Today is the last day of my previous collect and process habit. I learned a lot of things during this previous month because I was able to collect and start a lot of new tasks that were inside my head.
Continuing with my habit list, the next item I want to master is the planning habit. Planning is an essential skill to master once you have all your items collected and processed, so I think this is the best time to practice it.
My goals are to plan in advance each day and week and to do the most important tasks first thing in the morning. I also want to create long terms plans for areas such as sport and business.
I know this habit will be thought because it requires so many changes in the brain, but I also know this one will make an huge difference in my productivity, so I’ll work hard to master it completely.
Like with the other habits, I will practice planning for 30 days, but I reserve to extend it to another 30 days if necessary, because I’m not sure 30 days will be enough.
I will use my calendar to schedule important tasks to do during the week. I May also set up a 43 folders system to organize my tasks to do every day. Only time will tell.
I know I’ll experiment a lot with planning, so expect to see a variety of posts about this. In the mean time, feel free to post your killer methods for planning activities in the comment section below. Thanks.
Posted on August 22 2009
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I’m looking forward to hearing how this works for you. I find that planning is something that always takes a back seat for me, even though I know it shouldn’t. I spend so much time each day just putting out fires and dealing with emergencies, that I don’t take enough time to look ahead.
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Looking forward to read more about the result on this one. I think all of us can become better when it comes to planning and actually completing our tasks.
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Hey Stefan, glad to see you here. I have a few nice ideas for this particular habit for my readers, just need to experiment first.
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Thank you Oscar. It’s always great to be appreciated. I’ve recently subscribed for you blog so hopefully you will see a whole lot more of me in the future.
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Hey Oscar!
Planning is great is and good to make a plan every week to get done what you really want done.
Just keep in mind that you can also overplan, and that way get very little done, I’ve had that happen too:)
Have a great weekend!
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Hey Diggy, thanks for the advice, I’ll try to stay away from over-planning.
Oscar
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Hey Oscar!
Great site :) Look forward to more of your posts.
Jen
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Thank you Jen :)
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Hey Oscar,
Good luck with your new planning regime.
I’ve incorporated a few new planning techniques also to work on for the upcoming month. Creating a weekly master list of goals according to my annual goals and personal roles. Then each evening I write down a few daily goals from the list with a section for reminders like phone calls, etc.
Hope all works out.
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Hey Ron, thanks for the tip. I’ll try to follow your advice by setting weekly goals related to my big goals. Right now I’m using weekly planning to do a few things that were on my list for a long time, but I should be done by the end of this week. Thanks for the contribution.
Oscar
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I love planning and doing my very best to act on it. There are times though that there will be some interruptions, and you also need to find a leeway for it. Still, the plan must be implemented be it not on schedule.
I admire your organization. :-)
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Hey Walter, thanks for the compliment! I am, like you, unable to finish a task sometimes. To solve this problem at the beginning of every day I check to see if I missed any of my previous day’s goals and if this is the case I move them on another day.
Oscar
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I try to make sure that I do the things that won’t let me sleep if I don’t get them done. If I get more than that done, great. If my day takes off in other directions, well, at least I’ll be able to sleep that night!
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Thanks for the comment. I’d like to know if you have ever considered doing those things a few days before whenever possible, so if one day you are unable to do something, you could still sleep that night.
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