Planning Sessions – a summary & final thoughts

For my final ‘Planning Sessions’ post, I’d like to share some final thoughts, benefits I’ve experienced and describe how my planning tools come together in the form of the ‘Weekly Review’.

In my first planning session, I identified five tools to use to assist my planning and keeping on track.

• Diary
• Task manager
• Year Planner
• Quarterly Planner
• Checklist

At this point, I haven’t completed the quarterly planner, I’m feeling little need to do so. Perhaps I don’t need one? Though I suspect I’ll do a planner for the university semester.
For the other four tools, they’re serving their purpose beautifully. And I’ve been strict with myself to stick to the purpose for each tool. The result is not only minimising clutter, but I also know which tool to go to retrieve information about something. For example, I don’t record my exercise in my diary, it goes on the checklist. When I’d like to know how I’m tracking with my exercise goals, I don’t need to sort through appointments and due dates to find this information. I can view my progress with a glance at the checklist.

Possibly the single most important part of maintaining my capturing and processing system has been the ‘Weekly Review’. Last week I had a brief thought to do away with my ‘weekly review’ because I had other things calling for my attention. My recommendation is to ignore those urges. I kept my ‘weekly review appointment’ and glad I did. The ‘weekly review’ keeps me on top of my commitments and provides me with a clear idea of what I need to do. I’d fall behind and induce feelings of being overwhelmed if I missed a ‘weekly review’. It is a process where all the tools and their functions come together. The general process involves going through each ‘inbox’ and deciding each item’s next action (or inaction). Tasks are input into the task manager. I identify, from my year planner, which projects I’m currently working on and their next action. I then go through each task and assign a due date.

A challenge I’ve faced in developing trust in the system is recording tasks, ideas, etc as soon as possible, when it comes to mind. If something is on my mind, my mind isn’t clear and restricts thinking and ideas. When something is on your mind, before it starts to bug you, write it down, capture it in the system. Even if it’s a scribble on a piece of paper and placed in a physical in-tray. Come to the ‘weekly review’, the item will be dealt with.

By going through the process of planning and setting up a system, I’ve certainly honed my personal learning environment (PLE) tools used for capturing and processing – naturally I’ve stuck with what’s handy and meshes with how I like to record and retrieve things.

So here’s an idea: Record or pay attention to what you grab when writing down an idea or task. Do this for a week or two. Do you always have Evernote open? Do you grab whatever scrap of paper you find? This exercise will help determine which tools work for you and will be handy to incorporate into your processing system.

Final thoughts….

Plans and planning is guided by a direction or goals. I’ve discovered two approaches to planning. One is to plan to prepare for opportunities, the other is to plan towards set goals. So it doesn’t matter if you have set goals or not, planning is useful to everyone.

Planning doesn’t mean to imply being rigid or taking a rigid approach to following plans. Instead, I believe planning is key to being flexible. By knowing what projects are happening, commitments, essentially the big picture, at any one time actually allows for flexibility. Since implementing my planning tools and system I’ve identified an opportunity I’d like to take on. I can refer to my year planner, be reminded of my priorities and focus areas, and perhaps find a way I can work it in. Or I won’t be able to. But by having a planner, I can save myself from, well, myself and re-affirm where my energies are to be directed.

Remember, the only constant in life is change.