Planning for ultimate success

Smart planning for ultimate success

Planning: Predetermining a course of events in writing. (Not guaranteeing)

Time: Not matter of how much you have, but how do you use it.

The time matrix, check it out here…

It is vital to have one HUB (core, center) for planning everything. The more hubs you have the more confusing it is.

Make it accessible: keep it with you at all times, in your purse, in your backpack, in your pocket, it like wearing cloths, don’t leave without it, period. Get into the habit of writing stuff down instead of trying to remember it always; even more important review it constantly to stay focus, stay on track.

Personalize it: make it user friendly, comfortable, effective and perfect fit for you personally. Use what works for you and dump what doesn’t work (squeaky hinges.)

Tasks & Appointments: Tasks are time flexible where Appointments are time specific. They are 2 different things; keep them both separate. Reason for this is that Appointments are urgent so you have to be somewhere or do something at specific time tasks, on the other hand you can prioritize so the current task you are doing is always the most important task. You can also divide certain tasks and do them on the go or throughout the day.

Prioritize: Easiest way to do this is make the list of 6 most important things that you need to get done and number them from 1-6 1 being the most important and 6 least important. Start doing #1 and look at your list every 15-20 minutes until item #1 is done on your list, then continue doing the same thing for rest until you are done number 6. If you don’t get them all done that is ok, you have the most important things done and the next most important thing can be #1 on the list tomorrow.

Another approach is to list your tasks and then use some sort of system like A,B,C, to prioritize them. A is the most important task (Vital) if this is not done today, it will lose its value. Items assigned letter A (highest value) will be the things that you previously always procrastinated but were most important things, Procrastinating was slowly eating away my life and time; planning keeps me on track and I am getting lot more done with planning and the sense of accomplishment is very motivating and much better than the feeling of sinking in quicksand of regret. Letter A items are also the items which return high investment instead of just temporary satisfaction so it is vital to know your A’s and give them priority. Items assigned B’s are important but won’t lose value if not done today. Items assigned C are optional, the extra work.

Capture and Retrieve: There is so much important information that we come by everyday it is hard to keep track of everything. There are a few tools that will make your life a lot easier if you are using them or start using them. I will mention few here, remember use what is useful and dump which is not useful.

Gmail: Great mailing service, easy to search and archive emails, lots of plugins, you can apply labels to certain kind of emails so that they are always together. Built-in chat with other gmail users. Once you sign up for gmail you automatically get a bunch of other free services, like calendar, google reader, if you read a lots of blogs it can keep track of all the new articles so you don’t have to go and search every single one.

Here’s how it works… http://www.baekdal.com/notes/work/gmail-tutorial-video/

Facebook: (very addictive for some people) I only use it to keep list of my friends, a few good application you can install on it. I use visual bookshelf to keep a list of the books that I have read, the books I am reading currently and the books I want to read in future, very easy and fast.

Built-in Phone book on your mobile: Use it!

Joes goals: keep a list of your goals, update them daily and monitor your output weekly, monthly or quarterly. Toutorial here.. http://www.impetusm.wordpress.com/helinghands

Pear Budget: easiest budget tool ever for personal budgeting, 30 days free trail, or $2.99 a month. After a couple of months of budgeting or just seeing how much money you have spent you will save much more then 2.99.

Firefox: very light and easy to use browser with tones of addon’s for all sorts of jobs.

Start using any one of these and it will be worth your while and if you cant get use to them, these are popular tools so there is a lots of help available to you.

Keep in mind when looking for information you want to ask yourself;

What do I need?

When do I need?

Where can I find it?

Generally speaking it shouldn’t take you longer than 30 seconds to find something; otherwise you are taking too long to find the information.

Weekly Planning: If you are only planning on daily basis chances are you are missing out on the most important accomplishments in your life. Weekly planning will give you the bigger picture so you can plan the important stuff in advance so you are not stuck doing the things that are urgent which just seem to come up and are not important.

For your weekly planning, you should:

· Review your values, missions, your purpose (Vital)

· Evaluate last week, take what’s beneficial and leave what’s holding you back.

· Check your master task list. (things that you have been putting off, One of these days I will start on this or do this..)

· Weekly compass. Example.. http://rickyspears.com/blog/?p=93

Daily Planning: Spend about 15 mins everyday to plan out your tomorrow to make sure that the important things get done first tomorrow.

Review yesterday, if you could live yesterday again how would you change it, this is really hard to accomplish if you have no track of what you did yesterday.

List your tasks and appointments, starting with appointments and follow up with tasks, do not overload yourself in the beginning don’t keep too little on your plate but don’t overload it either.

Things to keep in mind while planning:

· Priority is a must

· Always improve and personalize, if something is not working for you purge it or try tackling it from another point of view.

· Always keep it with you!

· Plan some in-between time

· Have some sort of system for capturing information

· Keep your planning all together in one file, folder, notebook, binder.

· Ultimate success; make sure you have your weekly and daily important stuff, plan it out and then get to it.

· Planning is a tool, tools are meant to make the job easier not harder.

· Reclaim your time and enjoy your life.

· Give thanks to your lord for all your blessings and help others help others.

For more on Time management and planning check these out:

Free:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm

http://www.synergyinstituteonline.com/detail_article.php?artid=374

For purchase:

Franklen R covey: Powerful time management skills