You may say to yourself, “I don’t have time to plan my day.”
So, you rush out the door without a strategy or even a clue as to what you need to do and when you need to do it.
Yet, your day would be less stressful and more productive if you took even a few minutes to plan it in advance.
You Do Have Time to Plan
I hear it all the time, “I don’t have time to sit down and plan my day.”
Excuses follow like, “I already have too much to do.” Or, “Planning takes too much time and effort.”
The truth is you don’t have time not to plan your day.
“Saying you don’t have time to plan, means that you are planning to have an inefficient day.”
Here are 5 Reasons You Do Have Time to Plan Your Day:
- You Can Plan the Night Before – If you don’t have time to plan the morning of, then plan the night before. This technique is especially powerful for those with small kids or for those that aren’t early birds.
- You Can Plan Early – The best time of day to do your planning is early. Before the day starts, before others are up, and before you begin your day’s activities. I like to plan my day at 5AM.
- Planning Can Be Done Anywhere – If your excuse is that you can’t find a quiet place to plan, then consider that your planning can really be done anywhere. At the gym, on the train, even in the shower. Get creative with your planning location. I do some of my best planning at the gym while my mind is “in the zone.”
- It Doesn’t Need to be a Perfect Plan – Some people avoid planning because they are worried that their plan won’t be good enough. Or that a perfect plan will take too long. The truth is… you don’t need a perfect plan. A “good plan” done now, always beats a perfect plan later. (To paraphrase Patton…) So, don’t worry about making your plan too detailed or complicated.
- Planning Saves Time – If you say that you don’t have “time” to plan, you are missing the purpose. Planning actually “saves time” in your day. A few minutes planning before you begin, can save you hours of wasted time throughout your day.
Always Plan Your Day
Planning is a time-saver, not a time-taker.
You will find that you are able to get more done in the day with less effort. You will avoid wasted time, re-work, and missed opportunities.
Always take the time to plan before you start your day.
Question: Do you plan your day before it begins? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Since August 2014 I’m planning every single day in the morning or the evening before. I have 2 text files, one for the work stuff and one for the privat stuff. And I make a list of all things I want to have worked on this day when the day is finished. Its not very detailed (see #4 of your list) but enough to have an idea what its about on that day. Every item is checked off when I spent my time on it. Doesn’t mean that the task needs to be completed, could also mean I spend a “pomodoro” (25 minutes time slot) on e.g. tidying up the garage.
The important part is to be honest to yourself and if an item is still open when the day is finished then I write down a small comment why I didn’t succeed in doing this. Could mean I put too much stuff in my plan for the day or I was depending on deliveries of others that didn’t arrive on time. Whatever it is, I can quickly review on a day-by-day level if I was able to stick to my plan or if emergencies derailed it. And nevertheless, its a sort of “micro journal” so that even today I can easily find out what I was working on in August 2014.
To be honest, I don’t plan each day. Probably the weekend.
This post is a push to outdo our task. Planning can do wonders. I don’t plan each day, I will start planning for more days from now on.
Superb post. Loved it. 🙂
Thanks for this, Craig. I like your suggestion to start the night before. We’d like to think (and say) we do our morning routines because we have discipline and we see the benefits outweighing the detriments of our sloth. (But then the morning comes.) I don’t give myself the angst of making the decision the next morning. I try to plan roadblocks to any impulse to exit my plan.
I completely agree that it makes a huge difference to just do a little planning at the beginning of the day. As you said, many people don’t recognize that they do have time to do such things. they just go about their days with, basically, no goal. Do you have any other planning tips? https://planmyaffairs.com/a-look-inside/