Learning to plan for a month, a week and a day
You are responsible for the meetings on a daily basis,meetings and working projects, and in return receive a salary and freedom from fear of consequences. To maintain responsibility and not be left without rewards, learn to plan. Such advice is given by Steve McCulty in the book "From urgent to important."
Brainstorm
The only practice that he offers is brainstorming. First, take five minutes and write down the goals. Think about work, family, health, finances. The longer the list goes, the better.
Then select the first goal and divide into steps. Calculate all the steps at once will not work - they will clear up already in the course of the fulfillment of the goal. So start with the basic ones.
Ask yourself:
What to do first?
Where and with whom do you learn how to do this?
What resources will be needed?
Proshturmuyte other goals and proceed to plan.
Three levels of planning
McCulty advises you to make a plan for a month, a week and a day.
Plan for the month.
Open the next month in the calendar and add to it the steps that were taken out of the brainstorming session. Subsequently, a month's plan will show how you have progressed.
Please note that a business trip, vacation or a trip to the doctor is planned in advance. Also, pre-schedule busy seasons at work, when all hands are required.
Plan for a week.
Every week, determine what tasks are planned for it and when they need to be completed.
So you will understand, to perform the task immediately or within a week, and whether you need people's help, which, again, is worth asking beforehand.
Plan for the day.
Plan daily business in the evening, in the morning or with coming to work. The main thing is to check e-mail. Otherwise, you will spend your time on what is important to others.
What if you plan for the day, but aftercheck the mail find urgent business? Or not urgent, but more important than planned? In such cases, the plan will indicate the best solution - without it you compare the messages with nothing.
The benefit of the plan
Planning requires effort and self-discipline. It's easier to get down to the first thing than to draw up a plan. But with it the day will pass with profit.
You will not forget anything.
The brain is peculiar to remind of forgotten tasks. But it is not known when he will remind - it often happens too late. In addition, at a time the brain holds one or two thoughts - as soon as a new task is added, the old one is erased.
The plan is simpler - it's enough to remember that he needs to follow. So you focus on one task and watch out for the details.
You will have time more in a short time.
The buyer with the list of products will exitSupermarket is faster than the buyer without a list. Because such a list or plan sets the direction. Thanks to the plan, you will not lose time thinking about what to do next.
You will act proactively.
Lists of products are because go to the store every time something is missing - wasting time. To act this way is to act reactively, to be a hostage to circumstances.
Prepare a plan in advance - an active way of acting. With it, you will group similar tasks and save time. And so subordinate the circumstances.
You make the best decision.
Sitting at the meeting, you say "no" to other things that you could do at this time: answer the letter, finish the project or arrange a day off.
The plan will make it clear what time is worth and how to use it. You will not learn to say "no", you will learn to say "yes" to the right things.
You will recover faster after the interruption.
If you work according to plan and you are distracted, it is enough to consult the plan and resume work. Otherwise, the recovery will take more time than the interruption itself.
Develop a habit
The last advice McCulty: turn planning into a habit. So you will be shielded from procrastination and will begin to write tasks into the calendar without effort.
