Every Monday I throw out a challenge to readers, something to push you a bit and help you grow.

As you know by now, I’m big on lists and goal planning. I like to know as far in advance what I’ll be doing on any particular day. Time is the same for all of us. There is no getting it back. There is only learning the ability to use time wisely (i.e. to your advantage).

So this week, the final full week of the year, after you have done what you need to today and you’re settling into this evening, here is your challenge:

Map out every half hour for the rest of the week. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

Know where you are, who you are meeting, why you are meeting, what you are bringing, and what are the goals.

HERE’S THE KICKER: I said “every half hour” which means 48 time slots per day. Once you start to fill out the spreadsheet with “sleep,” “dinner,” “family,” “workout,” etc. you’ll start to see visually how valuable your time is. I’ve made a nice clean spreadsheet for you to download and use.

CLICK HERE to download the Final Full Week time spreadsheet for yourself (Dropbox file, just click “download” on the next screen)

The goal of this exercise is to force you to think ahead, to force the organizational work into one pile tonight, relieving you of the burden of that planning for the rest of the week. You should be able to wake up every morning for the rest of the week knowing exactly what you have to accomplish that day, where, and when.

Try it out. We’ll be doing more of this in 2017. This is a good week for a test run.