In my career I have had two jobs that lasted in the region of a decade - one slightly more and one slightly less. The two organisations were very different in many ways, and the way I worked in them was very different. In one I was tolerably well organised. I always had lists of the projects I was working on and a good idea of what needed to be done. I was praised for my planning in my appraisals. In the other I rarely had the faintest idea of the priority jobs and was sometimes bored and uninterested in what was going on. Most of the time though I was simply reacting to whatever happened to come along. That kept me busy enough to feel I had earned my pay by the time I left for home - which was often quite late. The question of how good my planning was didn't come up in the few appraisals as I had. I didn't get appraised at all most years. When I did there was no mention of planning as a parameter. It wasn't really the kind of thing the company culture regarded as important.
It was actually quite a fun place to work. The people were mainly good company and there were plenty of entertaining things to gossip about. And some of the products were quite good too. So it wasn't all bad. But the basic problem was a deep seated one. The entrepreneur who owned it did not share his goals and consequently none of us knew what we were supposed to do. As years went by I found myself increasingly unable to plan. Without a goal of some kind planning is almost impossible.
By contrast my other employer took goals very seriously indeed. There was an overall target for turnover growth which everyone knew. Project meetings were held regularly and every project had a written goal and what they called the balancing value. This was the value of the project expressed as the first three years says forecast minus the development cost. It wasn't perfect but it at least enabled you to decide which projects to prioritise and you could see what kind of contribution your effort was making towards the overall goal.
What my experience shows is just how important it is to have clear goals. It is best when goals are quantitative. With goals you can create a plan to achieve those goals. You will inevitably have multiple goals and plans. The more detail you have written down of what you are trying to do and how you are going to do it, the more chance you have of actually getting there. I am incidentally well aware that there is a contrary opinion out there which suggests that you are better off without goals. The person who has put this most eloquently is wit and raconteur Stephen Fry. He points out that there are two possible outcomes - if you don't achieve your goal the result is misery. If you do the result is emptiness.
If someone as successful as Stephen Fry can get by without goals how important can they really be? However I suspect the reality is simply that Mr Fry' s goals are simply so deeply embedded that he is not consciously aware of them. And anyway who is to say that with the talent he has been bestowed with he might not have done even better with more thought given to his goals?
I at any rate do better when I set myself goals, and quite a good deal better. I have long term goals. These are easy to set. For example I have a long term goal to become a superb written communicator. Who would disagree with that? A vague and lofty goal like that is good, but how is it turned into a plan that gets you to it? This requires a bit more thought. Common sense, consensus and experience indicate that the best way of learning to write is to write. So I need to plan to write. I have a number of things that I schedule to achieve this goal. One of them is to always have a book on the go and to write two or three paragraphs every morning before I get up.
The literal minded might object to my nomenclature here. Becoming a superb communicator is not a specific goal. It is an open ended commitment with no quantitative end point. What I am actually doing they might say is building a habit. So be it. It depends on the definition. Nonetheless a steady stream of writing building into a modest collection of books is one of my goals and I consciously plan to include it in my day. Today for example I have limited myself to just two paragraphs because I have something else I need to write. So it is certainly affected by my daily planning process.
I start the day with a plan. This can work in two ways. I either have a plan from the day before or I draw one up as either the first or second thing I do. If I am tired I might get on with something easy to get going. But my ideal is to plan my work, and to work to my plan. But my plan is a fairly straight forward business. I have characterised the things I do, and my plan is simply a list of the number of work sessions dedicated to each of the categories. This is how I balance my efforts between long term projects and short term priorities.
So to simplify it a little to make it clear here are some of my categories -
- Admin
- Billable Hours
- Writing
- Business Development
- Life
So I have a target for how many billable hours I need to put in. This is something that is obviously important for a free lancer. If I don't make enough money, well I won't have enough money. I also have to make sure I am getting enough work in for the future so I have to devote some time to developing my business. It would be easy to give up on writing all together with these urgent matters pressing on my attention. But I am able to schedule at least some writing most days and I always get some done in any given week.
Scheduling is something of an art. For example scheduling something easy just after lunch is a good way of avoiding a biologically necessary break for rest and refreshment turning into an afternoon long procrastination fest accompanied by a running buffet. But the basic objective is simple. You want to get the most out of the day, progressing towards your goals while making sure you address all the things you need to get done.
There are two mental problems that bedevil this kind of short term planning. The first is the natural tendency to schedule and do that which is easy and pleasant while putting off the stuff you don't want to do. Planning can be a terrible way of disguising procrastination. After all it is easy to convince yourself you have something covered if you have it scheduled. The other problem is you get started on something and you just want to get it done. After all it has to be done and why not just get on and do it?
This is good logic and sometimes it makes sense, and is especially tempting with a big billable job or something that you have been promising someone for a long time. The answer is that there are times when it does make sense. Just make sure you look at your plan first and think through the implications of throwing out your plan. Getting an important job finished is one thing. Neglecting one important thing by doing another is something else.
Another easy mistake to slip into is neglecting your personal life. Getting a birthday present for your mother and getting it in the post is just as much a job as any other and takes time up just as much as any other activity. Put it on your plan. I have a Life category for just such things.
But what I don't do is come up with a single to do list to cover the day. I simply assess the amount of time I have available to work towards my goals. If nothing else is going on my target is 8 hours. I divide this into 16 half hour sessions. So each of them is allocated to a category and my plan is done. It takes less than a few minutes.
I have a few other bits of housekeeping I need to do, so I have incorporated a check list of these with a standard daily plan format. I fill this out either first thing in the morning or last thing at night. And once it is done I am ready to go.
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