Personal Development

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.

You were nervous, Daddy!

"Lily, I have had a problem communicating with people recently", I started with my 9 years old daughter.

What’s that, Daddy?

I had problems communicating with people. I have not done a good job at expressing myself.

You were nervous, Daddy!

Oh, really? I immediately denied that statement but I did not tell her. In a second after that thought, a flash of thought came to mind. Maybe she was right. I accepted it.

I were nervous, aggressive might be. I denied the word nervous because it sounds weak. Aggressive sounds strong and cool.

I were nervous. Period.

Thank you, Lily.

Small wins everyday

Success or failure does not happen overnight. The event itself happens overnight or in a matter of second. Every step counts. Every action counts. A person cannot suddenly become smarter, stronger, … It is a journey accumulating every day.

I started to tweak my habits, routines to accumulate small victories everyday. For the last 4 months, I have decided to wake up every day at 5AM and started training (mostly running) with MAF method. The important part is EVERY DAY. I removed the concept of WEEKENDs completely from my mind. Since then, my mind is free from struggling with the weekends.

Regardless of what will show up in the day, I have archived a few small wins already.

By being disciplined to wake up and train at 5AM, it is a huge win (not small at all).

By exercising with MAF method, my energy is high, I feel good, my body is stronger and stronger, I am READY to experience the day. Every day is a gift.

Here is a brief of my morning routine

  1. Wake up at 5AM
  2. Brush my teeth, face, … sanity, prepare my coffee till 5:20AM
  3. Shoes on and start exercising
  4. For the first 10 minutes in the warm-up, I practice English with ELSA app
  5. Run for an hour
  6. Back home, meditate for 5-10 minutes
  7. Clean my house. So my family wakes up with a clean, shining floor
  8. Prepare the day

Some days I missed, but just a few.

80/20 Rule in Life

It is commonly known as Pareto principle. To me, it reflects the beauty of life—the imbalance—in every aspect. The rule gives a relative concrete number of how imbalance it is. The rule is straightforward and simple. However, to take advantage of the rule, one needs to embed it into the mind, into every day thinking.

If you do the exercise everyday, you will be healthier. Is that true? Not always. Instead this question might be a better choice: What are the 20% of exercise that contributes to 80% health improvement?

I knew this rule when I was in the university but did not truly understand it and how it could help me. Until recently, I read the book 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch, I got it. Well, It might be I am getting older. So I started to reflect on my life and practice it. I want to embed it into my unconscious mind.

Life Control and Decision

Most of the things are out of my control, the weather, the traffic, the time, other people feeling, other people judgements, … and a million more. There is a few things that I am in charge of. Well, it is not 20%, maybe just 0.2%. What are they? my body, my mind, my actions and reactions, my time. In each area, there are 20% of things that matter most, that contribute to the 80% of the outcome.

Find them and practice.

Health

Many only care about it when being sick, feeling tired. Looking suggestions from the internet, from books, there is an exhausting long list of things you should do. They are useless to me. Life is imbalance so to health. I still want to do things that might not be good for my body but I like it. That is life and I want to enjoy it.

However, thinking in 80/20 helps me to find the 20% activities that will contribute to 80% of my health improvement. The rest 80% will cause 20% damage. It is an acceptable imbalance.

Here are some I found recently and practice.

  1. Reduce junk food
  2. No sugar. There is sugar in cooked food. But I do not actively put sugar in my food, drink. I go with original
  3. Exercise with MAF methodology. This one is the best thing I found this year. I have practiced it for 3 months. Wonderful! I like the result
  4. Sleep. Increase the amount and quality of sleep. Eye opening from reading the book "Why We Sleep"-Matthew Walker. I suggest everyone should read it. I do not try to have 7-9 hours per night but try to more than 6h per night.

Time

The most scared resource in the universe, 24h a day is what you are given, same amount for everyone. I will refuse the activities that have 20% impact but consume 80% of my time. It is simply too expensive that I cannot afford. I like drinking beer. I used to have heavy drinking in the weekend. The joy was less than 20%, only benefit at the drinking time, but the cost was way too high, the hangover the next days.

This part is really hard. Practice makes perfect.

Software Design and Architecture

The rule is perfect for software design and architecture. Start with asking these questions

  1. What are the 20% that contribute to the 80% success of a project?
  2. What are the 20% that contribute to the 80% success of this module, feature?

There are millions of pieces, lines of code, … which ones are the 20%?

Focus on them and relax a bit on the rest. Everything is a trade-off, so spend time and energy on the right ones.

Team Management and Assignment

There are certain things that you MUST do. That is the 20%.
Find out that 20% and do it yourself, the rest is delegated to others.
20% of members contribute to the 80% of the team success.

And What Else

The list goes on. It is interesting to look at life in this angle.

Where is the 20%?