Should you do a whole week’s plan, monthly plans or daily plans?
I’ve been doing a whole week plan. This means that I would put in place all the activities that I would engage myself in and in specific times within the day — in other words, I’ve been making my goals S.M.A.R.T — Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound.
It is not always a smooth journey following my week plan [and I don’t expect it to be smooth and easy]. Assembling the required resources to achieve a certain goal, fixing the time slots in case an emergency happens, getting support, and adapting to different changes in the environment are some of the examples of situations that make it hard for someone to smoothly follow the week and monthly plans.
There are some situations that require more time to make decisions on which path to follow, for example, in case of an emergency — you’ll definitely not follow your usual plan. And self-respect shouldn’t be blamed for such cases when an emergency happens. But also, this shouldn’t be a constant excuse every time you fail to achieve your goals. The definition of emergency, in this case, is an unforeseen combination of circumstances that at all doesn’t allow you to act in a “usual” manner.
But there is a solution…
Start focussing on daily goals. It is somehow easier to reorganize yourself in case anything emerges when focussing on short goals like the daily goals. Also, when anything emerges, it will not affect you for long — only a day. The process marries perfectly with the idea of a handbook — always recording emerging ideas or things that you should do on a daily basis on a piece of paper.
It is also easier to reflect with composure at the end of the day than at the end of the week or month. Daily reflection reduces the amount of the math you should engage yourself in when finding the percentage of your achieved goals and how you should improve on your poor areas.
I tried to practice the daily planning over the weekly planning for two weeks and the results were tremendous — my productivity doubled during those two weeks which is something pretty good to hear!
The Challenge
I know people are different and what might seem to boost my productivity might not work in your case. The reason why I saying this is because I would like you to compare between daily plans and weekly plans — which one works for you? So practice daily plans for one week — writing down your daily plans either in a digital form or on a book and respectfully follow the list. At the end of every day (preferably just before you go to bed) tick the accomplished goals and then generally analyze your day; how much did you achieve — 10%, 50%, 90% etc.
Note
If you achieved 100% of your goals, you’re not being ambitious enough. You’re setting “petty” and “easy” goals to yourself. Also, don’t leave some goals unaccomplished knowingly in order not to achieve 100% of the goals. Be truthful and sincere to yourself.
Let’s continue with the challenge. After the one week of practising daily plans turn to weekly plans. Every Monday, plan with clarity on how your week will look like. Don’t forget to execute with commitment during the course of the week. On Fridays, reflect with composure — how much of your goals did you achieve? and what can you do to improve next time?
Then continue with the one that you’ll find more useful. I would like to hear more feedback from you on how you’re doing with this. Please let’s get in touch at melkizedecowuor@gmail.com, melkizedek@tunapanda.org, or on Facebook.
This article was first published on Medium.com by Melkizedek
