockify Pro Tip
Good old face-to-face communication is almost outshined by the swiftness of team chat apps. If you’re looking for a way to quickly inform your remote team about their upcoming schedule, make sure not to miss out on:
If you’re using Clockify for scheduling, you can easily notify your teammates whenever there’s an upcoming assignment for them so that nothing passes unnoticed.
By creating an assignment, you choose the exact time range for that particular task and the number of hours per day your team members need to devote to the assignment.
#6: Post the work schedule at least 7 days in advance
In line with Predictive Scheduling Laws, employers must post new work schedules between 7 and 14 days prior to the first scheduled shift. However, as we’ve previously discussed, these laws are mainly enacted in certain cities because they fall under the category of local laws.
Federal employment laws, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act allow employers to change schedules without any prior notice.
Still, when you inform your team members about their schedules days in advance, you leave enough time in case someone:
#7: Avoid common scheduling errors
When scheduling, make sure you don’t:
1. Double-schedule employees who have dual responsibilities, but in same shifts
Example: A person who works as both the hotel hostess and a busser accidentally getting double-scheduled.
2. Schedule staff for the position they were not trained to fill
Example: A Pantry Chef in a luxurious restaurant being scheduled to perform the duties of the Roast Chef.
3. Under-schedule or over-schedule your employees, in terms of their work hours
Example: A part-time employee being scheduled with too many shifts, or a full-time employee being scheduled with too few shifts.
💡 Clockify Pro Tip
Working off the clock usually brings more harm than good, and it’s especially harmful for striking the right work-life balance. Find out why addressing this issue should be your top priority:
4. Under-schedule or over-schedule your employees, in terms of the expected workload
Example: Realizing that a cocktail bar is understaffed during happy hour.
#8: Honor work preferences and requests for time off as much as you can
High employee satisfaction means higher productivity. And, the best way to get high employee satisfaction is to let the employees know that they are being heard by the management.
So, if certain employees prefer to work on certain hours or days, accommodate them if you can.
Or, when an employee asks for time off, try to agree to their request whenever possible.
Moreover, you should always implement a clear system for employees asking for preferred times and time off. This way, you’ll make the request approvals/denials transparent, making it clear there is no favoritism.
If you and your team are using Clockify to track work hours and plan tasks in advance, you can set a time off policy and approve your team’s time off requests on-the-spot.
Using Clockify as a time off and vacation tracker also gives you accurate insight into everyone’s availability and upcoming leaves so that you can schedule their work time accordingly.
#9: Schedule at least one top-notch employee per shift
If your business operates in shifts, make sure that each shift features at least one of your top players in terms of relevant employee skills, expertise, experience, and personal qualities. This will largely improve the quality of the shift, but also the customer experience. Moreover, the less-experienced employees (especially the newly hired ones) will have someone to look up to in terms of work standards or turn for support when needed.
Having one of your best employees is especially relevant during busy times when you want someone reliable at the scene to “pull” the workload and inspire other teammates to keep up the pace.
Example: Scheduling a reliable food service specialist to operate the cash register, serve customers, and stock supplies during lunchtime in a city’s business district.
#10: Involve the employees in the scheduling process
You probably don’t want to waste time on constant work schedule updates because your employees are always asking for shift swaps or deadline extensions.
To minimize this, you can aim to involve the employees in the process of creating work schedules as much as you find suitable.
1. Have someone assist you in scheduling
Colleagues are more likely to understand what their co-workers think about their schedules, so having someone from the “inside” directly assist you with the schedules is optimal. This way, you’ll find out whether members of your team:
2. Have the team fill out availability charts
With an availability chart, all employees need to do is mark the days when they are available to work during a certain week. Later on, you’ll use this data to create feasible work schedules.
Example: You schedule someone for the first shift, but that someone isn’t available to work during this time. You glance at the availability chart and find the next suitable employee who marked his/her availability during the required time. You may even find that you’d have a backup for your backup if a larger number of employees is available.
3. When scheduling outside the available times, consult first
Sometimes, despite all the efforts the team has made with the availability chart, you’ll still need to schedule someone outside their availability times.
Example: Perhaps, there’s a big celebration being hosted at your restaurant and you’ll need all hands on deck. Or, perhaps, there’s an unexpected bug in your app, and you need to call in your full-stack engineer to assist you from her vacation.
Emergencies happen, but it’s important how you approach them. If possible, always try to find the person who’d be the least inconvenienced by working outside his/her ideal availability times.
Example: If you have to choose between two options, always go for the person who is unavailable because of their spa appointment instead of calling a team member who is at the hospital worried about their family member.
Either way, it’s always best to call up the person in question, explain the situation, and be courteous about the request. A reliable, conscientious employee will oblige to your request if it’s possible and will appreciate having a say in this.
Still, try to be understanding if an employee is genuinely not able to agree to your request, e.g. they have a doctor’s appointment.
#11: Use work schedule templates to speed up the scheduling process
The previous 10 points are designed to help you effectively schedule employee time — but, schedule templates will help you make the scheduling process faster and more accurate. Here are 6 work schedule templates you can use now, for free:
Employee Availability Form Template
What’s it about?
The Employee Availability Form Template gives your team the option to share their available hours with you — so that you can schedule their work time accordingly.
The employees should mark the time they can come to work and/or be on-call duty with checkmarks (Google Sheets) or “X” (Excel).
Alternatively, you can print out the forms and have the employees fill them out with a pen.
Later on, you can use these individual employee availability forms to create feasible schedules.
Who is it for?
This scheduling form is perfect for any type of business that revolves around scheduling.
Daily Work Schedule Template
What’s it about?
The Daily Work Schedule Template lets you schedule both work hours and tasks for each workday.
Simply insert the employee’s name, their department, the date, and add a checkmark (Google Sheets) or “X” (Excel) next to each hour they’re scheduled to work.
Alternatively, you can print out the schedule and fill it out with a pen.
Who is it for?
This template is perfect if you prefer to schedule work hours and tasks on a daily basis.
In case you need to stay compliant with the rule of scheduling work at least 7 days in advance, you can combine this more detailed, task-oriented schedule with schedules that cover a larger time period.
Weekly Work Schedule Template
What’s it about?
The Weekly Work Schedule Template lets you schedule the employees’ work days and shifts on a weekly basis.
Simply add the employee names and an “X” or a checkmark under each day they are scheduled to work.
The Google Sheet and Excel versions of the template also calculate the daily statistics per employee, in terms of:
Alternatively, you can print out the schedule and fill it out with a pen.
In case your employees work different split shifts, work overtime, or have specific requests regarding their schedules, you can clarify this below each employee row.
Who is it for?
This template is perfect if you prefer to schedule work days on a weekly basis, and/or pay your employees on a weekly basis.
Bi-Weekly Work Schedule Template
What’s it about?
The Bi-Weekly Work Schedule Template gives you the option to schedule both the employees’ work days and shifts on a bi-weekly basis.
Simply add the employee names, and add an “X” or a checkmark each day they are scheduled to work.
The Google Sheet and Excel versions of the template also calculate the daily statistics per employee, in terms of:
Alternatively, you can print out the schedule and fill it out with a pen.
In case your employees work different split shifts, work overtime, or have specific requests regarding their schedules, you can clarify this below each employee row.
Who is it for?
This template is perfect if you prefer to schedule workdays on a bi-weekly basis, and/or pay your employees on a bi-weekly basis.
Monthly Work Schedule Template
What’s it about?
The Monthly Work Schedule Template lets you schedule both the employees’ work days and shifts for each date on a monthly basis.
Simply add the employee names, and an “X” or a checkmark under each date they are scheduled to work.
The Google Sheet and Excel versions of the template also calculate the daily statistics per employee, in terms of:
Alternatively, you can print out the schedule and fill it out with a pen.
In case your employees work different split shifts, work overtime, or have specific instructions regarding their schedules, you can clarify this below each employee row.
Who is it for?
This template is perfect if you prefer to schedule workdays on a monthly basis, and/or pay your employees on a monthly basis.
Yearly Work Schedule Template
What’s it about?
The Yearly Work Schedule Template lets you schedule 5 employees over the course of one year (or several weeks or months).
Simply name your employees and associate each with a symbol (“x1”, “x2”, “x3”, “x4”, “x5”).
Write the appropriate symbol (e.g “x1” for employee 1) next to the suitable date to schedule an employee.
Who is it for?
This template is perfect if your team operates on a rotating schedule, or you manage seasonal workers. It can also be a great choice if you prefer to view and plan the workweeks on a larger scale.
💡 Clockify Pro Tip
In case you’re wondering whether an old school ready-made scheduling template could really top a time tracker as its alternative, make sure to go through the following article to help you make an informed decision:
Wrapping up
Scheduling employee time effectively should not be a challenge — if you implement the right scheduling system that involves:
If you add a scheduling template to this equation, you will both speed up the entire scheduling process and ensure that tasks always go as planned.
In the end, no matter whether you work on a fixed, flexible, floating, or any other type of schedule, if you schedule properly, you’ll improve:
As a result, the employee turnover rate will start declining, while transparency will almost instantly become the norm.
✉️ What helps your scheduling process run smoothly? Do you have any tips or tricks that we didn’t mention in this blog post? Feel free to share your thoughts at blogfeedback@clockify.me and we may include them in this one or one of our upcoming blog posts.
Marija Kojic is a productivity writer who’s always researching about various productivity techniques and time management tips in order to find the best ones to write about. She can often be found testing and writing about apps meant to enhance the workflow of freelancers, remote workers, and regular employees. Appeared in G2 Crowd Learning Hub, The Good Men Project, and Pick the Brain, among other places.