One very important thing that we see people telling you to do is to start planning. And that is true, but that is not the only important thing. It is also important that you keep yourself accountable for what you have planned to do. That is something that I myself find hard to do. And this is how I have found a way to make myself at least a little bit more accountable.
First of all, Retros. What are retros? It means to look back on what you have done and review a specific time period. You can do a retro on how your day went, you can do a review on how your week went, or how your month went, you get the idea. That helps you see what all you have completed, and if you have actually completed what all you planned.
Now, going to planning. We all make big yearly plans, but a year is a long time. Most of the time the context changes, or you might just give up on doing that completely. For example, at the start of the year, you might want to learn to ride a bike. It is possible you give up on that, or you end up learning to drive a car itself. Things change. That is why instead of planning for an entire year, you plan for a quarter.
Quarters are 3 months or 12 weeks. You plan for three months, and if context changes, you can adjust your plans according to that. Not some outdated plan that you made months ago. It will be a plan that you made just 1 or 2 months before. This also makes it much easier to do retros, because it is not easy to remember everything that happened in a whole year. Using the system of quarters makes it much easier to plan and to revise.
Another step for planning is that you should also have weekly and daily planners. Plan for a week what you will do. Not every single thing, but just plan that on Monday you will finish Task A, and Tuesday you will finish Task B. This is a very simple method and will help you not waste time thinking about what to do. Making it even better are daily planners. You can plan what you are going to do each hour, then go and finish those tasks, and reward yourself with something. It could be watching a TV show, watching a movie, or even eating something outside. With this method, you can very easily finish tasks.
Anyway, that’s it for this post, see you all next week!
