Make plans, not schedules

Without a purpose, nothing should be done.
Marcus Aurelius
121 – 180

My work involves helping people achieve their goals. I want to share an exercise I sometimes use with the people I coach: I simply ask them what they have planned the next day.

Most of the time, this question catches them off balance. But some quickly recover and start outlining the tasks they’ll be engaged in the following day.

Some time back, I presented this question to a young man I was helping. He was quiet a few minutes, then he outlined a fairly full schedule: arrive at work by eight; an important staff meeting at ten; lunch with a key client at one; PTA meeting at seven.

After he finished sharing his list, I asked another question. “Is there a difference between scheduling and planning? It sounds to me like you just recited your schedule. I didn’t hear a lot of planning in there.”

He was completely off balance then. Most people never distinguish between planning and scheduling. We often fill our day with activities, but we rarely stop to consider just how many of those activities we ought to pursue — and we don’t proactively determine the results we expect to get from the activities we’ve scheduled.

While he was still thinking about the difference between planning and scheduling, I asked him the question I really wanted him to consider. “How will the activities you have scheduled for tomorrow help you achieve your long term goals?”

There was a long, awkward silence as he absorbed that last question and its implications.

When he finally responded, he admitted that there was very little planning associated with his schedule; he hadn’t thought about the results he wanted from those activities. He also confessed that there was very little connection between his long term goals and those events.

My purpose wasn’t to make him feel guilty but to get him to think about how we achieve our long term goals. We all have hopes and dreams of a better, more fulfilling life. But we often fail to connect the dots between our current activities and the realization of our long term goals.

Are you living in reactive mode? Are there things you don’t like about your current circumstances? Consider this fact: our future circumstances are largely determined by our current activities. If the things we do each and every day aren’t in alignment with our long term goals, those goals will never be more than a dream.

Take a moment to think about your schedule for today and do some planning. What could you do today to get closer to achieving your long term goals?

The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.
Marcus Aurelius

Copyright © 2014 John Chancellor