Mastering Planning Vol 2: Weekly Planning

What do you have to get done this week?

Do you know?

What do you have to get done today?

Do you know?

How long is your to do list? 

Is it a sheet of paper? Notes in your phone? A bunch of sticky notes on your computer monitor? A few things jumbling around in the back of your mind?

Let's back up a second.

What is different about this course versus every other planning course out there?

The difference is that this planning system is based on continually learning how to be a better planner...and...it's designed to meet two conflicting goals.

1. How do you plan everything and get stuff done while staying in the flow?

2. If you are in the flow all the time and never schedule anything, how will you ever meet deadlines or finish projects?

The answers are contained in the planning system you will learn in this course.

The goal of this system is that you are spending most of your day in the flow, and at the same time getting done what needs to get done.

It's a flexible system that allows you to change things up during the week (so you can stay in the flow longer when you unexpectedly hit a stride and want to go over time) without ruining your whole plan for the day or week.

Here's what often happens.

You put together a plan for the day or week and then you give up after day 2. 

Why?

Because of 2 thing.

1. People tend to overestimate how much free time they have, and underestimate how long things will take.

1a. They overestimate their time because they never measure how much time all of their mini-routines take out of their day.

1b. They underestimate how long things will take because they are ambitious and want to do more and "challenge themselves"...but really because they have never practiced the SKILL of estimating how long something will take, GETTING FEEDBACK by recording how long it actually takes, and then LEARNING from that continual process. 

(This is a big part of what makes this system of planning different. You aren't just throwing together a plan. You are getting BETTER at planning each week because you are getting feedback in the form of DATA every day on how long things take and how accurately you are estimating the time cost of each activity you plan)

Part of what you will do in this course is develop a time budget.

This means you will figure out how much "free" time you really have each week.

The truth is, there is no such thing as free time.

Time has value, even if you aren't getting paid for it.

So instead I use the term discretionary time.

You get to choose what to do with it. But you should choose wisely because you will learn you probably have a lot less than you think.

Out of the 168 hours you get each week, you are only awake for about 112 of them. Once you factor in meals, you are at 100 hours a week, roughly.

Factor in an 8 hour day with some commuting and getting ready/unwinding each day and you are down to 50 hours of non-work time, if you are lucky (and not counting work email you do at home or other catching up over the weekend or at night). 

Once you factor in other things, many of you will learn that you only have roughly 10 hours of discretionary time each week to truly do whatever you want with.

You will learn, through DATA, not through platitudes or feel good advice, how to get out of some of your time wasting habits, --whether it's TV, social media, certain websites, your phone, a certain friend or group of people or something else -- out of your life.

It's about motivation. And only when you truly realize how limited your time is does it become easy and obvious to drop some of the time vampires that have been draining your time -- often without you even realizing it.

At the end of this course, and with a few weeks of practice, you will get to the point where you can accurately plan and stay on course through the entire week, week after week, and consistently get stuff done.

You won't have to worry about quitting mid way through because slack is built into the system in the form of buffer time. As you get more accurate with your planning, you can take away the training wheels and be more aggressive with how you fill your time blocks.

All the while, you will enjoy spending most of your day, every day, in the flow and enjoying your work.

You won't have to constantly wonder what you should be doing, if you are forgetting something, or if things are falling through the cracks.

If you implement this system, it can truly change your life and help you get to the next level...while enjoying the process.

I hope to see you on the other side,

Timothy