Basic planning principles

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The frantic pace of life does not leave time for your favorite hobby, family, recreation. Against this background, problems arise that can lead to a complete collapse of life. If you want to manage your time, this article on the principles of planning is just for you. We will look at the types of planning in different areas of life, from organizing a workplace to finances.

Basic planning principles

No matter how beaten the idea that being busy is not the same as being productive, many of us at least once in our lives behave as if we had never heard this phrase. One could blame it on the modern attitude to progress, on corporate processes, on the boss or your colleagues, if not for the limitations that sit in the very head of a person.

To break out of the vicious circle, you need to reevaluate your life, weigh the pros and cons, and then start a new path. The principles of planning, which will be discussed later, will help with this.

Five reasons why you should make a daily planner your new habit

1. Planning builds self-discipline.
2. Diaryallows you to achieve your goals.
3. Keeping a journal builds self-confidence.
4. The diary makes actions much more effective, brighter days, fills life with results.
5. Journal entries can change from habit to creative work.

Visualization, picture and even design play a big role. By the way, your motivation for the duration of keeping a diary depends on this. The principles and methods of planning are easier to follow with such a diary.

Best time management rules

1. The first 15 minutes of each day should be spent making a to-do list. It sounds trite, but you will really start to notice how your whole world is changing. This is the beginning of everything. It is worth ordering the points of the plan by importance and complexity.
2. They must be performed following the hierarchy. First - increased complexity, then - secondary.
3. As you complete each task on your list, fully immerse yourself in it and do not get distracted by anything. When sitting down at the computer, first of all, close all the tabs and applications that you do not need, remove the phone from your field of vision. Even the fact that the phone is just in sight makes you unconsciously switch to it to check mail or incoming calls.
4. When you sit down for a task, determine how much time you need to allocate to complete it.
5. Put your watch in sight. When we are very busy with work, we lose track of time.
6. Before every call or meeting, write down two or threeoffers the purpose of this event. This will help direct the conversation in the right direction and achieve the desired result faster.
7. Give up the habit of replying to messages when you receive them while completing a task.

Don't let your day control the calendar

The principle of work scheduling implies complete control over your time. Leave notes on your phone or computer calendar when you need to deal with deadlines. It's very important to make appointments with yourself.

Don't Grab Everything

Using the principles of activity planning, you must first complete the current task. If your boss or superior has assigned you a non-urgent new task, set it aside. Finish what you started first. This will save a lot of time.

Learn to say no

Following the principles of strategic planning, only take on tasks that bring you closer to your goal. Learn to choose from a huge number of possibilities several things that you will do. Opportunities grow in proportion to the organization of planning: the principles of time management open up millions of new paths. You have the same amount of time, but more and more things to do.

Calculate the cost of your hour of work

Another planning principle is to correctly calculate the cost of an hour of your work. To get the correct result, you need to make the following calculations: divide wages bynumber of working days, then divide this number by the number of hours worked per day. This is one of the most important principles of financial planning.

Say goodbye to inspiration

There are a lot of people who can't work because they don't have the morale to do so. When you follow the principles of planning, you have to say goodbye to inspiration and just start doing the required work. After several (possibly unsuccessful) attempts, inspiration and the desire to work will come at the same time. The main thing is to start, despite procrastination and laziness.

Make regular tasks a habit

The principle of strategic planning involves turning the tasks you do every day into a good habit. The so-called routine, which should not be considered a full-time job, but in fact it is. This will help you feel better about your tasks and complete them much faster and more productively.

Tomato Technique

The quality that every business person or businessman should have is discipline. Every business owner has a main job responsibility, which is to dream, generate a bright vision of the future and a picture of where the company will go, create ideas for good products that will best meet the need in the existing market and bring value to the world around.

However, it is not enough to come up with an interesting idea. It is important to know this ideaimplement. The success of your business directly depends on how you are able to turn your dreams into deeds. Therefore, it is extremely important to increase discipline in yourself. Freedom is not when you do what you want, but when you are disciplined enough to carry out your plan. Therefore, you need to constantly "pump the muscles" of discipline, because this is similar to the development of muscles in the gym. There is one tool that will help you with this. It's called the Pomodoro technique.

What is this technique? The fact is that so many people, doing their daily work, suffer from defocusing. Every day you may have enough important, priority goals, but you start to get sucked into the turnover of small things, and your attention is scattered. As a result, the day goes by, you look back and ask yourself what was done today, but you can not find the answer. It's just that all day you "clicked" some everyday things, not having time to solve important tasks. The Pomodoro Technique helps solve this issue.

Psychologists have proven that in order for a person to work as productively as possible, he needs to perform actions in peculiar time periods of twenty-five minutes. This is the optimal period during which a person can maintain concentration. Usually, after twenty-five minutes, the brain begins to tire of concentrated work, so it needs to be given a slight pause. The whole Pomodoro technique is based on the fact that you set yourself one task that you wantexecute, and take a time period of twenty-five minutes.

At the same time, you turn off all means of communication: skype, mail, phone, etc. This is done so that you can not be distracted in any way. Next, you use a timer. You can use any convenient timer (the "Tomato" technique was born on the basis of the use of a kitchen timer in the form of a tomato, on which you could detect a maximum of twenty-five minutes), start it at the right time. The timer begins to tick, you are engaged in your task, focusing only on it. You can not be distracted by anything, otherwise you will need to reset the timer and start the countdown again. If something distracts you - quickly write it down in your computer or diary notes so you can come back to it during a break.

So you teach everyone around you not to be disturbed if the timer on your desk is ticking. This means that you are doing a very important thing. When twenty-five minutes pass and the timer rings, you put the task aside and pause for five minutes, whether the task is completed or not. After five minutes, you set a new timer and start a new task or continue an unfinished one.

After four tomatoes, a half-hour break is made. Then again "tomatoes" with a five-minute rest. It is important to change the type of activity during these five minutes: for example, warm up, drink coffee or do exercises for the eyes. It is also important to change the mental activity. This will also keep you in focus. If you make eight "pomatos" in a day, you are verya productive person, if twelve is the best result that could be achieved.

This technique really helps solve problems and improve performance. A word of advice: so that no calls bother you, set aside some time for yourself before doing the “pomodoros” and solve all urgent tasks so that it does not distract you throughout the day. All calls, meetings, everything that was needed - decide at the beginning of the day. If you do at least 6 "pomatos" per day, believe me, the overall performance will increase significantly, and you will see the fruits of your efforts.

Some tips for successful planning

• Wake up at the same time. Planning your sleep is also important for time management.
• You need to sleep at night. The ideal time for sleep is from 22:00 to 06:00. The body has time to rest and gain strength. If you go to bed in the morning, the biological clock goes astray. That is why it is so difficult to "swing". Some go to the kitchen to make themselves a cup of coffee, but this does not solve the problem of body fatigue.
• Make time for meditation. Do this for 20-30 minutes in the morning or evening. It increases concentration, strengthens the nervous system and improves overall he alth.
• Take contrast showers in the morning. In order not to feel boiled, 10 minutes of such a procedure is enough.

Following all the tips, you can learn how to plan and manage your time. The main thing is to start!