Successful people are 'microscheduling' their days - so should you try it?

Microscheduling makes sense as an attempt to regain control of our every-busy work and home lives. Photo / 123RF

When did life become so hectic that even a tea break must be scheduled? Don't tell me you don't schedule your tea breaks; in the work-harder-better-faster- stronger era, it's all but obligatory. At least, if you're microscheduling.

In case you haven't heard (and perhaps you're too busy to have noticed), microscheduling is the modish new way to structure your existence. It means breaking down each day into pre-planned chunks of time – some as short as two or three minutes – so that pretty much every second is accounted for, and more is ultimately accomplished.

Certain high achievers swear by it. Elaine Lui, founder of celebrity news site Laineygossip, apparently divides each day into units of mostly 10 to 15 minutes. Three-minute slots are allotted for calls of nature.

Think of it as a turbocharged to-do list, but with nothing left to chance; or the cousin of performative workaholism, with its battle cry of "thank God it's Monday" and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, with his 80-hour week, its poster boy.

The aim of both is to enhance productivity and minimise wasted time. Which admittedly makes sense in this age of infinite distractions. Microscheduling also makes sense as an attempt to regain control of our ever-busier work and home lives. As clinical psychologist Linda Blair says, "Making lists helps because we don't feel in control these days. We feel everything's a jumble because we're receiving more information than we can cope with."

So, curious to see if microscheduling could help me bring order to the loosely scheduled chaos of my life, I decided to try it for a day. Apart from needing the lavatory at an unscheduled time, what could possibly go wrong? Actually, I chose not to schedule in loo breaks as this felt just a tad too Stakhanovite, not to mention somewhat flawed as a concept. But the schedule went something like this...

7.20am
Rise and shower. Slept badly, so allowed myself an extra 15 minutes under the duvet, jeopardising the whole microschedule before I'd even left my bed. (Microschedule v the human body, round one: human body wins.)

7.30am
Get dressed. Problematic since I was still snoozing.

7.45am
Get the children up. This happened at the slightly-later-than-scheduled time of 8am. Further minutes were lost to petty arguments.

8am
Make breakfast. An outbreak of war over cereal threatened to derail things, but we managed to get back on track. Sort of.

8.30am
Brush everyone's teeth and wipe breakfast off faces and surfaces. Lost my son's toothbrush, along with two more valuable minutes while I hunted for it. Also spent an unscheduled few minutes searching for loose change as his school had texted a request for a £3 donation, the purpose of which was unclear.

8.45am
School run. The teacher explained she didn't know what the £3 was for either, and therefore wouldn't be collecting it. Good news, as I'd only managed to find £2.40, but bad news because it cost me 30 seconds while this information was imparted.

9am
Nursery run. Realised bank card was missing from my pocket, so returned home and found it at top of house. Belatedly drove daughter to nursery, reminding myself not to break the speed limit to keep up with my microschedule.

9.30am
Commute to office. Missed my train, but luckily all trains were delayed anyway. For once this worked in my favour and I caught one that should have left 20 minutes earlier. Train company not good at microscheduling.

10am
Arrive at desk, write "work harder" on a Post-it and stick to my computer. I got this idea from YouTuber Casey Neistat, who has the words tattooed on his wrist lest he forgets. Neistat works a lot and sleeps very little.

10.10am
Stop flitting through emails and Twitter and accomplish something tangible. I had a lot to do, so spent a few minutes pondering this and not doing any of it. Opened and closed Twitter four times to help me think.

1pm
Lunch at desk. I wasn't hungry yet. Should I force myself to eat? I decided to wait another 15 minutes. (Microschedule versus human body, round two: human body wins again.)

2.30pm
Go to gym. I want to go at 3.30pm, but I doubt my body knows or cares whether I exercise at 2.30pm or 3.30pm. It's equally painful either way.

3.30pm
Continue working. Due to various delays, including an impromptu work phone call halfway through changing into gym wear, it was after 5pm by this point. Time to make an unscheduled cup of tea.

7.30pm
Arrive home and put children to bed. Travel chaos at the station scuppered these best-laid plans.

8pm
Meet friend for a drink....And breathe.

Conclusion? My microschedule didn't make me feel in control, it set me up for failure. What this rigid timetable won't allow for is the sometimes annoying, sometimes glorious unpredictability of life. The daily grind can be full of unexpected distractions: an unscheduled chat with a colleague; an extra bedtime story for a child; a meal that you want to linger over and enjoy. But it's the spaces in our day that we can't foresee and plan for that are often most rewarding in the end.

This article originally appeared on the Daily Telegraph.