Sunday, October 6, 2013

Perfect Selfmanagement in 52 Weeks: Planning Your Day

Planning

Appointment books work. Any activity or conversation that is important to your success should have a time assigned to it. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thinking, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.

Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule activities and priorities.

Don't cram every hour of your day with activities. Leave some contingency time for you to catch up when the unexpected happens.

Day 1:
1.   Purchase or download a calendar with the appropriate space for you to list your tasks. Some calendars offer weekly, daily, hourly breakouts. A notebook can also be used.

2.  Prioritize your tasks and allow necessary time to complete each task. Remember to include travel time. Most people calculate too little time.

3.  Try to complete your task in order of priority. You can go through your list and write "A" next to important items that must be done first today, "B" next to items that must be done before tomorrow, "C" next to items that must be done this week, delegated or started. Fit the high priority items into the time of day when you are most alert and motivated. This is during the morning for most people.

4.    Check off tasks that are complete with a check mark. You can make another notation next to items that must get postponed or can wait for another time, have been canceled or that you've delegated (with the name of who is taking care of it).

5.    Allow space at the bottom of your schedule for low priority items or things coming up later in the week. If you have time today you can begin working on those items to get ahead.

Day 2:

Stephen Covey made a masterful illustration using a bucket, some sand, and several rocks of various sizes. He explained that the sand represents all the busy work that we have to do, like answering the phone, reading email, filing away papers, etc. The rocks represent all the important things that we have to do, such as setting goals for the year, launching a new project, creating a vision for your team, etc. The bucket represents all the time we have for all the demands of our lives.
What happens with most of us is that we fill up our buckets with the sand first, and then we can only put a few rocks on top, and there's no more room for the rest. What he suggested is that we put all our rocks into the bucket first, and then fill in all the available spaces with the sand. And miraculously, everything fits in our container!

This is the philosophy you need to employ when you schedule your week. Identify all your big rocks, and block out the time to handle these first. Then worry about the sand afterwards. We have to make sure that we handle the important stuff first, and not let the busy work consume our days.

Trying to plug too many major projects in one day tends to leave us overwhelmed with how much we have to do. If you can get three major projects done in a day, then you’re doing better than a lot of people. I’m using “project” in the broad sense, meaning some key product or service that needs completion.

Supporting Tasks
These are the tasks that directly support the projects you’re working on. „Tasks“ is used a bit broader here, so the task “Respond to Email” may include the sub-task “Check Email”, “Sort Email,” and “Respond to Email.” Sometimes you really need to list every step in the process and sometimes you don’t.

Day 3: Allow time for interruptions. Don’t plan every minute of your day. Leave time to be pulled away from what you're doing. The concept of having "office hours" is just another way of saying "planned interruptions“. Put up a "Do not disturb" sign when you want to get your most important work done.

If you are a “fire fighter”, you may only be able to plan 30 – 40 % of your day. Crisis Managers get interrupted more often.

Day 4: Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.

·  Use the alarm on your phone or computer to remind you of certain tasks or appointments.
·  Use your schedule to keep track of personal time and family time. Seeing items on a schedule will make you more aware of what time is available.
·  Franklin Covey offers a time management system that focuses on the professional as well as personal. It corresponds with the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
·  Once you are diligent about keeping a schedule you can try to step up to a digital calendar. Outlook can be a great tool and certain phones can wirelessly synchronize with your computer to keep everything up to date.
·  Leave time to relax; schedule it if you have to.
·  Time your daily projects and routines to help you adjust your schedule later.
·  When planning, allow extra time for each task. Always try to overestimate how long something will take. Try adding 25% to the times you get when you're scheduling, for example 4 minutes becomes 5, 8 becomes 10 etc. These extra minutes will add up and provide a cushion which can help you avoid being late.
·  Make notes about items delegated to others.

Day 5: Heat Maps are a fun way to plan your day, using colors to indicate the most intense work times. Charles Gilkey has developed a template that can be downloaded from his blog:

http://www.productiveflourishing.com/wp-content/uploads/HeatMap-blank.pdf
© 2008 Charles Gilkey    www.productiveflourishing.com

Red: This is where productive capacity is the highest. All systems are operational and ready for the captain to give the signal to go to warp speed. This level is the “nova” stage (from “supernova”) because it’s really hot and intense.
Orange: This level of productive capacity is the way station between creative awesomeness and merely puttering along. A lot of work can get done here, but you’ll be somewhat aware that you’re working.
Yellow: This level of capacity is the idle status. Some productive work can be done, but it’s not going to be high-level, lose-track-of-time type of productivity.
Green: At this level, you are spending more energy trying to keep working than actually doing the work itself. Creativity, motivation, or focus is pretty much gone.
Gray: Sleeping or sleepy. Don’t try to work.

This has been a week full of discipline and new habits. Take the weekend off. Reflect about last week's productivity and decide how you are going to incorporate planning into your workweek from now on. Have a good one!

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