Plan as though you would load your car
Have you ever realized: daily planning is like loading your car boot for a holiday trip. Why?
1. Everybody wants to stuff as much as possible into the car and there never seems to be enough space for everything.
It’s the same with planning: I try to squeeze as much as possible into my day and often over estimate, how much I can do in the given time.
2. The big chunks should go in first.
For example suitcases. You can’t load them later, because it’s quite likely that they wouldn’t fit in with all the odds and sods. When you plan your day, you should also try to define one or two big, important “chunks”. I usually start my day writing text for 2 hours. A second big chunk would be coaching calls. What are your “big chunks”? Doing them first, you get the good feeling, that you’ve already accomplished something.
3. Certain, “immovable” things have special places.
You need to fit in certain things at specific times, e.g. appointments.
4. You need different stuff for different destinations.
It depends on the destination, what you take. If you go to the seaside, you wouldn’t take your skis on a roof rack with you, because it’s filling valuable space and you need more fuel. When you plan you need to focus on your expected outcome.
5. First time trip or routine trip?
Practice makes perfect. The more frequently you go, the more straight forward packing becomes. The more often you plan, the better you know what to do and you develop certain routines making life easier. You don’t always need to reinvent the wheel.
6. Risk taker versus playing on the safe side?
How perfect does it have to be? How much do you take with you? Do you really need all this? Two extremes to avoid: Either spending endless time packing/planning or going to the other extreme and throwing everything muddled into the boot: i.e. no planning at all.
7. Packing alone or together with your team.
If everybody knows best, you end up in chaos. Rather than having too many cooks spoiling the broth you need a set of rules how to do it so that the benefits of having many hands does make light work of the job. You get a better overview with more people, everybody knows where things are and the chances of anything being forgotten are minimal.
8. One or more cars?
What works better for you? E.g. one very long master todo-list for all or different lists for different projects or different team members? What make it easier to stay on track and keep overview? Danger or opportunity: Different cars can go in different directions. What’s your “satellite navigation” for planning?
We are often too busy for planning even if we know we should do it.
What helps you to plan your day, get it done and to make it more fun?
How do you involve your assistant / your team?
Please leave a comment. Any ideas to share?
© Jutta Nedden, Lead & Connect, 06/2014