There's what you THINK you need to plan your time, what you ACTUALLY need to plan your time and what's standing in the way of you planning your time effectively. For the next 3 days, we're going to dive into the 3 skills you need to have in order to plan your time well so you can stop spending your time on what isn't working and shift into what will.
Let's start with what you might be thinking it takes to plan your time well: a planner or calendar, identifying what you need to do, and putting those things in your calendar.
Depending on which time management strategies you've tried before or which programs you've purchased, it might be more intricate than this, like: deciding ahead of time how long each thing will take, identifying urgent/not urgent/important/not important, doing, planning, delegating, or eliminating tasks, writing things as what you will produce in that given time, or identifying the five main things you'll accomplish today - to name a few.
These are all great strategies but if you're here, they probably aren't working for you. At least not consistently.
Here's why: planning is simply decision making. If you're not planning consistently OR following your plan consistently, odds are you're getting tripped up somewhere along the decision making process.
This looks like:
"I have to do this the right way."
"I don't know what to do."
"I don't know where to start."
"I have so much to do."
When you're believing these thoughts, you'll either shut down, and stop planning. Or you'll research all of the options, and throw yourself into confusion and more indecision. Or you'll plan things the way you think you should, using someone else's rules (instead of your own).
All of these beliefs are like buying jeans that are too short and too tight. They don't fit, you don't feel comfortable, and it makes taking action challenging.
This is why the skill of making decisions - confidently and quickly - is the number one skill you need when it comes to planning effectively. This is not something you either have or you don't. You can develop it. It doesn't take time; it takes practice. Real life practice.
Decide, implement, fail, learn, repeat.
Failure avoidance is the real reason why most people are scared of making decisions. And scared of planning. You don't want to fail at your plan (again). We'll talk on Friday about how to handle this.
The shift:
Go out there and decide, implement, fail, learn and repeat. Use your OWN rules for planning - not someone else's - using the same process.
If you want to learn how to make faster more confident decisions so you can plan well (and follow through easily to create the life, business, and goals you want), schedule a consult.
We'll talk about how you're spending your time now, how you want to be spending your time, and I'll let you know what I see is tripping you up, specifically. Once you know what it is, you can change it. Immediately.