Quotes About Planning

In order to deal effectively with all of that, you must first identify and collect all those things that are "ringing your bell" in some way, and then plan how to handle them.

There are few people who can (or even should) expect to code everything based upon its priority, or who can maintain some predetermined list of to-dos that the first telephone call or instant message or interruption from their boss or spouse won't totally

The Weekly Review is the time to: Gather and process all your stuff. Review your system. Update your lists. Get clean, clear, current, and complete. You have to use your mind to get things off your mind. Most

Let our advance worrying become our advance thinking and planning. —Winston Churchill

Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because what "doing" would look like, and where it happens, hasn't been decided.

I have found that lack of time is not the major issue for them (though they may think it is); the real problem is a lack of clarity and definition about what a project really is, and what associated next-action steps are required.

We're never really taught that we have to think about our work before we can do it; much of our daily activity is already defined for us by the undone and unmoved things staring at us when we come to work, or by the family to be fed, the laundry to be done, or the children to be dressed at home.

Even if you've already decided on the next step you'll take to resolve a problem, your mind can't let go until and unless you park a reminder in a place it knows you will, without fail, look.

Getting things done requires two basic components: defining (1) what "done" means (outcome) and (2) what "doing" looks like (action). And these are far from self-evident for most people about most things that have their attention.

three different kinds of activities you can be engaged in: Doing predefined work Doing work as it shows up Defining your work Doing

Horizontal control maintains coherence across all the activities in which you are involved. Vertical control, in contrast, manages thinking up and down the track of individual topics and projects.

Anything you consider unfinished in any way must be captured in a trusted system outside your mind, or what I call a collection tool, that you know you'll come back to regularly and sort through. Second

You must use your mind to get things off your mind. An

The number of coulds, shoulds, might-want-tos, and ought-tos they generate in their minds are way out beyond what they have recorded anywhere else. Many

The most experienced planner in the world is your brain.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning. —Winston Churchill

something is "on your mind" is that you want it to be different than it currently is, and yet: • you haven't clarified exactly what the intended outcome is; • you haven't decided what the very next physical action step is; and/or • you haven't put reminders of the outcome and the action required in a system you trust.

We need to transform all the "stuff" we've attracted and accumulated into a clear inventory of meaningful actions, projects, and usable information. Almost

Let our advance worrying become our advance thinking and planning. —Winston Churchill Focus

When is a problem a project? Always. When you assess something as a problem instead of as something to simply be accepted as the way things are, you are assuming there is a potential resolution.

The vast majority of people have been trying to get organized by rearranging incomplete lists of unclear things;

The vast majority of people have been trying to get organized by rearranging incomplete lists of unclear things; they haven't yet realized how much and what they need to organize in order to get the real payoff. They need to gather everything that requires thinking about and then do that thinking if their organizational efforts are to be successful. The

Clarifying things on the front end, when they first appear on the radar, rather than on the back end, after trouble has developed, allows people to reap the benefits of managing action.

If the next action is not yours, you must nevertheless clarify whose it is (this is a primary use of the Waiting For action list). In a group-planning situation, it isn't necessary for everyone to know what the next step is on every part of the project. Often all that's required is to allocate responsibility for parts of the project to the appropriate persons and leave it up to them to identify next actions on their particular pieces.