Do You Feel Your Productivity Dropping? Plan Your Day and Week, Then Observe the Difference

Have you ever wondered how successful people are at reaching their goals?  You set goals and do not stop dreaming and wishing, yet you do not feel you have made any progress toward them. 

Hence, your dissatisfaction with your productivity and achievement remains the master of the situation. We can summarize the magic trick that increases your productivity and brings you closer to your goals in one word—planning.

What is Planning?

Planning is the process of developing a plan to achieve a goal in the future, identifying the means and how it needs to be achieved, and how to manage time to reach that goal.

Planning is the splitting line between an organized life associated with achieving a specific goal and a chaotic life without a goal. Whoever does not plan their life will not reach their goals because they identified them and did not bother to draw the path leading to them.

Importance of Planning

Planning is important in our lives for the following reasons:

1. Achieving goals

Planning is based on goals; it organizes your life to reach these goals.

2. Time management

Planning helps you organize your time, allocate a specific time for all tasks and jobs, and set rest times so that you find enough time to get everything done.

3. Improving productivity

Planning ensures that you improve your productivity in your professional and personal lives. Planning organizes your time, helps you focus on what serves your goal, and moves you away from distractions, which increases your productivity.

4. Improving creativity

Planning and organizing give you plenty of time to do creative activities and pursue hobbies and fields you are passionate about.

5. Reducing stress and anxiety

Planning helps reduce stress, as it provides knowledge of what is required of you during your day and how and when to accomplish it; thus, you will not worry about a lack of time or having to cancel work.

6. Overcoming obstacles

Planning allows you to overcome obstacles and difficulties by anticipating and preparing for them and adapting to developments and changing circumstances.

7. Self-assessment

Planning allows you to assess yourself and your achievements by comparing your accomplishments with your plans.

8. Promoting physical health

Planning regulates your life, promotes your physical health by making time to exercise, takes care of a healthy diet, and enhances your mental health by reducing stress and anxiety.

9. Stop wasting time

Planning eliminates the possibility of wasting time on useless things.

How to plan your life?

• Before you plan your life, you must define your mission in life; in other words, you define your goals in life, and then you start planning your life. Planning begins with goals and seeks to achieve them.
• Determining the big goals you seek and the outlines of the requirements for achieving them. Defining those goals is not enough to achieve them; you will not reach them unless you divide them into parts and stages. That is, you need partial planning, which is annual, monthly, weekly, and daily planning, to increase your productivity and approach your big goals.
• Annual planning means making plans for your life over a year; it determines the partial goal that must be achieved this year, which pours into the big goals you have set for your life.
• Monthly planning comes from annual planning, which you aim to accomplish and achieve each month of the year until you reach the yearly goal.
• Weekly and daily planning are essential. Neglecting them often delays us from reaching our big goals, if not losing them at all.

How to plan your day?

When we quickly compare two people, one is planning their next day, and the other isn't. We will find that the first person organizes their life and finds a purpose and aim for their day, while the other person is chaotic and their day goes without any achievement.

So it would help if you planned daily to organize your time, increase your productivity, approach your goals, and hold yourself accountable for shortcomings. When you set small goals for your day and the day passes without achieving them, you will feel bad for the wasted time and distance from your goals.

The basics of successful daily planning

1. Planning the day before

You should plan the next day, the evening before it, so you wake up knowing all your tasks for this day. You should not plan verbally or leave the planning just ideas drawn in your mind; bring a paper and a pen and jot down what you want to accomplish the next day, as writing engages all your senses and makes you feel serious and important.

2. Divide your day

You can plan your day by dividing it into specific and dedicated times and determining what to do all the time. For example, allocating time for sports, study or work, reading, family, learning a specific language, or any other actions and activities that will help you build your future and achieve your goal.

3. Wake up early

The majority of specialists emphasize the need to rise early in order to maintain daily organization and a sense of activity and gravity. Once you are late, waking up too late in the day brings a feeling of laziness and chaos. Therefore, sleeping early, waking up at a specific time, and getting 8 hours of continuous sleep are recommended. This will make you start your day actively and energetically.

4. Persevere and persist

Everything seems complicated at first, and you may find it difficult to commit first; persevere and continue, and do not give up or get bored. The hard part is just getting started; if you're successful, it becomes routine and simple, and you'll feel a sense of accomplishment and confidence.

5. Enjoy your time

Planning a full day's work from morning to evening without considering entertaining yourself is not permissible. You are not a machine, so allocate a specific time for entertainment and enjoyment, such as watching a fun movie, going out with a friend you love, or practicing a hobby you love.

6. Start with the most important, then the important

Focus on the most important work, so start with it and do not postpone it, but be sure to complete it while you are at the top of your activity and focus, and then go to the less important tasks.

7. Organizing

Try to arrange everything around you; the chaotic place sends you an involuntary feeling of chaos.

8. Self-Assessment

At the end of the day, do not forget to evaluate yourself; what did you achieve, what did you fail or err, did you stick to your daily plan , and what was the reason for the failure? Learn  from your mistakes and decide to compensate the next day.

9. Avoid Procrastination

Procrastination is the enemy of success. Once you start procrastinating until your tasks accumulate and your daily plan fails, stick to the plan and be as careful as possible to finish the day with all the tasks you planned to accomplish.

10. Not being shy about saying "no"

Do not allow others to thwart your plan. Learn to say “no” to any request or action that may waste your time and distract you from your goals. For example, don't be shy about declining if a friend asks you to go somewhere with them. Rather, apologize kindly and explain that you are busy.

How do I plan my week?

It is not enough to plan your day; you need to plan your week as well, that is, to set goals you want to achieve at the end of the week, and this is as follows:

1. Set a schedule

Using a calendar, divide your weekly goals into manageable chunks so you can see what has to be done each day to meet your goal by the end of the workweek.

2. Plan in advance

At the end of the week, you should plan your next week by deciding what you intend to accomplish next week, for example, learning a language you want to learn, doing certain family duties, reading a specific book, or completing an accumulated workload.

3. Leave time for fun

Do not be strict with yourself and devote all your time to work. You need some rest and pleasure in your life. These times give you energy and fuel to continue.

4. Make use of the interval

The interval is the time between activities, for example, between lectures, on your way to a place, or waiting for the dentist. It is preferable to take advantage of these times and not waste time. Always plan something you do, such as reading an article or book, browsing and responding to your email, or preparing for something required from you.

5. Self-assessment

Sit down wiith yourself at the end of the week, bring the paper that has the week's plan, compare what you planned with your actual achievement, then give yourself a score out of ten, and if your score is low, look at the reasons for your failure and lack of commitment to avoid it later.

6. Cut out the distractions

Social networks are one of the biggest distractions for man, and the reasons for wasting his time and focus are for his dull thinking, so you have to cut back on using them as much as you can.

7. Develop an alternative plan

An emergency may prevent you from implementing your plan, so do not feel frustrated or stop following up. Always develop an alternative plan and solutions to address the imbalance. For example, if you intend to attend a specific course but can not, the alternative is to attend virtually.

8. Be flexible

It should be noted that there should be flexibility in planning, meaning that it can be changed according to emergency circumstances.

Tips to increase your productivity

Keep these tips in mind to increase your productivity:

1. Exercise

Make exercise an essential part of your daily plan. Studies have proven that physical activity improves brain function and thinking skills and gives you the energy and vitality to complete your day actively.

2. Commit to optimism

Optimism makes a person more productive. A study at Maastricht University conducted on call center employees to study the impact of optimism on their performance showed that employees who were more optimistic than others had significantly higher sales than others; that is, they were more productive.

3. Get some rest

You are not a machine to work continuously without a break, so be sure to give yourself a break by meditating, walking, or taking a nap. According to many studies and research, resting and working fewer hours increases productivity because a person is unable to maintain their focus throughout the day. This is confirmed by Sujang -Kim Bang, a consultant in Silicon Valley, in his book, Rest: Why do you do more when you work less?

4. Get enough sleep

Sleep is one of the factors that affect human productivity. It is no secret that a lack of sleep affects concentration, memory, and logical thinking. A person between the ages of 26 and 64 needs 7-9 hours of sleep to work with high productivity.

In conclusion, set your goal clearly

"Put your goal in front of your eyes." Apply this saying literally, to write your daily, weekly, and even long-term goals and hang them in front of your eyes; to motivate you and remind you constantly. Do not stop planning what you have to do to reach these goals—a day, a week, and a year—and stay away from everything that distracts you from your goal. Filter your work by asking yourself in everything you do, "Does this bring me closer to my goal or keep me away from it?"