Sunday Night Planning

It's Sunday night and I am using my "tree top planner" strategy. What that means is I imagine being up in the top of a tree looking down on my week ahead. I can spend a few minutes dreaming about what I want to accomplish, how I will feel at the end of the week when I've accomplished these things, how will I be closer to my master plan goals, who do I need or want to connect to this week, what have I made commitments to do?

From here I can write a to-do list and I make a list of the people I want to connect to. It helps that I divide my page into major categories like client follow-ups, presentations, marketing, writing, tasks for my organizational roles, networking, house, and family. At one time in my life I had 3 kids get married within 3.5 years! There was always a category of “wedding!”  

Next I review my calendar; what appointments do I have, where will my exercise fit in, do I need to rearrange anything? Once I've had a chance to review things, I look at my big picture goals and make sure I plug in the things that are important for those goals: time to read and write, time to plan my meals for the week, get to the gym, connect to friends and family, etc. Blocks of time are identified to complete things from my to-do list, as well as time to relax and refresh!

If I have a focus for what I want to get done, I don't get as sidetracked by unimportant distractions and can enjoy my time off, not worrying about what I didn't get done! If I really don’t feel like working at one category, I can always pick another.

Sometimes it's tough working from home, but when I take the time to create a plan, I know I am a more effective, efficient and happy person!

That's my plan and I'm sticking to it! How about you?