My old driving instructor was incredibly wise. He used to tell me that people will spend a fortune on components for their cars but then when it comes to tyres – more often than not people go for the cheap or the mid range option. “Big Mistake!” he said. Your tyres are the only part of the car that actually makes contact with the road and if you want to keep it that way, don’t go cheap here! Have you ever heard the phrase ‘where the rubber hits the road’? That’s my point. In all our efforts to be more efficient, more effective and more productive, how we use a humble day is ‘where the rubber hits the road’ so don’t go cheap here. This is why building a plan for your day is an essential ingredient in an effective life.
Lofty goals and high ambitions will do you no good, if you cannot use your day right. This is where the rubber hits the road.
My last post was all about my Coram Deo – a simple checklist I use to make sure I am focussed through the day. But before we get to that point, we need a plan to work with. Every day, wither before I leave work or before I wind down for bed, I spend 15 minutes planning tomorrow. Once again, I harness the power of a simple checklist for this.
Here is the checklist:
- Review Uncompleted Tasks for the day. Decide if reschedule for this week or next.
- Process Notebook
- Process my Task Manager inbox
- Choose 3+12 for Tomorrow
- Review and revise other tasks
- Plan Calendar for tomorrow
- Journal (5 mins)
It’s basic but powerful. Let me explain.
It may be I get to the end of the day and haven’t completed everything I planned to. I know what you thinking! – Surely NOT, Surely NEVER! – but it does happen, quite a bit. Some of those things I want to reschedule for another day this coming week. With my approach to Carl Pullein’s Time Sector System, if it’s not scheduled for this week and doesn’t need to be done on a specific date, then I won’t give it a date. I’ll just mark it with the relevant Time Sector and be done with it.
I have a notebook open through the day. Sometimes I write things in it that I need to remember or do. I scan through to make sure nothing has been missed and everything is safely in my system. The same is true for my task managers inbox. Anything in here gets organised to the correct Time Sector and all the right tags/labels get added.
I will review my list of tasks for tomorrow. My tweak of Carl Pullein’s 2+8 Prioritisation system is 3+12. I look at the list and choose the 3 most important tasks and set them as objectives. These will normally be big impact tasks, but sometimes they are mundane and urgent. Once it was ‘get a haircut’. If you’d seen me that day, you’d know why! Then I have 12 other tasks that are the main tasks I want to achieve, I would normally allocate 4 each for the morning, afternoon and evening but the exact ratio will vary based on a number of factors, like how long the tasks are going to take.
Reviewing and revising my other tasks and planning my calendar go together. Basically, if I have 50 tasks scheduled in addition to the 15 above, that’s too many. If I have a full day of meetings, then perhaps even the 15 above need revising. If a big task or a project requires some focussed time, I schedule this on my calendar.
I don’t time block as I think is normally a waste of time. The aim is that I have an achievable list of tasks and calendar plan that works and matches up.
Then I will spend 5 minutes writing in Dairum – my journaling app of choice. Nothing fancy here, just thoughts to close off the day.
And that is how you plan your day. It doesn’t take long but building a plan for your day is an essential ingredient in an effective life. How you use each humble day is where the rubber hits the road – so, as my old driving instructor would say, don’t go cheap!
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