Planning is Good, Preparing is Always Better

If you practice time management, one of the most important habits you can practice is getting ready for your day.

Early morning planning is an important element of most organized individual’s routine.

Yet, planning for your day is only the first step. If you truly want to maximize your time, you also need to prepare for your day.

Doing so, can make everything in your day smoother and more efficient.

The Power of Preparation

Most people are lucky if they know what they are headed into when they leave their house each day.

What appointments they have?
What to-dos do they need to complete?
And what obligations await them at work?

I am a big advocate for planning for your day. After all, a few minutes spent in planning can end up saving hours of wasted time in your daily schedule.

Yet, that is only half the battle.

Knowing what you need to is good, being prepared to do it is even more powerful.

Preparation is the advance work you do in order to make your real work more effective and efficient.

Tweet This

For example, knowing you have a meeting this morning is necessary in order to be in the right location and arrive there on time.

However, even better is preparing in advance for the meeting…

  • Have you reviewed the agenda?
  • Did you read the documents related to the topic to be discussed?
  • Are you ready with ideas and recommendations?
  • Did you take any advance actions that could make the meeting more productive?

You can imagine the difference that these small actions can make.

You meeting could be a wasted hour of people coming together to read documents aloud and to ramble on about unknown topics. Or instead, it could be a productive time to make decisions, have intelligent debate, and take action.

Prepare to Be Ready for Your Day

The next time you sit down to plan, allocate an extra 15-30 minutes to actually prepare and do work in advance of your day.

The short time you spend getting ready will pay off exponentially when it comes time to act during your day.

After all, planning is good but preparing is even better.

Question: How do you advance prepare for your work and activities? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

One thought on “Planning is Good, Preparing is Always Better

Comments are closed.