Welcome to Part 1 of a three part series on Planning for Success! The topic for today is how to create effective daily and weekly plans. The goal of planning is to allow you more time outside the office instead of spending your entire life in the office setting. If you plan there is a possibility of success, while no planning is a guarantee for failure!
The goal of technology was to allow more personal time. This free time was to be used to explore your personal goals of family, friends, exercise, or other activities. Wow, look what has happened! Today workers are spending more hours working, taking fewer vacations, and have higher rates of burnout.
Initially planning can be tedious and uninspiring. Remember that the goal of planning is to maximize your work time to increase productivity and hopefully decrease the amount of time needed to complete your work tasks. It is important to formulate your professional work goals into short and long term planning in order to maintain focus.
Five steps to creating effective daily and weekly goals:
- The weekly goal list should be written on the Friday prior the next week. Attempt to formulate as many tasks as possible, but leave room for modifications. If personal goals or activities are going to take place during work hours, be sure to include them in your list.
- Once the weekly list has been formulated, break down the tasks into daily lists. This will give you a work plan for every day.
- Maintain flexibility so if unknown or unforeseen circumstances require your attention, you can easily modify your daily and possibly weekly lists.
- Previously we discussed the pattern of individual patterns of energy during the work day. Again review your personal pattern of highs and lows and plan accordingly.
- At the end of each day allow time to review your plan for the day and determine the success or failure of accomplishing assigned tasks for that day. The goal is not perfection, but to see your individual pattern of successfully completing tasks. Keep modifying and continue planning!
