For the last ten years, I have been building and perfecting a productivity system that honors the big overarching goals in my life while also being detailed enough to handle the rigors and details of day-to-day tasks. This system remains simple and flexible in its use, and it has helped me accomplish more than I ever thought possible. It can help you achieve more than you ever thought possible too. All you have to do is follow three simple practices and mindsets.

If you were to ask anyone who knows me what comes to mind when they think about my approach to work, they would tell you that I’m extremely organized and very detailed, constantly writing everything down either virtually or physically. However, most people don’t know that I wasn’t always like this. As a kid, I would constantly be in my head and in my own world. I would always forget assignments, test dates, birthdays, and anniversaries. I would constantly misplace things and get into trouble because of my lack of organization. It wasn’t that I lacked intelligence or discipline; I just wasn’t an organized person.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve felt this way too. Sometimes, there’s just so much we’re expected to remember and so many things to do. Often, even though it’s not very hard to do all the things we’re expected to do for work, school, or our regular lives, it’s just difficult and overwhelming to keep track of it all. If you’re feeling this way, I want to give you hope because I used to feel that way too. I thought there was something wrong with me, that I lacked intelligence, and that I would never be able to get it together and accomplish anything worth achieving.

Imagine taking a person of average intelligence and skill and asking them to mow a lawn using only a pair of safety scissors. Chances are, they would do a terrible job. Not only would it take an insane amount of time and effort, but because they’d be cutting each blade of grass individually, the lawn would probably look horrendous by the end of it. They might even feel incompetent and embarrassed, especially when comparing their work to their neighbor’s perfectly manicured lawn. It’s not their fault; they were just using a terrible tool for the job. Now, if you gave them a push lawnmower, they would finish much faster, the final product would look much nicer, and they’d probably feel pretty good about themselves. Give them a nice automatic sit-down lawnmower, and they might even enjoy cutting their lawn.

Our brains are a terrible tool for the long-term and unending job of keeping track of a million little things. Our brains forget, confuse, and conflate, and our sense of time often doesn’t align with the traditional clock time that we use to run our lives. Even a simple piece of paper and a pen are better tools for keeping things straight than our brains are.

So, hear me when I say this: there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not stupid, slow, or incapable of doing great things. You’ve just been using the wrong tool for the job. Once you start using the right tool, you’re going to feel so much better. The overwhelm, frustration, and anxiety about managing your day-to-day life will become a thing of the past.

My Journey Towards Organization

My journey towards organization and planning began as a freshman in high school. My life was a mess, I constantly felt overwhelmed, and the lack of direction was a serious drag on my mental health. It wasn’t that I lacked ambitions or intelligence; I just wasn’t able to direct them in ways that made any progress, which caused me a lot of anxiety. I remember the first time someone taught me about Google Calendar. I was watching a YouTube video, and I remember thinking, “Wow, this is what I’ve been missing.” Up until that point, I had never planned more than a day in advance. It never even occurred to me that I could look ahead to days and weeks that haven’t even happened yet and actually set an agenda for what I wanted to work on and accomplish. That was the first time I dipped my toes into the art of planning.

Since then, it’s been quite the learning experience. I spent the next ten years practicing the art of planning. I tried every software and piece of hardware out there, utilized every philosophy of planning that I could wrap my mind around, and consumed more than my fair share of books and videos on how to plan. At this point, I’ve probably invested over $1,000 into my journey toward becoming a planning master. But the value that this journey has brought me has made it all worth it. Don’t worry; the software and methods I use to plan now are all free.

The Benefits of Planning

When people see my calendar, they tend to get overwhelmed or turned off by the idea of having such rigid discipline in their lives. However, I’ve found that this is usually because their mindsets around planning are negative and misinformed. Planning is actually pretty simple and quite freeing. You just have to follow three simple principles and adopt three effective mindsets.

The Three Principles of Planning

Principle #1: Be Realistic

One of the biggest mistakes people make when they first start planning is that they are overly ambitious with their time. They try to schedule every minute of their day with productive tasks and activities. However, this approach often leads to burnout and frustration because it’s simply not realistic. Instead, be honest with yourself about how much time you actually have and how much you can reasonably accomplish in that time. Leave buffer time for breaks, interruptions, and unexpected tasks.

Principle #2: Be Detailed

The more detailed your plan is, the more effective it will be. Instead of just writing “work” in your calendar, break it down into specific tasks such as “answer emails,” “work on project X,” “attend meeting,” etc. This way, you have a clear roadmap of what you need to do, and you can easily track your progress throughout the day. Being detailed also helps you prioritize your tasks and focus on what’s most important.

Principle #3: Commit to Your Calendar

A plan is only as good as your commitment to it. Once you’ve created your plan, stick to it as closely as possible. Treat your calendar like an appointment with yourself. Of course, things will come up and plans will change, but do your best to follow your schedule. This will help you build discipline and ensure that you’re making consistent progress toward your goals.

The Three Mindsets of Planning

Before we get into the three steps for making a solid plan, whether for your week, month, or even year, it’s crucial to understand the three mindsets behind these principles. If you don’t get your mindset around planning right, the steps won’t work for you because you won’t believe in them and you won’t see their value.

Mindset #1: Planning is the Vehicle for Achieving Your Goals and Dreams

We’ve all heard the phrase, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Planning is the skill that allows you to turn your dreams and goals into reality. The better you get at planning, the better you will get at making your reality YOUR reality. Just think about that for a moment. Dreams and goals—we all have them, and 90% of the time, getting them seems impossible, too difficult, too complicated, or too scary. Planning solves all of that. It makes the path between where you are now and where you want to be clear.

Planning isn’t even all that complicated. It’s actually really easy, and you can’t really do it wrong; you can only do it better. This isn’t just some random skill that will help you in life. This is THE skill to help you in life. If you master it, getting what you want in life becomes a matter of time.

Mindset #2: Plans Are Suggestions, Not Promises

There’s a famous quote often attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower during WWII but actually from Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke in the 19th century: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” My personal favorite version of this quote comes from Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Plans are static interpretations of an otherwise dynamic future. Your plans are a snapshot of your intentions and ideas for how to spend your time, but they cannot accurately represent changes in the situation, your goals, or your progress. Whenever you make a plan, regardless of how far out you’re planning, understand that you will not follow your plan to a T. Create your plan with the understanding that most of the time, something about it will change, AND THAT’S OKAY.

The plan is still incredibly valuable because when things change, you’re not starting from scratch. You can make an adjustment or two and continue. This mindset 1) keeps you from feeling like a failure every time you deviate from the plan and 2) keeps you flexible and allows you to adapt and take advantage of changing wants and needs instead of getting sidetracked by them.

For me, this looks like taking the weekly plan I make at the beginning of the week and updating it daily. To make the weekly plan takes about an hour; to update it takes about 4-5 minutes. I simply move tasks that didn’t get done to a different day and add things that have popped up since I first made the plan. This simple practice keeps my weeks focused and full of meaning instead of distraction.

Mindset #3: Planning Creates More Freedom, Not Less

When you create a plan for your day, week, or month, you gain oversight. You can see clearly what you

need to accomplish and how much time you have to do it. With that oversight, you become much more realistic and disciplined about what you spend your time on, and you start seeing your own patterns and habits.

Without planning, we tend to be overly optimistic about what we can accomplish in a given time frame. We say yes to too many things and underestimate the time it takes to complete tasks. For example, if you have 2 hours before a big test, you might think you can study for 30 minutes, work on an assignment for an hour, and then study for the remaining 30 minutes. But realistically, by the time you get settled into studying, it will be time to work on the assignment. By the time you get into the assignment, your time will be up, and you won’t have enough time to study for that big test coming up on Tuesday, and you’ll have a miserable time.

When we don’t have the habit of planning, we lose the ability to accurately gauge how long a task will take. This causes us to say yes to things we don’t have time for, lose track of what’s important to us, and ultimately results in a lot of distraction. When we gain awareness of our time, we become much more disciplined about what we spend our time on because we see more clearly the relationship between our actions and our progress.

So, if you’re thinking about planning your week, know that it will create more freedom and flexibility in your life, not less. This is because, by knowing how much time you have, you can be more disciplined with your commitments, and as a result, you will have more time to spend on the things you want to do.

The Three Steps of Planning

Now that we have the proper mindsets for planning, let’s discuss how we actually plan. Remember, I use Google Calendar, but you can use any tool you like, from a physical planner to a different app. The key is to consistently apply these principles.

Step #1: Brain Dump

The brain dump is where I jot down everything I can think of that I want to accomplish during the week. This includes work tasks, personal goals, social activities, and any errands or appointments I have. The goal here is to get everything out of your head and onto a list. This clears your mind and gives you a comprehensive view of what you need to tackle.

Step #2: Prioritize and Categorize

Once you have your brain dump, the next step is to prioritize and categorize these tasks. I divide my tasks into categories such as Work, Personal, Social, Health, and Errands. Then, I prioritize tasks within each category based on urgency and importance. This helps me see which tasks need immediate attention and which can be scheduled later in the week.

Step #3: Schedule

Now, I take my categorized and prioritized tasks and start scheduling them into my calendar. I allocate specific times for each task, ensuring that I leave some buffer time between tasks for breaks or unexpected changes. I also make sure to schedule downtime and personal activities to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Conclusion

Planning is a powerful tool that can transform your life by providing clarity, direction, and the ability to achieve your goals. By adopting the right mindsets and following a simple three-step process, you can turn the overwhelm of daily tasks into manageable and actionable steps. Remember, planning creates more freedom, not less, and it’s a skill that, once mastered, can help you achieve anything you set your mind to. So, take control of your time, plan your week, and start achieving more today.