Wednesday
May142008
A daily planning experiment: two weeks of accountable rigorous action
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 3:10PM
(An update: I am delighted to announce my guide, Where the !@#% did my day go? The ultimate guide to making every day a great workday, a downloadable PDF. I've updated, improved, and expanded the idea of daily planning with worksheets, answers to common questions, example plans, and unique experiments to get insights into how you use your time. It also ties in important topics like prioritizing, procrastinating, handling interruptions, and finishing your entire list - getting a "touchdown." Take a look! -- matt)
For the last two weeks I tried an exacting method to help make solid daily progress, to which I added the extra spice of an accountability partner to keep me on track. The goal was to determine if the traditional productivity advice to plan each day ahead of time works better than an ad hoc "select the next action in the moment" one, as popularized by David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, among others. This is meant to plug one of the 10 GTD "holes" I identified recently.
Here's what I did: For two weeks I did a nightly planning session for the next day, which I then worked from. To plan, I printed my calendar and all my actions as a list, then went through a simple estimating and prioritizing process: Calculate available hours (workday minus calendar, personal time, and emptying inboxes), review your master task list, pick a handful to include, compare to available and adjust (painful!) During the day I used this list by 1) sticking to it (!), 2) tracking actual time spent on each action, and 3) logging interruptions (both internal and external) that took me off plan.
For accountability I committed to sending check-in emails at the start and end of the day. The morning message was simply a list of what I wanted to accomplish that day (split into "must dos" and "like to dos"), and the evening one summarized what I actually did, with a short analysis.
The result: Very helpful, and a real eye-opener. Two surprises: Emptying my inboxes always took at least two hours per day (the consequence of what I've invited into my life - notes from meetings and reading, ideas, and the usual "stuff of life"). And: Everything always takes more time than expected. A general guideline: Double estimates. (This should get better with feedback.)
More specifically, daily planning was helpful because it forced me to think about what's important (prioritizing), what's possible (being realistic), how much time a task should take (estimating), and how much time the work actually took. Finally, it helped me focus by constraining choices, mostly by being a closed list [1] that I wasn't allowed to add to; my only edit choice was to check things off. Overall: Highly recommended. I'm now integrating this into my consulting as the main way to choose from a large master list of work to do.
Future: I'll definitely keep doing this. The exercise/ritual builds in a comprehensive review, and makes explicit my action choices. What's more, there's a gold mine of information to use for positive feedback, including:
Finally, there's a larger piece at work here - deciding what constitutes a "good workday." This is relevant because I found myself being a too-demanding self manager. At the end of many days I felt dissatisfied with my accomplishments, which is both discouraging (didn't I do enough?) and just plain wrong (I did a lot!) The estimated-vs-actual task information is helpful in working out what is realistic. And this leads to making those tough choices around that basic productivity question: What should I be doing? I'll have to re-read the wisdom of lowering my standards (see Great Time Management Ideas From The World Of Improv Wisdom, esp. the fifth maxim: Be Average).
My Idea Collaborator Liza writes more about "What makes for a good work day?" at Power of One Blog: A Whole New Work Day.
What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this, including the experiments in daily planning you've tried.
For the last two weeks I tried an exacting method to help make solid daily progress, to which I added the extra spice of an accountability partner to keep me on track. The goal was to determine if the traditional productivity advice to plan each day ahead of time works better than an ad hoc "select the next action in the moment" one, as popularized by David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, among others. This is meant to plug one of the 10 GTD "holes" I identified recently.
Here's what I did: For two weeks I did a nightly planning session for the next day, which I then worked from. To plan, I printed my calendar and all my actions as a list, then went through a simple estimating and prioritizing process: Calculate available hours (workday minus calendar, personal time, and emptying inboxes), review your master task list, pick a handful to include, compare to available and adjust (painful!) During the day I used this list by 1) sticking to it (!), 2) tracking actual time spent on each action, and 3) logging interruptions (both internal and external) that took me off plan.
For accountability I committed to sending check-in emails at the start and end of the day. The morning message was simply a list of what I wanted to accomplish that day (split into "must dos" and "like to dos"), and the evening one summarized what I actually did, with a short analysis.
The result: Very helpful, and a real eye-opener. Two surprises: Emptying my inboxes always took at least two hours per day (the consequence of what I've invited into my life - notes from meetings and reading, ideas, and the usual "stuff of life"). And: Everything always takes more time than expected. A general guideline: Double estimates. (This should get better with feedback.)
More specifically, daily planning was helpful because it forced me to think about what's important (prioritizing), what's possible (being realistic), how much time a task should take (estimating), and how much time the work actually took. Finally, it helped me focus by constraining choices, mostly by being a closed list [1] that I wasn't allowed to add to; my only edit choice was to check things off. Overall: Highly recommended. I'm now integrating this into my consulting as the main way to choose from a large master list of work to do.
Future: I'll definitely keep doing this. The exercise/ritual builds in a comprehensive review, and makes explicit my action choices. What's more, there's a gold mine of information to use for positive feedback, including:
- more accurate estimates ala Extreme Programming [2],
- better focus (staying on target),
- more realistic about expectations, and
- more aware of and manage distractions.
Finally, there's a larger piece at work here - deciding what constitutes a "good workday." This is relevant because I found myself being a too-demanding self manager. At the end of many days I felt dissatisfied with my accomplishments, which is both discouraging (didn't I do enough?) and just plain wrong (I did a lot!) The estimated-vs-actual task information is helpful in working out what is realistic. And this leads to making those tough choices around that basic productivity question: What should I be doing? I'll have to re-read the wisdom of lowering my standards (see Great Time Management Ideas From The World Of Improv Wisdom, esp. the fifth maxim: Be Average).
My Idea Collaborator Liza writes more about "What makes for a good work day?" at Power of One Blog: A Whole New Work Day.
What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this, including the experiments in daily planning you've tried.
References
- [1] For more see Are Daily To-do Lists And GTD Compatible? and Mark Forster's Do It Tomorrow.
- [2] I've written about XP and productivity here, including Is GTD The "Extreme Programming" Of Time Management?. And no, I'm not talking about the XP that is giving Eric Mack fits (heh heh heh).
Reader Comments (21)
That was one of the best blog posts I've seen in a long time - insightful, detailed, well written, useful. Thanks!
Jennifer, you made my day - thanks so much. And I love the links you share in your [ Lifemuncher | http://lifemuncher.blogspot.com/ ] blog, including the Medina interview ( [ The Science of Thinking Smarter: A Conversation with Brain Expert John J. Medina | http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_action=get-article&\1articleID=R0805B&\1ml_issueid=BR0805&\1ml_subscriber=true&\1pageNumber=1&\1_requestid=143963 ] ).
Matt,
Nice job on bringing some (quasi)-scientific rigor to this topic. I've often wondered whether my advice to plan one's work really is the best, and now I can say with (some degree of) certitude that it actually is.
I do wonder if there's a difference for people who work in large organizations versus solo practitioners like you. The interruptions and fire-fighting that goes along with working in big companies might make the effort-to-benefit ratio of scheduling and rescheduling work less attractive.
Regarding your comment on the value of closed lists: I published an article on this topic available here: http://tinyurl.com/55cazm.
Thanks for your comment, Dan, and the reminder of your article. I always find your writing insightful. Plus it's good to have to have you as a "think blog" partner.
Re: appropriateness for different job, you raise a good point. However, I will continue to recommend the practice widely. Unless you have a highly structured job that requires frequent responsiveness (e.g., customer call center) - in that case more specific workflow methods are needed - the plan moves us toward reflection, rather than reaction. This is a practice I've seen in my consulting for very high level people in fast-moving jobs, including the C-level.
Great comment.
Matt:
That was a great post! It inspires me to get back on track with planning and to do it the night before, instead of in the morning which has been my process (not as often as it should be). My version of this has been to print out my next action list (from Vitalist which continues to be my favorite method of holding next actions and lists of projects), to look at my calendar (GCal), to check my e-mail (at least an hour) and then use David Seah's Emergent Task Planner as the method of planning the day. Therein has been the problem, that you have solved for me. Duh, do it the night before instead of in the morning. Planning in the AM, while sneaking a look at e-mails, trying to avoid the phone etc., often makes my day a mess before it gets going on the right path. I end up focusing on the wrong things. Planning the night before begins tonight (I just read your post this morning).
Also, thank you for mentioning how long it takes you to deal with your inbox. As you know I have a big weakness of avoiding that altogether, only to be faced with a mess down the road.
Thank you for this post. I don't have the nerve yet to take on an accountability partner. I think there is something about being an at home knowledge worker that carries implicit problems, and creating a social context for action may be a wise solution.
lynnoc
Thanks for your compliment and comment, Lynn. I love the idea of "compiling" the plan down to David's [ Emergent Task Planner | http://davidseah.com/blog/comments/emergent-task-planner-free-version-2008-updates/ ]. I also like your comment re: planning the night before. I find I have more perspective at that time than in the hit-the-ground-running morning time.
> Also, thank you for mentioning how long it takes you to deal with your inbox. As you know I have a big weakness of avoiding that altogether, only to be faced with a mess down the road.
It's definitely a kind of chore for me too. And I was surprised about its taking me two full hours every day. As you and I discussed offline, I think the more active the mind, the more stuff you have coming in. In other words, the more open the eye, the more you see. And observation leads to reflection and capture. Fun!
> I don't have the nerve yet to take on an accountability partner. I think there is something about being an at home knowledge worker that carries implicit problems, and creating a social context for action may be a wise solution.
I strongly encourage you to try it, Lynn. Keep the fear factor down by a) having them not respond, and b) commit to a short experimentation period ... one week?
Thanks for reading!
Hi Matt,
I read this post with a lot of interest. I have found that having my entire list of Next Actions (4 pages, 8 point font) to be overwhelming. Now during my weekly review, I decide what NA's I want to do for that week. I've made this a closed list and when I'm disciplined about it, I found myself trying to get done before the week is done, so I can have slack time.
I really liked what you said about what constitutes a "good day". Lately, I've had so much on my plate that it seems like I never actually finish anything. This can really get me down. For instance, I might call a 2 people on my list, but with other NA's, interruptions, and distractions I don't get to the other 6. This makes me feel like I didn't really accomplish much during the day. I think it's a result of a lack of focus. So, what I've been trying since reading your post is: Finish ONE thing a day. By "one thing" I don't mean just a single next action (too small) or a complete project (too big), but somewhere in between. Typically it's a group of related next actions, like a minor milestone within a project. Now, when I end the day, I write down the one thing that I want to finish the next day. The next day it feels great to end the day saying, "I made all of the calls today" or "I handed off that file today". I find that if I can simply finish one thing that's all it takes to make it a "good" day. There are pleny of other NA's that I have to do during the day to fill up the rest of the time. This gives me focus and a goal to aim for while I'm navigating the swamp of my next actions list.
Oh, one more thing. It's very enlightening that it takes 2 hours for you to get through your inbox. No wonder I can never keep up with mine. I always figure it should take about 15 minutes. :) For me, I usually need to quadruple my estimates.
Hi Birch,
> during my weekly review, I decide what NA's I want to do for that week.
Neat! Reminds me of Mark Forster's idea for a Current Iniative project. Question: How does it work when things change rapidly?
> I found myself trying to get done before the week is done, so I can have slack time.
That's a very, very good idea. Thanks!
> Finish ONE thing a day ... somewhere in between [projects and actions]...that's all it takes to make it a "good" day
I really like it, Birch. Solid thinking there.
> For me, I usually need to quadruple my estimates.
That makes me wonder: Why is it we underestimate? That's a good post right there.
Thanks for your comment! Lots of good stuff there, Birch.
Ok, I totally needed this post. I'm going to give it a try for a week, and see how it goes!
Good good. Let me know how it goes, zeep.
Hi Radek. Thanks very much for your comment, and for sharing how your system works. I especially appreciated your comments re: how types of work and personality types interact with systems like GTD (or not). I agree there's an opportunity there. Much appreciated.
:) If you replace the @ in my email with a period, you can read where I discuss this on my blog. (warning: it's a really boring blog!)
progress report: I've overestimated my tendency to get distracted, and underestimated the value of a good night's sleep and breakfast on how productive I can be. So I'm going to extend this project for a little longer. :D
Zeep: I couldn't find your email. Is this you?: http://waterandzeep.livejournal.com/
Good discoveries, those. Overestimating distractibility - that's good. I tend to error in the other direction. And yes, health is important. I usually don't focus on it here (or in consulting) unless it comes up - good reminder.
I appreciate the comments!
Hi Matt:
Accountability Report: Nine days later, it seems to be working. Every evening I pull out a new ETP and put in front of me a print out of my latest Vitalist lists (organized by context). I plan work for the next day, so i can hit the ground running in the morning. My productivity has increased significantly. Furthermore, I have a visible record of my weaknesses. I can literally see where I have underestimated how long something takes, and have thus been able to make corrections in planning. Maybe I'm getting more realistic. I'm continuing on with the experiment, one day at a time. My goal is to have 30 consecutive days, planning the night before.
I still am failing to have a solid sense of what I'm going to cover in a week, (let alone a month) for example. I noted that you were planning by the week, and I have trouble doing that (or sticking to it). This is easy when the topics and deadlines are set in stone because they are external (eg, reading a student's proposal before a scheduled meeting, or doing something for a class that meets next Monday) but much harder when deadlines are imposed only by something I make up. How do you plan when something is based on your own decisions, with no clear links to the external world? Perhaps that comes later, but if you have any ideas here, please share them.
Lynn
Hi Lynn,
> Accountability Report: Nine days later ... My productivity has increased significantly. Furthermore, I have a visible record of my weaknesses. I can literally see where I have underestimated how long something takes, and have thus been able to make corrections in planning.
Fantastic results, Lynn. My hat's off to you.
> I'm continuing on with the experiment, one day at a time. My goal is to have 30 consecutive days, planning the night before.
Good plan. Keep us updated.
> weekly plan
My weekly planning is not solid at all. It's mostly based on the calendar for the coming week. Suggestions are welcome.
> How do you plan when something is based on your own decisions, with no clear links to the external world? Perhaps that comes later, but if you have any ideas here, please share them.
Great question. First, artifical ("soft") deadlines never worked for me, though I know people who swear by them. Note that I've not done a rigorous experiment on it. Future post I suppose...
Second, if there's no hard deadline then it's your call. As you point out, this is hard. You might try experimenting with different models for choosing. Covey's importance/urgency is one. Another is connecting goals and projects/actions (maybe with some self-talk around Why). Another is making sure you have at least one HIT (High Impact Task) scheduled per day. Make a contract with yourself: One HIT/day, non-negotiable. Another is something I'll blog about later, but it's a twist on Covey: The Fun/Importance matrix (see below).
Finally, for me motivation is crucial. Ideally I *want* to accomplish everything I've said I'll do. Some things clearly fall into that category, mostly at the intersection of love and competence. But there are others that are important but not joyful. I call these "work." :-) Clearly we want to increase the former and decreate the latter, but some can't be helped.
Again, tough question. This would be a great topic for some professional coaching, BTW.
Thanks for writing.
==
The Fun/Importance matrix: Here's the raw idea:
==
Your questions made me really think about stuff that I hadn't bothered to before, hence the delay in my response.
>Question: How does it work when things change rapidly?
After thinking about it, I realized that I'm picking NAs that must be done that week and 1 NA for all other active projects. This really isn't that aggressive a goal. So it allows for plenty of interruptions and scheduled events. This may not work if you have few projects or big NAs. I have 40 projects and if a current NA stays on my list for more than 3 weeks I break it into smaller NAs (I found that if it sits then I have a mental aversion to doing that task and I need to take smaller bites).
>That makes me wonder: Why is it we underestimate? That's a good post right there.
1) I believe some of it is wishful thinking - Hope for the best! (better plan for the worst)
2) Unrealistic view of time. When I first started doing the 2 minute rule - my 2 minutes was about 15. I had no idea what 2 minutes online feels like and I'm still not that good at it without a timer.
3) Very few of us bother to do the exercise that you have done above. So not only do we underestimate to begin with, but also after the fact. "Well that took longer than I thought it would, but it wasn't that long." My first major software project, I estimated 6 months. For good measure, I doubled it and told my boss 1 year. I shipped the product 3 years later. But that lesson rarely comes into play when I'm planning my everyday work.
4,5,6? I'm sure there is a slew of other reasons.
bravo! i have to commend you on giving the "accountability partner" a shot!
there is nothing better than another human being to see through what's stopping you - something a computer will never do!
I'm curious how this practice has been going for you - have you run into situations where your partner couldn't help you see through somewhere you've been stopped yet?
Thanks, Chinarut. It worked well both for me and for the clients *I've* helped in this way over the phone.
> situations where your partner couldn't help you see through somewhere you've been stopped yet?
There certainly are limits, as you probably guessed. I'm usually able to suggest some options for getting through blocks, but ultimately it's up to my client to adopt or not.
Not sure if that answered your question...
I've been doing something similar for a while (my logs show since October of last year), and it has worked pretty well. At the end of every day, one of the items I do as part of my "check-out" is to set 2-3 "Big Rocks" (as in the parable about putting the big rocks in the jar first). These are typically larger than a next action but smaller than a project, but sometimes they can be large Next Actions. Setting them at the end of the day is good, because if I have unfinished business from the current day, it's fresh in my mind. If I run out of unfinished business before I hit 3 big rocks, I start scanning my next actions and add some more to the list. This also helps me to "park on a downhill slope" as the saying goes.
Every day, my first priority (after check-in) is to complete those Big Rocks. I've started tracking my time again, using SlimTimer (I miss KArm from Linux). I track break time, overhead (non-project-advancing stuff like helping other people with work stuff, checking email), and individual project time.
As for how much work is enough, I did some rigorous tracking of my work in 2006, for several months, and figured out that 6 hours of productive work -- not overhead, not break obviously -- was a pretty damned good day. Therefore, my goals for each day are (a) finish my Big Rocks and (b) use the remainder of the 6 productive hours effectively. It's easy to use a "work" tag in SlimTimer to calculate only my "work" time for the day. A secondary goal is to have as little overhead and break time as possible, improving my efficiency and giving me more of my afternoon free to do whatever.
These levels of goals are good for me because (a) I often don't quite finish all three big rocks, and sometimes don't finish all 6 hours of work before dinner etc., and (b) on the other hand I frequently do reach them all. This gives me something to strive for without being overwhelming.
Thanks for the detail. I really admire you. The combination of goals (rocks), planning (selecting 3), tracking, and discipline (6hrs/day) is impressive. I'm stealing it!
[Radek Pilich RadekPilich@gmail.com http://radekpilich.com/]
Exactly Matt. I have been struggling with implementation of GTD for quite some time. I am not sure whether it is for the nature of projects I work on now or because of my personality, but it doesn't work for me right now. It was really making me feel bad about my productivity.
What I do now is a weekly planning. I am looking forward to using GTD outliner one day again (I bough a copy of http://mylifeorganized.net) but today, I just use a simple table for weekly planning. I work on three projects at the moment. I have a created a high level Gantt Chart of each project in MS Project, detailed just enough so it can guide me through what I need to accomplish each week. Then I plan my next week actions on Saturday, and I might adjust it a bit as the weeks go on.
It works pretty well so far. In my experience it is far better to know what do you have to do next days rather than ""trust the system"" to tell you ad hoc. Well then of course I understand that highly mobile workers have the need for ad hoc systens, but for me as a student GTD doesn't work. Depending on the task length and complexity, I might do some 4-8 task daily. Generally I am trying to plan 6 task for each day.
Besides that, I use http://sciral.com/consistency/ for a routine repeating task. I have the items in the ""time - task name"" format, so they are sorted chronologically and as the day progresses I scroll down the list and do the task I am supposed to do.
I am happy with my current setup, it finally works. Regarding Inbox, I use http://www.gyronix.com/gyroq/ plugin for MindManger. Processing of my inbox doesn't take me much time, because I send all my items to inbox in ""project name - task name"" format, and than just sort them out into an outline with parents such as ""action urgent"", ""action soon"", ""action maybe"", ""think about"", ""reference actionable"", ""reference information"" etc. MindManager than allows me to easily export the outline into XML file which can again be important by MyLifeOrganized. Unfortunately as I said, I don't use MLO at the moment, so I just go through my mindmap and put the actions to my weekly plans.
The most interesting part of your post for me was the point you've made about C-level execs using the weekly planning ""Franklin Covey"" method. From my understanding of myself, I think I am very much of a ENTJ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENTJ) personality, which is a trait very common among executives.This type of personality likes to create higher levels strategic plans. ENTJs are also referred as Fieldmarshals, so this planning approach makes a lot of sense to me. So the idea that emerges here is that it would be interesting and potentially very helpful for people out there to look at the topic of planning and organizing for different personality types."