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ALAN Lakein wrote that "Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now." There is truth in the meaning of the sentence, for planning simply involves converting tomorrow to today. So, whatever is currently on our plate, they have to be dealt and tackled now. That's why planning can help us build better or the best out of our professional and personal lives. The motto for planning step is Plan It Now.
One purpose of planning is to get clarity, to know what you should be doing on a daily basis and on a long-term basis. For company executives and professionals who are always on the go, they tend to do very little planning, particularly when their own work is involved. Some people consider the cerebral activities they engage in when they're driving to work or when they're sipping a cup of coffee to be planning for work. It may set mental engines to work, however, it lacks focus and real clarity of the picture of the work you want to do or the goal you want to achieve. There is a minority of individuals who think of planning as time-wasting. Planning becomes a futile effort towards achievement when, first it is not efficiently done and second, it is not implemented.
The purpose of the planning process is to get a clear mental picture of what you need to do. A planning process can be considered effective only if it provides you with a clear picture, because you cannot act without a picture. In the book The Management of Time, James McCay wrote:
Planning enables you to get these clear pictures, or a better view of what you want to achieve, how you want to achieve it, and when you want that to happen. To put it simply, it serves as a reliable guide and direction en route to the fulfillment of both personal and professional goals and objectives.
There are three components of planning. They are prioritising tasks, managing time, and being organised. Priorities are too often used as an excuse not to act. And priorities can create disarray when you are faced with urgent versus important matters. Nonetheless, if you neglect priorities, especially with the volume of work expected of us and the extreme time pressure many of us are under, you are likely to fail.
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Task and Time Management
Task management can be an especially useful tool for those who have little discretionary time. The less control you have of your own time the more you need to distinguish between very valuable and less valuable issues. Time management could be described as the art of making the best use of time.
Once you know what you need to do and how best to do it, you need to make the best use of time to get it done. When planning your day, week, month or year, you consider the tasks to be done and the time involved. Lastly, to be organised helps you when you are implementing plans and strategies with ease and comfort. It's always best to have resources in place before you give a go signal to kickstart the execution.
Typically, daily and weekly planning can be adopted to keep track of the task and activities you ought to do today, or during Monday to Friday at work. Monthly planning, however, may be more appropriate for senior executives as they tend to book important meetings further ahead in the calendar and are involved less in day-to-day operational issues that pop up unexpectedly.
According to the workplace expert and founder of the workload management solution Personal Efficiency Program (PEP) Kerry Gleeson, he shares how a company executive can shape his diary and can go about his monthly planning process:
1. Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a table made of three columns with headings--Actions, Now, Future.
2. List no more than eight broad actions that account for 100 per cent of your time, for example, management team meeting, managing direct reports, personal matters, project work, and others.
3. Once the broad actions are listed, estimate what percentage of your time is currently being spent on each category. Note the percentage of your time in the Now column. After you have noted a gut feeling percentage beside each action, adjust them if they do not total to 100 per cent.
4. Ask yourself if there is some aspect of your job that you are not doing, that you feel you ought to be doing, and that is not on your list (for example, think planning time). Add it to your list.
5. Consider how you would like to ideally spend your time in the future.
6. Block out chunks of time in your calendar over the next month just for those actions showing a larger percentage in the Future column than the Now column. This will likely ensure that you make the time for these items and actually bring about the change.
There is another approach to the high-level planning process. As a busy leader, you can adopt the following planning stepladder:
* Clarity of end results and visualise. What are the expected outcomes or key objectives?
* Team planning. Find ways to encourage the right team members to join in the planning process.
* Memory-mapping. Use this effective planning tool to help draw the team's input.
* Identify goals and deadlines for each task. Why you need to act on or implement a particular action or task?
* Set contingencies. What will the team do to tackle the what-ifs or other possible scenario plans, from worst to best.
* Assign timelines and designate "champions" for each phase, step or task. This gives everyone a clear picture and a sense of responsibility or accountability.
* Review periodically and check for any deviations and amendments required. Sometimes, some plans ought to be tweaked, changed or sometimes abandoned.
* Celebrate milestones achieved.
* Persistence to push through plans, personal motivation, and discipline.
Worklife coach and workplace expert, Angeline V Teo, is the principal consultant of d'Oz International Pte Ltd, a learning and development solutions provider and principal partner of PEPWorldwide in the Asia-Pacific.
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