Before reading this blog, you should make sure that you have read the one from yesterday Releasing Time To Be Effective in order to understand where we are going with this. Today we need to consider how to plan to effectively release time. You can’t create time, but you can release it to do other things.
The short term objective is to launch the YouTube channel to accompany this blog without adversely affecting any other work that NEEDS to be completed and without working extra hours as the channel needs to be built into my regular output in the same way as the blog has been.
I need approximately 2 – 3 hours for the first post and so, knowing that things always take longer than you think I will plan to release 4 hours.
I used to use diary blocking as a means of planning and whilst I feel that is still and excellent way of doing it these days, I much prefer a variation of blocking using the Key2Success Planner It doesn’t really matter which planner or diary you use as long as you use something that works for you. The reason I particularly like this planner is that it has a section for the Daily Key 3 which sits so well with my amended version of The Ivy Lee Method – How To Have An Effective Day
This week the plan is to work 35 hours. I am committed to working 15 hours for a client on their projects and so this leaves 20 hours in which to complete everything outside of that contract. The blog takes approximately 1 hour per blog (5 hours per week) and so with the 4 hours required for the YouTube post that leaves 11 hours for everything else. Emails and admin take up between around 1 hour per day together with at least 1 hour planning per week that’s another 6 gone, leaving 5 hours for everything else.
When you break it down it doesn’t seem like a lot, but you can’t argue with the numbers. An hour is 60 minutes no matter how you cut it. In summary my week to move toward my objective: 9 hours on future projects, 6 hours on admin and between 15 and 20 hours chargeable to clients. Anything I commit to outside my 15 hour contract has to be completed within 5 hours maximum. Once the 5 hours has been used up anything else must either be postponed or cancelled. If an opportunity comes along during the week, then it’s a simple decision. Does it move me toward my objective better than anything already in the plan? If yes, replace what is already there. If no, postpone or refuse How To Effectively Say No
Armed with this I can complete the Key2Succes Planner.
Now we can begin the week.
How well is your week planned?
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