How important is it to have good daily planning?

Making a plan might not be the most enjoyable activity you can set out to do but, it certainly is an effective way if you choose to live as productive and progressive as you can.

Carving out half an hour to an hour to ‘design’ your week ahead and investing time for a longer session to plan out your month ahead can be a life-changer in the ‘get sh*t done’ department.

To some degree, everybody has a plan. It would be very hard for anyone not to plan ahead, even if they hate the thought of it. Even thinking about what to have for dinner tonight is a form of planning.

You may have encountered people who seem to take and make life as it goes, and it all seems to be very liberating and independent. However, you really want to know what’s ahead to prepare the best way possible and know what you can accomplish by the time the month passes.

If you are a student, mother, employee, or business owner, planning is very powerful when it comes to getting your stuff together and getting ahead.

Here are some benefits of good planning:

• You have an end in mind

• It is stress-reducing and gives peace of mind

• It invites strategic thinking

• It aids skill development

• You get to evaluate your work/project

• It enhances your productivity

• It helps you pay attention to different roles in your life

To make a good plan, it is wise not to just make a day-by-day plan alone. It is much better to start with a complete overview of your month if you are new to planning. And when you are used to your new planning skills, you can of course expand to quarterly and/or yearly planning.

Having an overview of the month ahead gives you clarity on where you are going, and what you want to accomplish by when. From there you can easily break down your monthly overview into weekly planning, and then break it down to daily planning. By doing this, you clearly see what to do every single day of the week.

Don’t worry if things seem overwhelming at first. With time, you will be amazed by what you can accomplish if you simply write things down for yourself and plan. It takes some getting used to, but don’t give up or discard it. You will thank yourself when you reach all your goals and accomplish what you desire to do.

Have the end in mind     

Before you start filling up your plan, decide on what you want to achieve, accomplish or make some progress in the next coming month?

State clear goals and try to make them as SMART as possible. This will help make it easier to set more realistic goals. If you are new to SMART goals, here is an article that explains it well.

What are your objectives? Do you intend to complete a course before Christmas? Would you like to write a book?

Make these as clear as possible. And don’t be one-sided in this wither. Take all elements of life and state what your goal is with this. More on this later 😉

Stress-reducing and gives peace of mind

Ever felt overwhelmed by all the things you have to do?

Or are you scared to death that you will forget something important or have something pop up at the last moment, and have to settle or compromise because you didn’t see it coming. Ugh… who wants that?

Of course, not all things in life are predictable and things can still pop up, that is the beauty of life isn’t it? However, having space and mental clarity to actually handle these events effectively and accurately is something that you get to give yourself. Not everyone has the ‘luxury’ to keep everything going as it was planned ahead, simply because they didn’t have the complete picture in mind and on paper.

Knowing what’s coming gives you time and space to prepare, and progress the right way that it benefits you.

This equals not having to break your head about things and stress out. You knew it was coming and you are prepared! 

Practice strategic thinking

As I mentioned above, you can strategically plan ahead and make sure you tick all the boxes on time before finishing up your project, work, or whatever your goal is.

By planning, you are able to make good choices and plan for quality and success because you have the end in mind. You have a whole landscape of what you want before you, and you are able to plan it out ahead of time.

If it is a book you are writing and you want to write it within 1.5 years? Plan ahead!

Again, be very specific and precise in what you want.

- What is it about?

- What are the chapters about?

- How many pages are in the book etc.

Make sure you have a clear vision and make it easy to understand for yourself.

Then schedule a finish date into your calendar.

Work on your chapters consistently and be prepared for your big day.

Skills development

Being skilled in planning helps you, not only with planning itself but will also help you in other areas in life. Your ability to focus, plan ahead, and have a sense of time will also help you in several ways, as this is not a skill you will regret having learned.

You will probably be more organized and put together than your peers at work or school and this will be visible. It’s a very important personal development skill you really need to hone.  

At first, you might not always do what you want in the amount of time that you wished. However, the more you plan the more you grow competent with it and soon you will be able to make a sound plan that will help you progress in daily life, in a lot of ways.

Evaluate your work/project

This might be where the tish hits the fan. Did you do a good job following up your planning or did you stagnate and procrastinate? It’s important to be honest and objective here.

Don’t be too hard on yourself when you are behind and you did the best you could. You are learning and sometimes, we are not able to indicate correctly how fast things are going to progress. Sometimes unforeseen things are popping up that we can not always help or leave aside. These are all things you have to weigh in on evaluating.

On the other hand, did you do the things you planned? How thorough were you at this? Did you slack or were you procrastinating along the way?

This is not something to do at the end of your week or month. Rather, this is something you do daily and maybe even in the middle of your day.

Find the balance in giving yourself a kick in the butt or cutting yourself some slack. However, don’t just reduce your goals. You made that goal for a reason and you made it SMART, so it’s doable and realistic. Make sure you do everything you can to fulfill it.

Enhanced productivity

Think you might have guessed this one already, your productivity enhances!

Do you think your productivity would enhance when you follow the steps above? I THINK YOU DO!

Unless you are already a productive machine you will not see a lot of difference. If you are new to this, your productivity will skyrocket!

If you are looking for resources and books on productivity. Stephen R. Covey might help you out! He’s written a bestseller on productivity with his book - 7 habits of highly effective people.

Attention for different roles

I already promised you to get back to this.

What I mean by the roles we have in our lives:

When you are married and you have a job next to your family life, you already have 3 roles. If you also have some friends and other family members you already have 5 roles, and so on.

Determine what roles are important in your life and write them down. What is your goal with this? Do you want to spend at least one hour per day of quality time with your kids and husband? Do you want at least one social meeting a week with your friends? Do you want to work on your health and work out 3 times a week? 

Define what is important for you and write it out. Sometimes we can not do all the things we want but even if you do half of what we planned, at least it’s something. You will be amazed at all you’ve accomplished, even if you didn’t tick it all off.

Make use of planners

Planners are a great tool to set up structure and have your ‘planned life’ in one place. There are simple planners with just small areas to write down your to-do’s, and others that are detailed and motivating to help you along the way of getting your desired life together. This goes much further than just simple scheduling.

Push Your Potential has a complete planner where all aspects of life are put in to help you out with realizing your goals and putting your desired life together.

This covers:

• Yearly overview

• Monthly overview

• Weekly overview

• Daily overview

• Habits

• Health

• Money

• Goals

• Notes

• Lists

The planner gives you great and valuable insight into your goal setting as you go through your days.

Check out the shop for all the planners and printables of Push Your Potential.