In this week’s podcast, how do you stay focused on your plan for the week?

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Script

Episode 154

Hello and welcome to episode 154 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

So, if you are listening to this podcast you obviously have some interest in becoming better organised and more productive. And, I guess you have set up a system… Hopefully, that system is based around COD (Collecting, organising and doing). 

Now if you are also doing your weekly planning, how many of you are able to stick with your weekly plan? In theory, if you sit down on the weekend and give yourself twenty to thirty minutes to plan out what you want to accomplish in the week, then you should be getting a lot of your important work done… In theory. In practice, that’s a lot harder to do, and it takes a lot of effort and focus to accomplish. 

But it is possible and this week I will share with you some of the strategies I use to make sure I stay focused on my plan throughout the week. 

Now, before we get to the question, If you haven’t already done so, you can download my annual planning sheet as well as my areas of focus worksheet (for free) so you can begin planning out next year. Yep, 2020 has not turned out how we expected, and I am sure many of you have had to make some pretty dramatic changes to your plans, but no matter how well or badly this year has gone for you, we all get another chance next year and taking the time over the next three months to plan out what you want to accomplish next year will reap some incredible rewards. 

So, head over to my website, carlpullein.com and download these very helpful planning sheets and make sure you are setting yourself up for an incredible 2021. 

Okay, on with the show and that means it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Beth. Beth asks: Hi Carl, I’ve followed David Allen’s Getting Things Done and recently your Time Sector System and the problem I have is no matter how well I plan out the week, I very rarely do what I plan to do. I am constantly interrupted by my colleagues and staff as well as my customers. Is this normal or is there anything I can do to help me stay focused on my plans?

Hi Beth, thank you for your question. 

I think we all struggle here. It’s very easy to make a plan on a Sunday afternoon when we are away from our normal environment and then arrive at work on a Monday morning and thrown into the emergencies and crises of the day and our carefully crafted plan is thrown out of the window. 

As Mike Tyson apparently famously said: “We all have a plan until we get punched in the face”.

So how can we stay focused on our plan for the week and still manage the emergencies and crises that will inevitably come up in the week? 

The first thing to do is plan to do less. 

It’s very easy to plan things out when our phones are not ringing and our colleagues and staff are not asking questions all day. This often leads us into a false sense that we can do a lot more than we really can. If I am being truthful to myself I know that I can realistically only focus on one or two projects each week. 

Sure, I would love to be able to work on five or six projects, but realistically, with everything being thrown at me, as well as my core work, no matter how much I want to work on those five or six projects it just isn’t going to happen. 

That said, in my team, there is only one person. Me. It might be different if you manage a team of people where you can delegate responsibility to your team members, but even then there is only a limited amount of work you can focus on each week. 

It is far better to focus on one or two things each week and make sure they are done to the highest possible standard than to try and do everything and find your standards fall and you miss very important tasks. 

So, when you are doing your weekly plan, choose the projects that are the most important or urgent and prioritise those for the week. 

If you have a lot of projects falling due around the same time, you may need to renegotiate the deadlines. Never be afraid of doing this. This is not a reflection on your abilities to do your work. This is you demonstrating you are in control of your time and if you renegotiate a deadline giving your customer or boss enough notice you are unlikely to be refused. 

Problems occur when you call your customer or your boss the day before the deadline and inform them you are not going to make the deadline. Then you are asking for trouble and you are going upset your customer and your boss. 

So when doing your weekly plan make sure you review your project deadlines and take care not to have too many deadlines at the same time. 

Next up, is to put some structure into your day. Now by this, I mean set aside two or three hours each day for focused work. This is usually best done first thing in the morning. If you start work at 8:30 AM, then set aside 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM for your focused work. 

By “focused work” I mean you turn off notifications and email and just focus on the work you have planned to do for the day. If you can get yourself those two to three hours each day, you are going to get a lot done. Problems happen when we allow ourselves to be interrupted by every notification we receive—it’s just not conducive to getting important work. 

I know we think we have to be available 24/7, but that is just not true, no matter who you are. 

When it comes to email the way I see it is, if my house was on fire, my neighbour is never going to email me to tell me. They are either going to call me or bang on my door. Real emergencies are never communicated to via email so stop thinking email (or Slack or MS Teams etc) are emergency channels. They are not. Real emergencies are delivered either in person or via your phone. 

If you do lead a team, explain the communication channels to your team. Make sure they understand that between certain times of the day you should not be interrupted unless it is a real emergency and make sure you explain what a ‘real emergency’ is.

Another tip I would give you is to set aside some time towards the end of the day for communications. I find if I dedicate an hour or so towards the end of the day to deal with my communications I can stay on top of all my email and messages without much effort. You will find trying to stay on top of all your communications sporadically throughout the day tiresome and things will inevitably slip through the net. 

There’s no problem doing two or three processing sessions through the day, I generally process first thing in the morning, just after lunch and before I start my evening coaching calls. Here to emphasis is on processing, not doing.

What I mean is I go through my inbox and move any actionable emails to my Action This Day folder. Then, when I finish my coaching calls for the day, I sit down for an hour and do my communications. I respond to my actionable emails and messages in one go. 

One of the advantages of this method is you do not get caught up in email ping pong. You are only sending one reply to an individual per day. And remember, if something is urgent, then don’t use email as the main method of communication. Jump on a call, explain what needs to be done and if necessary follow up the action steps by email. But don’t rely on email as the main source of communication. 

Another area that helps to keep you focused on your plan for the week is to do a daily mini-review. Now the keyword here is “mini”. It should not take you more than ten to fifteen minutes to review what you have done for the day, making sure you are moving forward on your plan for the week and make any adjustments required in order to put you back on or keep you on track for the week. 

You see, no matter how well we plan our week, as I mentioned at the beginning, your plan is going to change once it hits the emergencies and urgencies of the week and sometimes you are going to have to drop everything to deal with those emergency. By having a few minutes at the end of the day to reassess and adjust the plan, you are going to find you get a lot more done than if you just give up the plan and allow the week’s events to drag you each day.

So, when planning the week, make sure you plan less than you think you can do. If you do have an incredible week, you can always add more work later. 

Have a structure to your week. Give yourself two to three hours each day for focused work and some time towards the end of the day for dealing with your communications. In between those times, keep things as flexible as you can soy do have time each day to deal with the unknowns. 

Make sure you are clear about how to communicate with you. Keep only a few channels open—you do not have to be available on all channels. Make sure the key people you work with understand exactly how to communicate with you in an emergency.

And finally, set aside ten to fifteen minutes each day to review progress against your plan so you can make any necessary adjustments. 

It’s not difficult, but you do need to commit to maintaining a structure and to resist the temptation to let everything fall down once the inevitable crises of the week begin.

Thank you, Beth, for sending in your question and thank you to all of you for listening. Remember, if you have a question you would like answering all you need do is email me—[email protected] or DM me on Facebook or Twitter.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.