How to make a daily plan in 10 minutes, or Is life according to a template good?

Steps

Part 1

Prioritization

Think about what your current role is.
Every day we play different roles. Depending on our actions, during the day we can be “a daughter,” “an artist,” “a student,” “a friend,” “a cheese lover,” etc. Write your list on a piece of paper. Try to place these roles in the correct order, paying attention to their priority.
- Here are some examples of other roles (but of course this should not be limited to): Chef, Dog Walker, Brother, Photographer, Chef, Mentor, Traveler, Grandson, Thinker, etc.
Think about the role you would like to play in the future.
Some, if not all, of the roles you currently have in your life you will likely want to continue to play in the future, such as continuing to be a “mother” or an “artist.” However, these roles are just names, and every person would want someone to use them to describe them at the end of their lives. Think about the negative roles you currently play—perhaps roles that you would like to cross off your list as you plan for your future.
- To create your list, think about what you would like to do in the future. Do you want to travel but have never done it before? If so, add the “traveler” role to your future list.
Think about your motives.
Why do you want to play these roles in the future? To create a life plan, you need to properly prioritize your life. To do this, think about the roles you want to continue playing, as well as the ones you want to add in the future. Think about why you want to play a certain role? Maybe you want to become a “father”, then among your future goals, write down your desire to have children with your partner, and give the child life.
Read also: Shut your mouth. How to stop swearing
- A simple way to figure out the reasons for your ambitions is this: imagine your own funeral (even though it's painful, it needs to be done, it really helps!) Who will attend it? What would you like people to say about you? Perhaps you would like to hear the most important words, such as that you were an amazing mother or made an effort to help thousands of homeless animals.
Write down your priorities.
Once you really understand your motivations, write them down. Making a list will help you stay organized as you begin to follow your plan.
- For example, the list might include: I am a 'sister' because I always want to be a support for my brother; I want to be a “writer” because I can write down the story of my grandparents, etc.
Think about your physical and emotional needs.
What does it take to become who you want to be? For example, if you want to become an Everest climber, you must be physically fit and eat right. If you want to be a “friend,” your emotional needs will be met if you surround yourself with loving people.
Part 2
Setting goals
Think about what goals you want to achieve throughout your life.
Use your roles, priorities and needs and you will be able to understand what you really want in your life. Think about this list in terms of things you want to get done before you die? Remember that these should be goals that you really want to achieve, and not goals that others encourage you to achieve. If you need more help, try categorizing your goals. Some examples of categories:
- Career/Vocation; Society (family and friends); Finance, health, travel; Knowledge / Intelligence and Spirituality.
Write down specific goals with specific dates.
Once you have set a goal that you want to achieve in your life, such as getting a degree, write it down along with the date by which you want to achieve your goal. Here are some goals that are less vague than those listed in the previous step:
- Lose 5kg by June 2014.
Travel to Indonesia to visit Borobudur Temple in 2016.
Think about how you will achieve your goals.
To do this, you need to evaluate where you are right now. The steps you need to take will depend on what you are currently doing. For example, to obtain a master's degree in architecture:
- From now until April 2020, you will need to: A. Study architecture programs. B. Complete the required application. B. Complete the rest of the application and submit it to the appropriate authorities. D. Wait for an answer. Select the program you would like to study. E. Sign up!

Part 3

Planning

Write down what actions you need to take to achieve each goal.
You can do this in any format - by hand, type a Word document, draw on a large sheet of paper, etc. Whatever format you use, write down what actions you will need to take to achieve each of your goals in chronological order. Congratulations—you've just created your life plan.
- Now is the time to study the details of each step - the name of specific master's programs. Or, if one of your goals is to simply be happy, write down in detail what will make you happiest in this life.
Check your life plan.
Life changes - and so do we. The goals and priorities we had at 15 will likely be different from the goals we will have at 25 or 45. It is important to periodically review your life plan to check if you are following it in your life, this will allow you to lead a happy life. and a satisfied life.
Don't be too hard on yourself if you can't achieve the goal by the date you set - make adjustments to the plan and continue to follow it further.

While trying to figure out your life, you are faced with a problem. Or maybe you just want to streamline your day. And these are just a couple of examples of when you need a plan. In fact, there can be an infinite number of reasons. At first glance, making a plan may seem like a very difficult task. But with a little hard work, a little creativity, you can put together a good plan to achieve your goals.

Method one. Create a plan for the day

Sit down with a piece of paper

This could be a notepad, notebook or. Choose what is convenient for you. Make a list of what you need to accomplish in a day. List every meeting and agreement you have. What are your goals for the day? Do you want to go in for sports, or, on the contrary, is this a day of relaxation? What tasks do you absolutely need to finish?

Make yourself a schedule

What time should you finish your first task or project? Write down every little thing, starting with the one you need to do first, then the next one, and so on for the whole day. Make sure you don't forget anything. Of course, every day is different, so every day the plan will be different. A basic plan might look like this, for example:

09:00–10:00 — get to the office, check email, answer letters.
10:00–11:30 — meeting with Max and Katya.
11:30–12:30 – project No. 1.
12:30–13:15 – lunch (healthy food!).
13:15–14:30 - analysis of project No. 1, meet with Sergey and discuss project No. 1.
14:30–16:00 – project No. 2.
16:00–17:00 - start project No. 3, prepare things for tomorrow.
17:00–18:30 - leave the office, go to the gym.
18:30–19:00 - go grocery shopping.
19:00–20:30 - prepare dinner, rest.
20:30– ... - to the cinema with Masha.

Refocus yourself every hour

It's important to take a moment after a certain time to analyze how productive you were during that time. Did you do everything you needed to do? Then give yourself a moment to reset, close your eyes and relax. This way, you can efficiently move on to the next task you need to complete.

Analyze your day

When you're done with most of your day, take a moment to see if you're sticking to your plan. Did you finish everything that was planned? Where did you go wrong? What worked and what didn't? What distracts you, and how can you combat distractions in the future?

Method two. Create a plan for life

Create overall goals that you want to achieve in your life.

How do you want to develop? What do you want to achieve in your life? Think of it as a “life list.” Remember the movie "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"? This is exactly what the list of life is. These should be exactly the goals that you really want to achieve, and not those that you think are necessary. Sometimes it can be helpful to break your goals down into categories for better visualization. Categories could be, for example:

career;
trips;
family/friends;
health;
finance;
knowledge;
spirituality.

Goals could be, for example:

Write and publish a book.
Visit every continent.
Create a family.
Lose 10 kilograms.
Save money for my children's education.
Finish college.
Learn more about Buddhism.

Create some specific goals with a specific completion date

Now that you have general goals that you want to achieve in your life, it's time to create some specific goals. And be sure to set a date for completing the goal. A couple of examples:

Send the book to 30 publications by June 2020.
Go on a trip to South America in 2020, and to Asia in 2016.
Weigh 70 kilograms in January 2020.

Assess your reality and where you are right now

Be honest with yourself and really evaluate your current life. Using the goals you have listed, evaluate the point where you are right now. For example, your goal is to publish a book, and specifically, to send it to publishers in June 2020. And now you only have half the manuscript, and you're not sure you like the first half.

Decide how you will achieve your goals

What steps will you take to be able to achieve your goals? Determine the steps you need to take and write them down. For example, for our book from now until November 2014 we need:

re-read the first half of the book;
finish writing your book;
rework aspects of the book that I didn't like;
editing grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.;
give to picky friends to read;
find publishers who will consider my book;
send the manuscript to publishers.

Write down the steps to achieve your goals

You can do this in any format you like - handwrite, computer, or draw. Congratulations! You have just created your life plan.

Review your plan and adjust it

Like everything in this world, your life will change and your goals may change too. What was important to you at 12 years old may not be so important when you are 22 or 42 years old. And it's okay to change your life plan because it shows that you are aware of the changes that are happening in your life.

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The benefits of living according to plan

A properly drawn up plan on paper is a job half done. Daily planning is necessary to accurately complete assigned tasks within a fixed time frame.

Complex tasks are divided into small subtasks using the “decision tree” principle. The plan is adjusted throughout the day as tasks are completed.

Living according to plan is a brave and smart decision. Not everyone will decide to do this. This is why there are so few successful and self-confident people in our society.

A life plan makes it possible not to go with the flow of events, not to live by the plans and decisions of other people. Not all planned events will necessarily come true. But they will push you to new decisions and aspirations.

In your life plans, it is necessary to develop the main points and directions for a successful person:

study/career;
A good plan on paper is a job half done.
financial position;
family, relationships with family;
Friends;
health;
rest, free time, hobbies;
spirituality;
creation.

A planned life has the following benefits:

Life according to plan is interesting. Many different events happen in the life of every person. There is simply no time left for idle laziness.
Personal growth and human development. Comprehensive development from many experiences and the opportunity to devote enough time to your favorite activities.
Freedom of creativity. When you plan your life yourself, creative thinking starts and creativity develops.
Life here and now. Planning prevents you from getting stuck in the past and encourages you to move forward and open your eyes to the future.

Part One: Defining the Problem

Recognize the problem you are facing

Sometimes the hardest part of creating a plan is that you don't know what the problem is. Often the problem we face creates several more problems. Trouble, as they say, does not come alone. What you need to do is find the source of the problem. And this is exactly what you need to deal with.

Your mother won't let you spend four weeks at a friend's mountain cabin. This is a problem, but where is the source of this problem? You got a D in algebra. And this is precisely the reason why your mother does not let you go to a friend's house for the holidays. And this two is exactly the problem you need to solve.

Determine what result you hope to achieve by solving your problem

What goal do you hope to achieve by solving the problem? Focus on achieving your goal. The rest will come by itself.

Your goal is to improve your math grade to at least a B. At the same time, having improved your knowledge in mathematics, you hope that your mother will let you go to a friend's house for the holidays.

Find out why this problem occurs

Which of your habits contributed to the problem? Take some time to analyze the reasons for the problem.

Your problem is that you got a C in math. Think about what could have led to this: maybe you talked a lot with a friend in class. Or they didn’t do their homework in the evenings because of football training, for example.

Consider external factors contributing to the problem

Many problems arise due to something you do. But don’t forget about external factors working against you. Let's look at an example. You received a bad grade in math that needs to be corrected. This may be due to a misunderstanding of the teacher's explanation of the topic, rather than because you were talking to a friend.

Part Two: Find a Solution and Create a Plan

Find several possible solutions to your problem

You can simply write down all the possible options on a piece of paper or use one of the brainstorming techniques. Such, for example, as a mental map. Whatever method you choose, you must consider both possibilities of the problem: your fault and factors beyond your control.

Solving the problem of communicating with a friend in class:

Sit in class as far away from your friends as possible.
Explain to your friends that you are not learning in class and are getting bad grades. So you need to focus on the lesson.
If you are sitting in your assigned seat, ask your teacher to move you to a seat so you can concentrate better.

Solving the problem of unfinished homework due to soccer practice:

Do some of your homework during lunch or during a break. This will leave you with less work to do in the evening.
Stick to a routine. After training you should have dinner and do your homework. Reward yourself by watching TV after you do your homework.

Solving the problem of misunderstanding algebra:

Let a classmate help you, who can clarify all the points that are unclear to you.
Ask your teacher for help. Explain that you do not understand the material and need additional explanation.
Take math classes with a tutor.

Create a plan

So you've brainstormed and figured out what your problem is. Now choose the most effective solutions to the problem in your opinion and write down a plan for yourself. Hang the plan somewhere where you will see it most often. Your plan for improving your math level should look like this:

Improvement plan within four weeks

Tell Katya that I can’t talk to her in class. If this does not help, then move away from her.
Do homework every Tuesday and Thursday during lunch. This will leave me with fewer tasks to do after training.
Attend math elective every Monday and Wednesday. Goal: in four weeks, improve your level from a three to at least a four.

Review your first week

Did you do everything you planned? Have you been successful? What mistakes did you make? By doing a good analysis, you can avoid mistakes in the future.

Don't lose motivation

Stick to your plan until you reach your goal. Don't stop halfway. If you don't stick to your plan one day, make sure it doesn't happen again. If you see that this plan is not working, think about what is wrong with it and write a new plan.

How do you live: do you strictly follow the plan or go with the flow? You can make your dreams come true and get what you want from life only through planning. Of course, it is not a fact that everything planned is being implemented. But having a plan greatly increases your chances of success. So, here are some rules for making global plans that increase the efficiency of life.

1. Start small

Planning your life should start with making plans for the day. Life consists of days, and each of them has 24 hours. Your future largely depends on how productively you spend this time. We recently wrote about how to make plans for the day. Read it.

2. Looking to the future

Where do you want to see yourself in the future? In your personal life, in business, financially, externally? Some people want a family, while others dream of being free and independent. Some dream of career heights in the metropolis, others dream of a quiet life in the lap of nature. What do you want?

3. List of tasks

Based on your desires, identify areas that need to be developed. Under each block, write down a list of actions necessary to obtain the result. Put them in order. These actions are intermediate goals and objectives.

4. Parts of a whole

From the draft, make several plans - for six months, a year, 5 years, 10 years, your whole life. At the top of each plan are the names of priority areas. In the columns below are lists of tasks. Hang your life plan on the wall. Take a plan for the next six months to work. The rest go to the table.

5. Analysis of results

As you complete tasks on the list, cross them off. Upon completion of a certain period of time, you will be able to compare what you want with what you actually have. This should be done so that you can make appropriate adjustments and not get frustrated.

6. Maximum specificity

It doesn't matter whether you plan for the day, for the year or for your entire life. Any plan should be as specific as possible. Not “lose weight,” but “lose 5 kg.” Not “earn a lot of money”, but “earn 100 thousand euros to buy an apartment.” And so on.

7. Not in your head, but on paper

All goals and objectives for achieving goals must be recorded on physical media. Memory is not such a carrier. You can do this by hand on paper or type it in Word. The electronic version is more convenient to edit.

8. Nothing lasts forever

Life is an unstable thing, just like us, however, too. Perhaps your current priorities will change in 10 years or even sooner. This is not to say that planning is a fool's errand. This only means that you must change your plan - make adjustments to it. Usually only some parts of the overall plan require adjustments, and it is extremely rare for a person to reverse the direction of all priority areas of life.

9. Pleasant bonus

Having drawn up a life plan, do not forget about the bonus - a mini-plan of personal “wants”. For example, learn to paint in oils, go to Paris, try foie gras, learn Chinese, and so on. Look at it periodically, cross out what you have done and add something new.

10. Now, not later

And, most importantly, do it now, today. Banish the lazy thought “later” or “a little later” immediately. Did you take the time to read this article? You will also find it necessary to draw up a plan, without which you will probably be marking time in the same place for a long time, without understanding why. Good luck!

Whatever one may say, life is such a thing, all the nuances of which are simply impossible to take into account. But you can still try to make some plans and gradually implement them. This is quite useful for the development of a person as an individual. Making plans for the future and setting clear goals for yourself is what helps you achieve success. Planning for a week or a month is a great practice.

If a person knows what he wants or needs to do, then he takes clear steps towards his goal, but uncertainty does not bode well. That is why it is worth learning to plan your life, understanding that various nuances can still happen and this is quite normal.

Proper planning for each day is the key to future success. If a person does not plan his life, count only on some happy occasions or something similar, then he will simply waste his time in vain and will not be able to achieve anything concrete. Life without meaning and clear goals is the same as the existence of an inanimate object, so you need to set specific goals for yourself and do everything to cope with them.

The ability to plan your own life can be useful to a person who wants to achieve the following goals:

create a strong and happy family;
grow significantly on the career ladder;
do not waste a single minute;
learn and see as much as possible;
learn to be responsible and purposeful.

If a person does not make plans for his life, this is not normal. Lack of interest in something and specific goals indicates that a person has stopped developing as a person and exists just like that. Wasting time is not at all what a person should do in the modern world; his task is to achieve certain goals, solve specific problems and move forward.

November 10, 2020

Yulia Daragan Freelancer. Translator and editor in the field of computer game localization. Time management and life hacking are a long-standing hobby.

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I'll say something banal now. Any thoughtful strategy and any proven tactics are useless if at some point you don’t get off the couch and start doing something. Perform simple and specific physical and intellectual actions.

The daily plan is the point of contact between planning and execution: it sets the sequence and duration of specific actions during the day.
The purpose of a daily plan is to help you achieve the desired results (a book, a diploma, a work project) and maintain the desired state (physical fitness, order in the house) with minimal effort.

Moreover, since a day is a very small segment, and unpredictability grows with the enlargement of the planning scale, a daily plan must be drawn up every day, and even with the possibility of correction. This means that the process of creating a daily plan should be as simple as possible and take no longer than 10-15 minutes in any condition.

Once again, this is important. The daily plan is the end result of the whole hefty time management colossus. Lists, routines, priorities, calendars, inboxes, all the numerous systems, technologies, techniques and tools are needed so that your inner Tactician can, every day, without straining or regaining consciousness, in a few minutes, plan things that will be within the power of the Executor and will lead you to the results intended by the Strategist.

The daily plan is the top of the pyramid, which is based on values, priorities, experiences, goals and long-term planning. And the purpose of the daily plan is to save you energy and lead to the desired results.

In order for the plan to work and not eat up resources, preliminary preparation is needed. It is better to rank project tasks in advance by priority and once a week (on a weekend, without rushing) select a list of tasks for the next seven days from the general pool. It is optimal to organize regular activities into a rigid schedule (day template), tied to external milestones of the day, to selected triggers or to a selected time. Then planning the day will come down to filling out the slots in the schedule with things from the prepared list.

A lot can be said about the task pool - and mountains of books and articles have been written about project tasks in general. Less is written about routine, but at the same time I come across the question on the Internet over and over again: how to start doing something regularly.

And like this. Embed into template.

The goal of a daily template is to automate as much as possible repetitive tasks that you don’t want to spend intellectual and emotional effort on. Things from the template are done without switching on, automatically. They are not annoying, they are not pleasing, there is no element of creativity in them, they do not require making serious decisions. It's just a maintenance routine. And intelligence, emotions and creativity should be reserved for more interesting things.

To assemble a day template, you need:

Form routine blocks (things that we do in one piece, without distractions, according to a well-functioning algorithm). Don't forget to include recreation (food, rest, exercise, sleep).
Collect a list of regular tasks that cannot be tied to time or put into a block and allocate time for them (for example, half an hour a day). There shouldn't be too many of these things.
Define time windows for irregular tasks from the pool.

Instead of 20-30 repetitive tasks that always fly out of your head, you will get a constructor from a dozen elements. All that remains is to tie them to time. It helps me that I eat five times a day on the clock, which means, like it or not, I have to wake up at about the same time.

I have four routine blocks: “Morning”, “Lunch”, “Dinner” and “Evening” - and three windows: “Before lunch”, “After lunch” and “After dinner”. Plus a floating hour for the blog, which I normally spend in the evening, but shift to the morning if there are no work orders. That's a total of eight LEGO pieces.

How to assemble a routine block

A routine block is an indivisible period of time allocated for specific tasks. Here are its signs:

1. A routine block takes a limited, predetermined time.

2. The tasks of the block are performed in order, each taking the allotted time.

3. The result of the block can be checked using the checklist. Here is an example of my checklist for the morning block:

The medicine has been taken.
The weight is included in the application.
I'm dressed and washed.
We had breakfast.
The dishwasher is disassembled.
The plan for the day is ready.
50 points on Duolingo.
2000 steps on the tracker.

After that I wake up and am ready to work.

You most likely won’t be able to assemble a routine block right away; you need to observe yourself for a couple of days: what you do systematically, how long it takes, what tasks can be rearranged so that they are done together faster.

Make a realistic to-do list . What you are already doing, and not what you want or need. If you then want to build yoga, macrame and Chinese into your schedule, do so. But then, when the day already has a hard backbone.

By the way, write down things on your list that are not done every day, but are done regularly: transfer photos from your phone to your computer, empty your mailbox, make your bed, buy groceries for the week. I distribute such tasks by day of the week and add them to a routine block with a time quota and the label “week”. If you know for sure that on Thursday we work with papers, then on other days the thought of a tax return or water bill will not eat away at your energy.

Scatter things around the energy traffic light - more precisely, according to its red and yellow parts: what needs to be done in any condition, because otherwise it will get worse, and what you can skip if you have a headache in the morning and the day is not going well. Just don’t put regular tasks in the green zone (which we do if we have a lot of time and a surge of energy). Going green is not a chore. If the energy is in the green zone, you don’t need to wash the floor, but work for a breakthrough.
Calibrate time , observe yourself in different states: there is no place for feat here, routine is something that is done automatically in half-asleep delirium. How much time will you spend on each block? Will you be able to spend this time without distractions?
If things do not have time milestones set externally (work, class schedule), consider your circadian rhythm . I usually plan work and tasks related to mindfulness in the first half of the day, from 11 to 14, after lunch I have a dip in energy - and from 15 to 18 I plan outings or mechanical work, and after dinner I set creative tasks.

The output should be a manageable (for me - four pieces) set of blocks that can be tied to time or thrown around the day like LEGO - and with which the daily routine will be exhausted. The brain will thank you.

How to embed a new case into a template

Why did you decide to build in a new regular business? What should change as a result? Under what conditions would you refuse embedding?
Does this need to be done every day? If not, do you need a separate template for the days with this task or will it alternate with other tasks? Which ones?

For example, if I go to the gym three times a week and four hours pass from “start getting dressed” to “I came, undressed, took apart my bag and am ready for work and defense,” then it’s better to make your own template. And if three days a week I eat an apple for afternoon tea instead of tea and cookies, then, in general, there is no need to change anything.

How long does the case take? Is it tied to an external schedule?
What will you do this task instead of? Reduce time for flexible activities? Will you rearrange routine blocks?
Is it a job that requires concentration (preferably in the morning), mechanical work with your hands (preferably in the afternoon) or creativity (preferably in the morning, in the evening)?
Is this something that needs to be done for nosebleeds in any condition or only in normal mode?
Do you know the answers to all these questions? Then you know which of the routine blocks to add a new task to.

What the template might look like in practice

Oh, whatever! Here are the pictures, but the principle is important.

A daily template (several templates if your days are very different) is a mechanism that allows you to turn routine tasks into several “chunks” that are much easier to operate than dozens of small and often unspoken tasks.

Like any element of time management, its function is to make your life easier. Therefore, a template is not a dogma. This, like in “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” is that saving kniksen that you can always do when you don’t know what to say.

For the template to work, for routines to really become chunks in the brain, it needs to be calibrated to suit you and brought to automaticity. But my experience this year, when most of the time the energy was below par, showed that it is really worth it.

Self-development #Tools #Planning #Time management

The benefits of making a plan

Life planning is not some kind of ritual programmed for success, but a completely useful action. The process of making a plan for the day, month or week has its benefits, they are as follows:

you can put all your things on the shelves and place them in the correct order;
clear planning allows you to complete assigned tasks on time;
thanks to the presence of a specific plan, you can not only have time to do what you planned, but also have a good rest;
By developing such organizational skills, a person learns to be more responsible and tactful;
Such practice brings enormous benefits to those who do not have time to do anything.

Do you know how to plan time?

Not really

Having a clear plan in front of him, a person will not be lost for a couple of hours guessing what to do and what to undertake. Such uncertainty only robs the individual of time and does not allow him to complete the assigned tasks. In addition, a person who does not clearly know what he wants, what to do with it and when to do it, will not be successful.

Advice!

To understand the benefits of making a plan, you need to live one day with your usual schedule, and the next with the plan you have drawn up. Then it’s worth comparing the results, which will help you understand why it’s better to live according to the plan.

A clear example of planning and inaction.

Let's look at one example. Let's say Masha and Dasha live. The starting positions are the same. Higher education, work, family, 25 years each. Masha is like that dragonfly from a fairy tale, jumping, having fun, wasting her life. Money appeared and was immediately spent. Her parents bought the car and her husband’s parents bought the apartment. Live and be happy. So he’s happy. I took out a mortgage, expanded the apartment, and made renovations. Life is good. Now you can go to the sea for 100 rubles, although you still don’t have a kitchen set (you could buy it for that amount), but you spent a week swimming in the sea.

Brian Tracy

Immediately begin solving the tasks included in your plan. Do something. Do whatever you want. But go ahead!

Dasha and her husband also live in an apartment donated by their parents for their wedding. But they saved up for the car themselves and bought it. We caught up with Masha. Now they are saving to expand the apartment. In 2-3 years they will buy and move. Next up is updating the car. They want more. Some of the money is also put aside in the Bank for the future. They don't go to the sea yet. Restricted to holidays near the city. Shopping strictly according to plan. Money is saved, but without fanaticism. They eat normally.

Brainstorming method

To do it correctly, a person can use different techniques, which are recommended by experts. This will allow you to achieve your goal faster, because it is virtually impossible to break yourself in one day. An excellent method for starting to plan your own life correctly is brainstorming. This method achieves the following goals:

increasing the effectiveness of actions performed by a person;
improvement of the psycho-emotional state of the individual;
the emergence of new ideas for making plans for the future;
the opportunity to learn to focus on specific objects or goals without being distracted by trifles.

Brainstorming is actively used not only in the education system, but is also a useful practice for people who have not yet decided on their life goals and have not learned to make specific plans.

Planning levels

To understand how to learn to plan your day or your whole life, you need to consider this process at different levels. You can make plans for the day, week or month by writing everything down in a notebook or creating a spreadsheet for this.

For a month

Not everyone knows how to plan their life a month in advance. To do this, you need to set specific goals and calculate the steps that will be required to achieve them. For example, if a person plans to earn 30 thousand rubles in a month, he needs to plan this period as follows:

think about what type of activity will bring such income;
calculate how many hours it takes to complete a task;
divide time for each day, leaving a small reserve for weekends and various nuances;
see what needs to be done besides work and how to combine work activities with household responsibilities;
carefully schedule everything by day and hour;
start completing your tasks step by step.

Yes, it’s worth repeating once again that no one is immune from nuances, but it’s much easier to live according to a plan than without any idea of where the next day should begin.

For a week

Making a plan for a week is much easier than making a plan for a month. And you can decide what to do for the next 7 days quite quickly.

You need to make a plan according to the same principle as for a month, only the list of to-dos and tasks is much easier.

Advice!

When making a plan, you shouldn’t get too carried away by spending absolutely all your time on work or some other things. You should always leave enough time for rest to recover and gain new strength.

For a day

Planning one day completely is as easy as shelling pears. It is with this task that you need to start, gradually making plans for a longer period. Living behind a schedule is quite easy and convenient, the main thing is to get used to it.

Experiment: I live the whole day according to a plan, and the second day without a plan

Planned day:

7:00. Since I wrote a list of things to do for the next day in the evening, I woke up in the morning with a specific goal.

10:00. One task completed, now you can have breakfast. While eating, I don’t waste time, but watch an instructional video on how to properly iron a shirt.

11:00. What's the next task? A diary to help: I opened it, I saw it, I went to do it.

14:00. An hour and a half for training and lunch.

15:30. Well, then everything went according to plan: work – dinner – work.

22:00. I go to bed tired.

Read also:
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A day without a plan:

12:00. In the morning I woke up when I wanted. I felt a certain freedom, but along with it I felt dissatisfaction with myself. It was 12:00 and I hadn't done anything yet.

13:00. After breakfast, I couldn’t decide what to do now. It seems like you need to do “this,” but you shouldn’t forget about “that.” As a result, procrastination overcame me, and I spent up to 2 hours on the phone.

14:00. With grief, I pulled myself together and started the business, but that was not the case. I was constantly distracted while working. Be it a message on your phone, or loud music outside the window.

20:00. Then “everything is like a fog.” It’s 20:00, and I find myself with a phone in my hands. “Oh no, I spent the whole day watching useless YouTube videos again!”

23:00. While I was trying to come to my senses, it was time for sleep. Well, my “no plan” day has come to an end.

Draw your own conclusions.

Small conclusion

Every person needs to learn to plan their life correctly. This greatly simplifies the process of completing even the most complex tasks, allows you to keep up with everything and enjoy every day. Living according to a plan does not mean putting yourself in tight boundaries, but rather opening new doors for yourself, learning to treat everything responsibly. You just have to try to plan everything and you can see that this is really good practice.

Sooner or later, each of us asks the question: what do I want from life? How can I achieve my goals? How to properly distribute your time in order to ultimately achieve what you want? And most importantly: how to live your life so that in old age you don’t feel excruciatingly painful for wasted time?

The answer is simple: you need to properly plan your entire life. It’s not easy to figure out in your head: I’ll graduate from college, find a job, start a family, retire. You need to carefully think through each stage of your life: what do I want to achieve by age 25? By 50? There is also a technique proposed by Stephen Covey in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”: Imagine that you are 80 years old. What would you like to achieve by this time? What would allow you to say that you did not live these years in vain? Based on your answer, start making a plan for your life.

Where to begin? Put down everything you're doing, grab a pen and paper and sit down at your desk. Stay focused, because it is likely that the decisions you make now will affect your future. First, determine the main goal of your life, no matter how difficult this task may seem to you. Where do you see yourself in a few decades? Big boss? A successful businessman driving a Rolls-Royce? Or maybe you want to grow old surrounded by a large and friendly family? Write this goal down on paper. This will be the main point in your plan.

Next, take a shorter period of time: not your whole life, but say, 10 years. Also write down on a piece of paper what you want to achieve during this time. At the same time, remember that you must start from your main dream, without retreating one step from its implementation. If your 10-year goal contradicts your main goal even slightly, then immediately cross it out of your plan and think again. Then take an even shorter period: 5 years, then 3 years and finally a year. Having determined your goals for this time, think through your tasks for the month, week and day. And so, it becomes obvious that big goals are made up of small, daily ones.

On the way to conquering your peaks, you should never forget about time for rest. You shouldn't devote yourself entirely to work or family: this can lead to chronic fatigue, which will affect your productivity. Leave minutes in your plan for what you love to do: perhaps it’s a hobby or just watching your favorite TV show. There is also a place in life for a vacation, which not only will not harm the achievement of your dreams, but will also speed up its implementation, because having a good rest is no less important than working well. So let there be a couple of gaps in your life plan: spend this time doing something pleasant.

Finally, don't feel like your plan has to stay the same until you achieve your main goal - don't force yourself into a narrow framework! You can always adjust your plan, supplement or shorten it, because it’s only your life, you can change your decision at any time. What if one morning you wake up and decide that life is worth living not for work, but for family? Burn the old leaf and start life with a new, clean slate, literally and figuratively! But still, before this, you should think carefully: are you ready to start from scratch again, giving up all your previous achievements? You need to carefully weigh the pros and cons and only then make a decision.

But even if you have drawn up your plan correctly, be prepared that everything may suddenly go differently from what you had planned, because much in life does not depend on us. The main thing is not to give up, but to adapt to new circumstances as quickly as possible and adjust your life route. And then you are doomed to success!

Approximate plan for some life directions

Study and career. The goal is to enter a university, master's program, or graduate school. To do this, you need to improve your performance in certain subjects.
A person who knows how to make plans will be able to plan a solution to any problem.
If it is not possible to use the services of a tutor, it is necessary to draw up a plan for daily independent study on certain topics using literature and Internet resources. In this case, it is necessary to draw up a plan for each lesson, mark each completed and assigned topic, and carry out the plan strictly point by point. At the end of each lesson and at the beginning of the next, it is necessary to conduct a test to check the material learned. The goal is to get a job. To do this, you need to write a resume and look at the company’s requirements for the profession.
Health. The goal is to lose weight or add definition to the body. To do this, you need to decide where the training will take place: at home or in a fitness club. Working out at a training center is always a priority, since the training schedule is always organized and obliging, and a professional trainer will answer any worrying question. If you practice at home, then you need to independently create a home workout program, keep a diary of nutrition and workouts, and record all the results.
Rest, free time, hobby. In this area of life, you need to decide how much time to devote to hobbies and how much to rest. Here you can give free rein to your imagination, because you can spend your free time in different ways, depending on your preference.
Spirituality. Everyone decides for themselves how to develop spirituality. For some, this is the development of personal qualities through reading various books, instilling useful habits, self-education in the spiritual sphere, studying the culture of peoples, history and much more.

You should carefully consider each direction and build the optimal strategy for yourself.

Of course, it is impossible to plan your entire life. Life often makes its own adjustments to our plans. However, a person trained to plan correctly will plan a solution to any complex and unexpected problem.

You should never give up and lose heart. If you work hard, all your wishes will come true.

In this video you will learn how to plan your life:

How can you learn to use your time rationally?

It is known that there are only 24 hours in a day. Of these, about 8 hours are spent sleeping, 8-10 hours for work or study... and the rest of the time is lost in idleness or routine activities. How to set yourself up for a productive day, which will include not only rest after a working day?

The first thing you should do is identify and write down your main goals. To begin with, you should get a diary (or organizer) in a convenient format (electronic or paper). It is convenient to enter emerging ideas and current tasks into it. The advantage of an electronic diary is setting reminders that go off at the appointed time.

So, the principles of productive diary keeping:

Global tasks.

First of all, you need to determine the range of basic, most important and comprehensive goals. Setting these tasks will help determine the direction of activity, clearly show what steps have been taken and simplify their analysis. It looks something like this:

Business
Spiritual development
Family
Sport
Education, etc.

Spheres of life

Having identified the areas of life in which the activity will be carried out, it is worth breaking the main goal into sub-points. And, most importantly, determine why this or that task is worth completing.

Adjustment of the original plan.

As you build a curve for completing the assigned tasks, it is worth making changes to improve and finalize the plan.

Time frame.

To achieve a particular goal or complete a task, you should limit yourself to a time period. This will give an additional incentive to move and help in compiling statistics.

Prioritization.

When planning a vacation or in those moments when you don’t have enough vitality to do things, prioritizing tasks will help. Then it will be possible to do only what is impossible to do without.

What needs to be done to make the planning system work?

Define cyclical tasks.

Those actions that need to be performed daily. An appropriate amount of time should be allocated to complete them.

Skills.

Create a list of knowledge, skills and abilities planned for acquisition by the end of the year. You should analyze the benefits of acquired skills and leave for study only those that bring immediate benefit.

Gradual implementation of the system.

It is worth logging into the system of rational use of time, gradually introducing useful habits into your everyday life.

Relationship.

It is worth creating a separate folder in which new acquaintances and the dynamics of the development of existing relationships will be kept. Ideas and projects arising in the process of communication.

Keeping diaries and personal notes will help you remember all the ideas that arise, happy events, or see personal growth; it is worth keeping a record of your achievements in a diary. This will also help you learn to express your own thoughts in writing. It is also important to keep a sports diary (along with a nutrition diary), which will show the progress and benefits of the chosen direction. Analysis of records will help identify priority and progressive areas of development.