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PLANNING PRINCIPLES

The old adage reminds us that "People don't plan to fail but a lot of people do fail to plan." During a war, we find a tank operator and a general. Which function is more important? It is probably the general, at least in this sense. One can be the best tank operator on the line, get out there everyday and shoot off more rounds of ammunition and shoot them more accurately than anyone else on the line, but if he is not shooting at a target that makes any sense, then his whole day is wasted. The general, through advanced planning, decides where the tank operator ought to go and thereby increases his "productivity".

A lot of people run their days like a tank operator without a general. Awake in the morning, get dressed, off to work, grab the first fire hose someone throws their way, get caught up addressing the demands coming from the loudest voices shouting in their direction, come home at night, sometimes beat and exhausted, get rested, get up the next morning and repeat the cycle. That is living life by accident. I encourage people to live their lives on purpose.

I want each of us to be a general. And there's a war out there in that either you are in control of your time or someone else is. And the best way for us to be a general and in control of our own time is doing effective Daily Planning every day.

Here's five nifty Planning Principles to help maximize your Daily Planning

1. Do your planning the night before. I try to set aside time each night for Daily Planning. I've wound down from the workday and I am less pressured. The major benefit, however, it that by having a plan of action completed the night before, we go to bed with a sense of certainty and control about our next day and with a sense of anticipation we would not ordinarily have. After getting into the habit of accomplishing our Daily Planning each night, the quality of our sleep will be enhanced because we have established a plan each night that gives us the roadmap or game plan for the next day eliminating the need to wrestle with all the loose ends in our heads during our sleeping hours, interfering with the quality of our sleep.
2. Put the plan into writing. There is extraordinary power in the pen. Putting our plan into writing helps us toincrease our feelings of control and, indeed, the reality of control. When we try to keep track of everything in our heads, things tend to slip through the cracks.
3. "Have to's" and "Want to's". Good planning involves more than just properly administering our "Have To's". Sure we ought to better handle our "Have To's", but we also need to do a good job taking care of our "Want To's". Plan out not only the things you "have to" do, but, more importantly, the things you "want to" do.
4. Over plan your day. "If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person." The more you plan to do, the more you can get done because you take advantage of Parkinson's Law which says, in part, that a project tends to expand with the time allocated for it. If you have one thing to do for the day, it will take all day. If you have three things to do for the day, you'll get all three done. If you have twelve things to get done for the day, you might not get all twelve done, but probably will get nine completed. See, having a lot to do creates a healthy sense of pressure on us
   and we almost automatically become better time managers.
5. Prioritize your list. Our list will almost always include "crucial" as well as "not crucial" items. Some items are more important, others less so. Without some direction, we tend to gravitate towards the "not crucial" items because they are typically easier to do, take less time, and may even be more fun than many of our "crucial" items. A simple numerical listing will suffice. Put a "1" next the most important item on your list, the one item you would want done if you could only accomplish one item. Then place a "2" next to the second most important item, continuing the
   process until all the items on your list are prioritized in order of their importance.

THE BIG HOLE IN YOUR DAY
We all have 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. And if you multiply that out and my math is correct (I assume it is because I've done this a few times), that gives us a total of 168 hours per week. And the thing about time is that it can only be spent, it cannot be saved. (Did you ever have
any time left over on Sunday night that you could lop on over to the following week?)
And there are only two ways to spend time, spend it wisely, or, well, not so wisely.

The average person is working in excess of 40 hours per week and I have found that most people lose about 3 hours per day or 15 hours per week in a Black Hole that sucks away and consumes better than a third of the quantity of time we have available to be productive in our work.

The Hole? Needless interruptions.

Now an interruption is nothing more than an "unanticipated event". (That's what makes it an interruption.) They come to us in two ways, either in-person or via the telephone. (Telephone would include all the electronic devices such as fax, email, beepers, pagers, etc.)
Like everything we encounter, interruptions are both good and bad. A lot of what you and I do on a daily basis is to address the "good" interruptions, those that are "crucial"
and "important". Indeed, a lot of what we are paid for is to handle those "good" interruptions. Those are not the concern.
What takes away from achieving higher levels of productivity are the "bad" interruptions, those that have "little" or  "no" value".
Examples of  "good" interruptions are when a client or customer calls you to place an order, your boss stops by to inform you that you will be getting the raise, or a co-worker interrupts you at your desk to show you how to complete a project in less time. These are all interruptions but they will lead to enhanced results. They are "good", so very good.
Examples of "bad" interruptions are when a co-worker drops by to complain about the price of hay in Denmark (assuming that you are not in that business) or some irrelevant, uninteresting topic or a telephone solicitor reaches you at work to try to sell you something you do not need or want.
Here are some interesting statistics. (Your actual mileage may vary, but if you need something to compare yourself to.). On average, we experience one interruption every 8 minutes or approximately 6-7 per hour. In an 8-hour day, that totals around 50-60 interruptions in the day. The average interruption takes approximately 5 minutes. (Some may take several hours or days; others may only take a few seconds.) If you are receiving 50 interruptions in the day and each takes 5 minutes, that totals 250 minutes, or just over 4 hours out of 8, or about 50% of the workday.
Now, if you we were to track and rate each interruption we experience during the day, (let "A" = Crucial; "B" = Important; "C" = Little Value; and "D" = "No Value"), most people will discover that only about 20% of their interruptions are of the "A" and "B" variety and 80% are of the "C" and "D" variety. (Maybe you will come out better; I hope so.)
Finally, if you experience 250 minutes of interruptions in your day and 80% are of the "C" and "D" variety, having "Little" or "No Value", 80% of 250 is 200 minutes or just over 3 hours per day going down the drain being consumed by interruptions that are not worthy of your time.
For most, there is a hole so big in their productive day that they could drive a truck through it.

YOU JUST MIGHT BE A WORKAHOLIC
Many wonder what it takes to be a workaholic. Now I'm not suggesting that being a workaholic is either a good thing or a bad thing but maybe it's useful to determine if we are. There is really no one thing that would make one automatically qualify but, after twenty years as a full-time Professional Speaker I have been able to unearth some of the symptoms.

• If it frustrates you that they don't allow laptops on a Ferris wheel, you may be a workaholic.
• If you are looking forward to Christmas this year because you'll decide to take that afternoon off, you might be a workaholic.
• If you don't drink any beverages during the day because you' ll lose time having to go to the bathroom, you might be a workaholic.
• If a Pay-Per-View movie is your idea of a vacation, then you just might be a workaholic.
• If twenty minutes is too long for a lunch "hour", you might be a workaholic.
• If hobbies are something you will get into when you "get the time", you may be a workaholic.
• If the only time you've had off in the last three years was to attend your favorite uncle's funeral, you might be a workaholic.
• If you wish you weren't so stressed but know that you will feel better as soon as you "get over the hump", you might be a workaholic.
• If the color of one side of your golf bag has faded and is different from the other side of the bag, you might be a workaholic.
• If you promised your spouse "this is the only Sunday I'll work" more than three times in the last year, you might just be a workaholic.
• If you bring your spreadsheets to your son's football game, you may be a workaholic.
• If you sense that the smiles from those around you are somewhat synthetic, you might be a workaholic.
• If you've told yourself, "I can cut back of my hours anytime, if I wanted to" more than three times in the last six months, you might be a workaholic.
• If you use your cell phone in the shower to return business calls in the morning before work, you might just be a workaholic.
• If you don't have a tan by July 15 each year, you may be a workaholic.
• If it's difficult to remember the last time you heard background music at a restaurant, you might be a workaholic.
• If you set your alarm for 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. so you can check your voicemail, well, you just might be a workaholic.
• If it bothers you that you are always at work before and after everyone else, you might be a workaholic.
• If you can't name your daughter's favorite rock band, you just might be a workaholic.
• If elderly people tend to make you impatient, you might just be a workaholic.
• If people at cocktail parties seem to want to leave your conversation and "get another glass of wine" just when you were really getting into telling them about your job, well, you just might be a workaholic.
• If it's been a while since you felt guilty about missing yet another family dinner, you might be a workaholic.
• If you carry family pictures in your wallet only to remind you what they look like, you might be a workaholic.
• If you're drinking your coffee in a dirty cup from yesterday, you just might be a workaholic.
• If you haven't gone home early in the last six months, you might be a workaholic.
• If your idea of an intimate anniversary celebration is to take your spouse to a formal business dinner, you might be a workaholic.
• If a clown is not so funny, an owl is not so wise, and you think that Peter Pan cannot really fly, you might be a workaholic.
• If the last outrageous thing you did was over ten years ago, you might be a workaholic.
• If a three-year-old girl holding a fluffy bunny under her arm doesn't cause you to stop and watch, well, you just might be a workaholic.
  

WORK RULES

When I was teaching Business Law full-time at Mercy College, I would have seniors in my classes who were getting serious about their futures and starting the interview process. I would let them know that I had identified three important work rules to help them shoot up the ladder of success in
record time and with great enthusiasm, they would ask that I share these little pearls.
Here are the three work rules that not only college seniors, but also any of us in the workplace can benefit from.

1. Show up. Well, certainly "show up". If you don't show up they don't pay you! But beyond that, always display an attitude that gives confidence to management that you probably are going to be around for the long term. Some people complain and grouse as a natural part of their personality and may mean nothing by it. But is that sends out a message that maybe you won't be here in a few months, it will adversely affect your future.

2. Show up on time. There is a "lateness acceptability factor" in our culture that says if you are late some of the time because of the weather, because of the traffic and then construction, or because of personal reasons, then it is  "OK". We are all late some of the time. But, if you show up late "some of the time", it seems to me, you make yourself look "average", just like everyone else. What if you are someone who is on time, all the time? (There are a few of them out there! They're like Swiss watches, always on time, no matter what is going on.)

3. Show up prepared. The people you are competing with for your raise, for your promotion, typically grouse and complain about their job, the company, the people, etc., show up late some of the time, and show up unprepared. Start your day the night before by doing Daily Planning during
which you make up a list of all the things you "have to" do but, more importantly, all the things you "want to" do. Prioritize those items in order of their importance. (A simple numeric system will work; put a "1" next to the most important item, a "2" next to the second most important
item, etc.). Do it the night before so that when you go to bed, you go with a sense of certainty and control you would not ordinarily experience and a sense of anticipation about your day coming up. Then, the next morning, while others around you are trying to figure out what they are going to
do for the day, not you, you planned it out the night before so that you can hit the deck on both feet running and moving forward.

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