Articles from December 2021

Towards simplicity – Planning

My journey towards simplicity

For years, I have been practicing planning. There are books, articles about planning. One asks Google, and it gives you millions of resources. I have tried some of them. None of them works on me.

  1. I could not complete what I had planned. I stacked up the debts quickly. Soon, the original planning goals were gone and replaced by "making the plan look good."
  2. I overused planning tools. There are many out there. None of them made me feel good, probably because I planned poorly.

I felt it was too complicated, overwhelming. I needed a more straightforward approach.

Basic question

I realized that I jumped into learning "how to plan" without asking a fundamental question:

What do I want to accomplish from planning?

It turned out that my needs were simple.

  1. I want to feel good that I have accomplished a few things at the end of the day.
  2. I want to know what I have to do the following day.
  3. It is ok not to accomplish them all. I do not want to carry the guilty to the next day.
  4. I want to plan a few things for the weekend.

There are a few keywords: TODAY, TOMORROW, WEEKEND, and A FEW THINGS.

A few things

It is essential. I limit five items. The rule forces me to decide what matters most to me. Once I get them done, I call it a day.

Tomorrow

It is what I plan TODAY. Before going to bed, I plan for tomorrow. It is a list of a few things I want to do. I started by writing them down on papers. Later, I use MS ToDo app. Both works fine.

Today

When today comes, I move the "tomorrow" list into the "today" list. When I start to work on an item, I mark it done.

Weekend

During the week, I have things to handle on the weekend. They are on the list. When the weekend is over, they are gone regardless of results.

Switching Contexts Tips

Simple tips and tricks I have learned over the time. Some are useful.

If we can focus on one thing for a period of time, it is great. It is True But Useless (TBU) to me. I cannot do that. I have my work, my Facebook, my Twitter, my books… They are part of my reality.

Instead of fighting hard to just focus on one thing at a time, I did them better.

So what was the previous typical behavior? Let say I am reading a book. Notice that I have Facebook, LinkedIn, … tabs opening. I would have:

  1. Read a few pages in the book
  2. Switched to Facebook and read/scroll Facebook
  3. Time flies, usually longer than I have expected or imagined. Back to the book
  4. Read a couple more pages
  5. The steps were repeated. Sometimes, I stopped reading the book and did something else

They look normal except for the unaware consequences – I forgot almost everything

  1. I felt reading time longer than reality
  2. I felt Facebook time shorter than reality (it always takes longer)

I want to remember as much as I can what I have read. I want to enjoy my social media time. Above all, I want to feel good.

Pause and Reflect

Before starting the next action, I pause and reflect what I have learned/done in the previous action. I simply recall what I have learned, make sense of those new information, summarize them in my head. The actions vary. They take a few minutes.

A few amazing things happen

  1. I remember more what I have learned/done. I can recall them again at the end of the day
  2. Sometimes, I continued the learning. It gave me time to decide. I am in charge

Track the time

I do not track my time to manage it better. I do it to raise my awareness to the actions. Of course, at the end of a week, I gain the benefit of having everything logged and tracked.

I am not interested in managing my time. Instead, I am focusing on improving my energy and attention.

I use Toggl to track my time, but any tool can do the job, even on paper.