How To Start Planning Your Week (Part 1)

How many times have you gotten to the end of the day or the end of the week and accomplished very little of what you had hoped to get done?

Or conversely, how often have you checked off all the items on your to do list but still not really made an headway toward reaching a goal?

Very often we find ourselves in this position if we either 1) aren’t planning anything at all or 2) are not planning effectively.

Operating with no plan makes it difficult to accomplish much of anything beyond a to-do list.

This is why teachers plan out years, months, weeks, and days.

It’s why coaches have an overall plan for a season and then break that plan down into what the focus will be each month, each week, and at each practice.

Businesses have yearly plans, quarterly plans, monthly plans, weekly plans, and daily plans.

Whether you work outside the home or inside the home or are a stay at home mom (or dad), planning will help you be more productive and get to the end of the week feeling accomplished instead of exasperated.

If there is one thing many stay at home moms don’t do, it’s plan.

It can be hard in those early years when kids are more unpredictable to make a plan.

But if there is one thing I would do differently now in hindsight, it’s plan.

Life would have been a little less crazy.

Actually I think it would have been A LOT less crazy.

But planning is not the same as making to-do lists.

Checking off items on a to-do list and being productive and efficient are not the same things.

So often we make these long lists of things to do and the we find ourselves in one of two situations:

1. We are so overwhelmed by the amount of things on our list that we don’t do any of the stuff on it

OR

2. We check everything off the list but at the end of the day we still aren’t really any                   closer to finishing a big project or getting closer to a goal because most of the stuff on           the list is disjointed, unrelated, and more like busy work than part of a plan that has               direction and purpose.

Having a plan for the day is important.

So many stay at home moms in particular mistake to-do lists for plans.

They also mistake planning for rigid days that don’t leave any room for spontaneity or flexibility.

This is just a lack of understanding of how to formulate an effective plan!

Planning is what allows you to actually HAVE flexibility and spontaneity and still have some semblance of order in your life at the end of the day!

It’s learning how to plan effectively and realistically that is the key!

Over the next few days I’m going to share how to start planning in a way that is both manageable and implementable (is that a word?) for anyone!

See you next week with the next step!