You’ve established your skeleton and you’ve cut down on distractions. You’ve closed down your email and said no to chores, with boundaries strong like a fortress. Now it’s time to start building those focus muscles!

Sometimes I get too excited when it comes to structure and planning. On Sunday, I’ll plan out my whole week. I’ll write down what I’m going to get done and exactly what needs to happen each day: Finish editing that manuscript by Tuesday, finish cleaning that dataset by Wednesday, finish that coding assignment by Thursday. Exercise at 5 pm on Tuesday, jiujitsu at 6 pm on Wednesday, and take the dog to the vet at 4 pm on Thursday.

It never works out. I mean, never. It doesn’t matter how disciplined I am, being able to plan out the entire week on Sunday just doesn’t work for me. Yes, I might be able to outline a few things–the key times I want to exercise, when I want to see my spouse for date night, and key work deadlines. But if I try to plan every minute of every day, it’s just not going to work. There’s always something that unexpectedly comes up last minute that will throw off the rest of my entire week.

I prefer to schedule one day at a time with just enough flexibility to balance out the structure. I like to think of it as net: just enough framing to keep me standing, but not enough so it feels like I’m in a prison of my own making.

How do I do that?

First, I try to establish concrete and realistic tasks. Tasks should be concrete—a tangible product that you can walk away with, such as writing a paragraph, reading a page, or analyzing the data for one variable. Tasks should also be realistic–something that you can finish in one to two hours. An example might be editing a section or free-writing about a research question.

Next, I choose which three of those tasks are the most important that I can get done. I call these my 3 MITs (Most Important Tasks).

Finally, I establish when and where I will be doing each of the three tasks: my home office at 9 am? The coffee shop at 11 am? The library at noon?

Those are the key ingredients for establishing the structure of your day: what, where, and when.

I encourage you to find what works for you. Most people need some kind of structure. How much structure you need will vary. Some people will sprinkle in a few bursts of structured time throughout their otherwise unstructured day. Some people will designate where they will work and what they need to do the next day, but not designate the time, so that they can show up when and for however long they want. Others may establish when they’re working, but not the specific task, preferring to choose in the moment what feels most relevant.

Some people need to change tasks every 20 minutes. Others need to work on one task a day.

While type and amount of structure can vary, everyone needs some flexibility. None of us are robots. None of us are machines. Tasks will take longer than we expect. Things will come up that prevent us from getting to the coffee shop that day. We will get distracted. We will procrastinate. We will need to take a nap. We will need to take a break.

Be kind to yourself. Everything will get done eventually. The message here is not to stress you out or be a drill sergeant. Chances are pretty good that you’re hard enough on yourself already. The message here is to encourage you to explore what works for you. All of us need some balance between structure and flexibility, but none of us are the same in how we find that balance. The key thing is that you are prioritizing your time and tasks to build the life that you want to live.