Before I suggest you the principles and methods of planning, let's talk about planning in general. What is planning, why it is so important, why do you need it, etc. Please note, that you will never find a successful person who does not plan his time
Planning of your activity - is one of the success secrets!
Now let us think about WHY PLANNING IS THE MOST EFFICIENT AND POWERFULL TOOL OF SELF ORGRANIZATION?1. Planning serves as the day map
Why it is so important to plan your activity in the evening for the next day? The answer is to get extra 1 hour of productive time the next day. First of all you'll plan the time of getting up. Secondly you'll plan each hour of free time and make the overall overview of the activity for the next day. What does the average man does, when he has free time, who had not make the day plan previously? During 1-5 minutes or less he decides what to do right now. And how do you think is it possible for 1-5 minutes to give the correct priority estimates, put in order all the goals, compose the activity day map and to do everything in the mind? In the beginning, when just trying to review your goals, set life priorities it may take you no less then 2 hours. That's why the man without a plan decides to work on urgent affair, but the important one. He thinks, that these affairs are really important, but urgent affairs have no influence on our future. They are just thieves of our time. Each minute you spend on planning will save you 10 minutes on execution, it means gives you 1000% outcome from the invested time, mind, emotional and physical energy.
It takes you 10-15 minutes to plan the daytime activity for the next day. This small time investment will save you 100-150 minutes on execution. It means you increase your productive daytime for 2-2:30 hours a day or 25-30% productivity increase during a day. All this starts the same day, when begin planning. During month you'll save 2000-3000 minutes, that is 4-6 full working days!!!
2. Activity planning sets the priorities
First of all priorities helps you to reach the most import points on your day map. Priorities do not allow you to go to the less important points till you reach the most important points. Often we spend time on things we like to do, but not those we need to do. As a result we do not achieve our goals. The list of priorities helps us to organize the time the way to reach our most important goals firstly.3. And the most important: the planning process programs our mind.
Have you noticed, that when you form your desires and goals the most accurate, they come true? The planning process helps us to make clear in our mind what we strives to and what we really want to achieve. This helps the Universe to make our dreams come true faster. The most exciting thing in planning is that some points will appear again and again many times from day to day, until they disappear at all. In other words, sometimes we consider some tasks very important, but really they are not important at all and we can easily go without doing them. These are tasks with low priority and for some time they disappear from our list naturally.
Ok, I think you understand how import is the planning in life.
Now let's speak about specific planning methods and principles.
Every evening write down the list of all tasks and affairs you need to complete during. Make up this list in order you're going to accomplish these tasks. The next day start with the task №1 in your list and continue doing it until the task is completed. If the task is not completed you can not proceed with the next one. Do the same with all the list, DO NOT proceed with the task, that has lower priority until all tasks with higher priority is done. You can suspend the task only in the single case: if the obstacles prevent you from continuation, and these obstacles are out of your control. In this case try to do everything possible to complete the task and then proceed with the next task.
PLANNING METHODS
1. Basic planning
For the basic planning you'll need a sheet of paper and a pen. Please write down all the goals and plans for the next day on the sheet of paper. After completing the task strike it out from the list. This method is very simple and quite effective. But this method allows you to plan your life only for the next day. This is a great advantage over 80% of people who do not do this.2. Advanced planning
For the advanced planning you'll need1. journal
2. executive appointments diary
3. calendar
Lets go through this items
Journal – is a place for notes, where you'll write down all the important information such as thoughts and ideas, that you have come across during a day. You can hear good ideas and thoughts almost from any person, so be ready to write them down. Great idea may come into your mind suddenly any time, so get ready, and DO NOT ALLOW THIS IDEA TO SLIP AWAY FROM YOU. Great idea can change your life, if you catch it and do not allow to slip away. Always keep diary with yourself wherever you are.
Executive appointments diary is the journal for your appointments and plans for each day. Your executive appointments diary can also be used to record major moments of a day and week. It has enough free space to record important passing thoughts and ideas and make some other notes. Please consider it as the main source for handling information during the whole day. Every night you are responsible for planning the next day: make up the list of the tasks and affairs to be completed the next day. Here is one simple rule: DO NOT BEGIN THE NEXT DAY UNTIL IT IS PROPERLY PLANNED. This is extremely important point the full strategy achieving success and wealth in life. If you do not plan the next day at night, you may be sure, you loose at least 2 hours at once. In the worst case all the day will be useless and you will do nothing this day. The man does not see the priorities, that is why he does unimportant tasks. In the end of day it seems, that he was doing something all the day, but does not know what exactly, and no tasks are completed.
Using the executive appointments diary summary
1. Organize your life, make up the detailed list of tasks and affairs needed to be done the next day 2. Thoroughly analyze your list and set up the clear priorities before you start to act.
3. Train yourself to handle only the most important tasks. Do them quickly and well. If you develop a habit of planning and setting up the priorities, your efficiency will increase significantly. And this will reflect on your career in a positive manner.
What is the planner calendar what is its main purpose?
The planner calendar is used for planning and setting up goals and action plans not only for the next day, but for long-term period. When you master the day planning, you're ready to proceed with planning the week. Here is one very important rule: DO NOT START THE WEEK BEFORE YOU SET UP ALL THE PLANS AND TASKS FOR THIS WEEK.Then proceed with the month planning. Ask yourself: «What I need to do during this month?» The rule is the same: DO NOT START THE NEXT MONTH BEFORE YOU SET UP ALL THE PLANS AND GOALS FOR THIS MONTH.
Then you'll be able to manage your aims and goals for one month, then three months, six months and a year. I agree with you, if you're saying, that planning process is not a easy one and besides it takes some time, but I assure you, that by setting up goals and planning your life you will achieve considerable results in life, and will live much better lifestyle than those who does not do this. All your actions will be much more intelligent and efficient. They will become absolutely clear and focused on one primary goal. You will have to show the high level of self discipline. But if you do this, you can be considered as the master of your time. The planning process makes you thinking and gives a clear understanding of all your actions. The more you think about your actions and plan your activity, the faster you will achieve your goal and the greater result you will have.
The regular time planning allows you to devote more time and energy to the most important activity. This will increase the efficiency of your work in every field of your life.
The main advantage of the planning calendar is that you can plan the full vision of you life, forming and writing down all you goals for 5, 10, 20 year from now.
An additional planning tool, where you can combine all the tools listed above is the PC organizer. There are lots of good and easy to use planning software products. You can choose whatever is best for you. I can recommend the LeaderTask.
I wish you to become the master of your time!
