Get Rid of Unproductive Days Once and For All
October 1, 2007 by Gleb Reys
Welcome back!
Starting today, Mondays are Productivity days on Personal Development blog.
Last week, I covered some of the best ways to become a master in time management.
Although there are many more ways to improve your productivity, and many techniques to optimize your approach to dealing with various tasks and projects, there’s one thing that particularly stands out: your ability to stick to your plan.
It makes perfect sense when you recognize the importance of this principle, yet I see people violating this basic law of productivity without even realizing how simple a fix for their situation is.
Plan and review regularly
When you understand the advantages of proper planning, it becomes very easy to find the 5-10 minutes you need to plan your day ahead. Remember the saying: failing to plan is planning to fail! Remember it and never start anything important without taking the time to properly and thoroughly plan it.
Make sure you review your plans regularly. It’s just too easy to get caught up in crunching through little things and forget to stay focused on a bigger picture. That’s where regular reviews can really help.
You see, it’s absolutely normal for you to steer away from your original big plan. There could be many valid reasons for doing so. But unless you regularly review your top priorities, big goals and long-term plans, such discrepancies will escape your attention for just long enough to then suddenly show up when it’s too late to
change anything.
Stick to your own plan!
That’s the most important secret to consistent results.
After all, what would be the point in planning and reviewing your activities if you don’t follow your own action plan? A s you probably remember, one of the reasons for having a system to manage, track and get things done is that you can use it to capture all the plans and tasks, and then trust that the system will help you get the important things done at the right times.
If you plan for something to be done at a certain time on a particular day, do your best to stick to your own promises. Fight anything and everything which tries to keep you from completing such a task, because the more you defer it, the less trust you will have in thinking this task will ever be done.
It can be very hard to stick to your plan, but this is the single most important thing you can do to ensure you achieve consistent results. Once you get into the habit of following through your own plans no matter what, you will gradually develop a powerful confidence in your own planning routine: once it is planned, it gets done.
There are rare situations when you can’t stay faithful to your plans, but it is your duty to be as protective of your blocked time and made plans as possible.
Follow your own plans closely and make it your personal challenge to keep things this way, and this habit alone will easily double your productivity.
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5 Responses to “Get Rid of Unproductive Days Once and For All”
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I think that there are different kinds of reviewing that need to take place, including the kind that is done when a task is done, in addition to a “system review” to find out how well one’s time management system is dealing with time demands that are being processed.
Also, I think there are different “levels” of review for each — a beginner will probably do a systems review only when something breaks, while an experienced user will schedule in regular reviews in order to make improvement happen.
Very well noted, Francis!
Yes, to many people regular reviews don’t seem to be too valuable unless something goes wrong and justifies such a review.
But ultimately, it is only through regular reviews that you can reach an acceptable level of consistency in your results.
I have a motto which starts ‘I give myself permission to…’; then you add anything you want! I find many individuals don’t give themselves permission to do something - might be as simple as turning off their mobile phone.
Back to this post. ‘I give myself permission to change my plan’. Once you have a plan, yes stick to it, but review it and change it as necessary. You are allowed to change it, better it to reach your end target, goal.
Also if you get the chance review you plan with someone else - you may be too close to it.
Andrew
That’s a great technique, Andrew! I do this too, and it goes without saying :)
You’ve highlighted a very interesting point, I’ll be sure to clarify it in my future posts. Yes, it is important to stick to your plan, but it’s okay to change them when your reasons are valid.
The main idea of mine was that if you planned to do something, and then procrastinate or do something instead which you feel like doing, that’s something you have to fight. That’s the true discipline - do things which have to be done when they need to be done (according to your plan), and not just when you feel like working on them.
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