The most important hour you'll spend today

(MoneyWatch) Think back to high school. If your school had six periods a day, chances are your teachers taught somewhere around five courses apiece. The extra hour of the day? Contractually, it might have been a planning period -- a time the teacher could figure out lesson plans apart from her "on" hours in front of students. If doesn't always work, but the goal of a planning period is to create regular space for thinking of things before you do them.

So here's a question: When's the last time you gave yourself a planning period?

If you're like many people, the answer isn't this morning. Whenever I give speeches and ask people what they want to do more of with their time, planning and thinking come up near the top of the list. People would like to think more about why they're doing what they're doing, and whether they should be doing it at all, but they lament that they just don't have time.

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This always strikes me as a bit backward. It wouldn't make much sense to start cooking dinner without knowing what you're serving. You hope whoever built your office building had thought it through. You'd be a bit surprised if the builder announced that he was far too busy digging holes and putting up walls to actually spend time planning the structure. Yet we seem to think that's a valid excuse in business contexts.

You can try to protect an hour a day to serve as a planning period. The beginning or end of the day work well. You might try taking a lunch break solo a few days a week and use that time to think. If you commute via public transportation, you might be able to sit and plan during that time. Or you can just choose some time outside your normal work hours to plan.

I find that spending a chunk of time on Sunday planning my week, and then a few minutes each night planning the next day, helps me feel like I'm going where I intended. Sure, that's time I could be watching TV, but if a little planning makes me more efficient and effective with my time, I figure eventually I might be able to buy that time back.

Do you give yourself a planning period?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user liquene

[1Shub]

I do a fair amount of planning, and also realize that I need to be flexible. The real world presents all sorts of challenges, interuptions, unpanned this and that.

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans This is true.

[AlBlack52]

Fortunately I have a 60 to 90 minute commute to work (depending on traffic), during which time I can think through the challenges of the day and the week ahead. Every deadline goes in my Outlook calendar with a reminder far enough ahead to ensure the job can be done in the remaining time. I take the first 10 minutes to scan the inbound emails for anything that cannot wait, and respond to emegencies, then I reconsider my plans for the day in case they need to be changed. This method works for me.

I'm not sure why anyone in business would want to "Think back to high school" - Teachers (at least in the UK, Australian and NZ public system)are heavily unuionised Public Servants paid on tenure rather than merit, so are a lousy model for a free enterprise business. Behaving like a School Teacher in the work place would be a fast track to getting sacked.

[ultimobo]

every night I take a used envelope and write on the back 4 short lists - H for what I can do at home, W for what I need to do at work, X for phone calls I need to make, and > for places I need to go. Sometimes besides each item I add a 1 for must do this week, 2 for must do soon, 3 for would like to do.

the next night I look at my finished day's list, with completed items crossed off, and transcribe items yet to be done across to my new list and drop the old one in the trash.

takes me about 3 minutes - result is I carry a reminder in my pocket and can knock off all necessary tasks quickly - e.g. 5 phone calls in quick succession when I have a moment, and by glancing at it periodically throughout the day I know what I need to do next, including shopping lists, and what is not urgent so I don't need to stress out and can relax and enjoy. Rather than feeling time-bound, I find it frees up my time as most things are not critical - a glance at my list tells me that.

[kkldmurphy]

Thank you for the comments. May I offer though, that the more minutes one spends of their own time planning and thinking about work, the less likely that person will ever be able to "buy back" the time. Sure, the result might be that one becomes more efficient and effective at work. But what has more efficiency and effectiveness gotten anybody except more assignments?