Some people don’t like planning – and others love it so much that they don’t get much done, and use “planning” as a form of procrastination.

If you feel you don’t need (more) planning and you just need to get stuff done… this video is for you. Or if you prefer reading, scroll down to get the essentials in writing!

#1: You Need a (basic) Plan to Start With

I don’t know anyone who is more productive without a plan than with one.

In order to get more done, in order to get things done at all, it’s super useful to have an actual plan.

It doesn’t matter if you have big dreamy goals or if you just want to get your client work done and get through the day or the month and keep things running; if you don’t have a plan, you end up with just a very long to-do list. One of those tunnels without the shimmer of a light in the distance.

What happens to most people who have a long to-do list and no actual plan to get it done: 

• Multitasking – which sounds great and productive, but we all know you actually get less done in the end. And I’m not talking about writing a blog post while waiting for the dishwasher to finish, setting up an automation while watching the kids play in the backyard, or answering emails while sitting in the passenger seat on a road trip; I’m talking about interrupting your blog-post-writing to answer emails while you’re simultaneously setting up an automation.

• Overwhelm – that’s what any never-ending to-do list will do to you

• Procrastinating – if you’re not clear on priorities and there is no clear action plan for all the things, chances are you may spend a good amount of time on things that don’t move the needle forward. And don’t make you feel better about the whole thing! 

#2: Don’t Confuse Planning with Goal-Setting

A couple of years ago in November/December, I signed up for multiple “planning workshops”. I had so much on my plate I didn’t know what to do first, so planning was what I needed. Right? 

Every single one of these workshops and webinars turned out to be mostly about setting big, dreamy, scary goals. Pushing yourself to achieve more next year. Doing things you’d never think you could achieve.

Not only did I not need more goals and dreams at that time, I ended up even more overwhelmed; I already had so much on my plate, and every workshop just added more ideas into my head.

None of these workshops really helped with the planning part; yeah sure we’re now “planning” to achieve this next year, but in order to get it done, I should really have joined their course, membership, or group coaching program.

Believe me, people, when I say – not everyone needs more goals in life. Most of us just need an actual plan.

#3: No Planning Without Implementation

The part of planning that seems to often get forgotten, is the implementation part.

“I plan to do this next week” is not a plan, it’s an intention.

The way I see it, the only 3 things that turn goals or intentions into a plan, are

A- Making it part of your daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly routine

Routines and habits are the foundations of getting things done.

Examples of routines that help us get work done: 

• I work full days from Monday to Friday, and I don’t work on Saturdays or Sundays

• Every day after breakfast, I listen to a podcast or video recording while tidying up – and before getting to work

• Every day while lunch is cooking, I spend 10 minutes scrolling through and engaging on social media

• Every day after lunch, I either meditate for 5 minutes or work in the garden for a bit – which clears my mind and helps me get more done after

• Every Monday morning before lunch, I spend extra time answering emails and Slack messages

• Every month on the 10th and the 25th, I make payments and

• Every Tuesday morning, I meet with my VA

• Every Thursday, I host a mastermind call – and every Friday, I send out an email with recommended materials and insights from the day before

• Every Friday, I send my clients an overview of what we’ve been working on in the past week, what we’re focusing on next week, and what we need from them

• Every Friday before I stop for the week, I spend 90 minutes creating and scheduling content (videos, writing, social,…) 

• Every month during the first week, I block some extra time to upload invoices for my bookkeeper and update my money Airtable

Does that mean I actually do this every single day/week/month and never skip a beat? Of course not. But waking up in the morning knowing this is how things should happen, creates a lot of calm in my brain 🙂 

B- Blocking time in your calendar for it

Not everything can be part of a routine; bigger projects and one-off things just need their own time in your calendar.

And this one is simple: block time in your calendar for them.

As Parkinson’s Law boils down to “everything will take the amount of time you have carved out for it to get done”, my main tips for this are

• Don’t block more time than necessary for a single task;

• And block some extra time to finalise, review, or deal with delays later that day or that week.

Let’s say for instance, you’re writing a blog post. You know it shouldn’t take you more than an hour to write. So block your calendar for an hour to write it, and even set a timer for it so you don’t start fiddling around with details – and end up spending hours and hours on that single post. Instead, stick to the hour – and make sure to block some time later on to review, edit, fix some of the small mistakes you would never have noticed during that first round. Or maybe you did overestimate your writing speed and the post definitely needs more than an hour; still, wrap up your initial draft in an hour – and the extra half-hour later on will be double as productive.

C- Working with a SMART to-do list (call it a system!)

“But didn’t you just say you shouldn’t have a to-do list?” 

No – I said unorganised and never-ending to-do lists can make you burn out at a fast rate.

But if you need to take lots of actions that are too small to really block separate time on your calendar for + they’re not recurring so a routine won’t cut it… this is where the power of a to-do list can come in.

I like the actions on my list to be SMART though: 

• Specific – I’m going to answer emails, write a blog post, review a client’s sales page

• Measurable – I know before I start there are 20 unanswered emails, I want my blog post to have 600 words, and there’s just one sales page 🙂 

• Achievable – this is often a mix of “measurable” and “time-bound”; if there are 20 emails to answer, I’ll probably need more than 5 minutes to make it work. Or if I only have 5 minutes to answer emails, I’ll stick to the one or two emails I need to answer right now.

• Relevant – have you ever notice how if you don’t truly believe something on your to-do list is worth doing, it’ll just say on your to-do list for days, weeks, months on end? 

• Time-bound – even though you might not literally have blocked time in your calendar for it, you still want to know how much time you want to spend on this. I love working in pomodoros – they keep me focused and on track, even when just working through my to-do list.

Accountability is Key

When you’re working from home, no one sees when you get to work, how much you’re procrastinating (vs working) throughout the day, and no one cares whether you stop in time – or spend the rest of the evening catching up on stuff you procrastinated on during the day.

Virtual coworking is my lifeline: twice a week, I get together with other freelancers for one or two hours. We tell each other what we’re working on, then we mute ourselves and get to work. Words are not enough to convey how incredibly effective those coworking sessions are – in 99% of the cases, we all walk away feeling like we did way more than we would when working by ourselves.