Why You Should Plan Your 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.

I used to be one of these people. I understood the importance of planning for the week. After all, it is a cornerstone of many of the big productivity methodologies. But for some reason, I never quite translated that planning down into the day level. And at the end of the week, I would always wonder why I had so much to get done on Saturday.

You have to plan your day in the same way that you plan larger periods of time.

A plan is a guideline or a set of aims.

You can aim to get things done during the week so that they aren’t left for the weekend. And if you don’t get them done, you’re not taken by surprise at the end of the week.

A plan is not a rigid schedule to follow.

Too often people plan every last little minute of the day. And it never works out. Plans have to be flexible to take into account last minute changes, schedule deviations, and rain on the commute that makes everyone slow down to 10 miles per hour.

But without a plan, your day and week is in free fall.

Don’t waste your time planning your week only to ignore the actual implementation by failing to plan the day.

(On Thursday we will talk about how to plan a day)