I've noticed a trend in the past year or so in productivity circles. It's called "theming" and has you do tasks on certain days or months according to your theme. On the surface, it seems like a good plan. Most of the people I have heard rave about have great success. I noticed one thing in common with all those folks: they are either self-employed or run a company. For those people who don't have absolute control of their schedules, I would argue theming is actually restrictive and counter-productive.

Some people put a lot of time into doing a weekly review and plan, and then neglect to plan their days. The result? Missed tasks, and a whole lot to do on that last day of the week. Today we'll look at the general constructs of how to plan a day.

Would you ever decide to have a party, then make out the guest list, plan the menus and make the shopping list, and leave it at that? Come the day of the party, nothing would be done. Some people approach their daily planning the same way. They plan their quarters, months and weeks, and then leave the daily stuff up to chance. Then they wonder at the end of the week why things weren't done.

When I first started learning about productivity, I was advised to set a mission statement and then determine my 5- and 10-year goals. At the time this seemed impossible; I was very young and I had no idea what I wanted to be doing in those time frames. I figured it would get easier as I got older. This wasn’t the case. I’ve never successfully planned 5- or 10-year goals. And if you want the absolute truth, I don’t do well with 1-year goals, either. The problem is that the time frame is too long. I can’t see the end of it, so there is no urgency. I can’t get a sense of the time involved, so I choose to do far too much. And in the end, I do very little. So my planning revolves around quarters. Today I’ll give you the high-level overview of how…

I think one of the ironies of the modern productivity movement is that all of the bound notebooks are called “planners” and have little, if anything, to do with actual planning. They’re dangerous because they’re empty productivity - you feel productive, but it really doesn’t make you more productive. You’re pretending to be productive.