Your goal calendar. “A calendar is much more effective than a to-do list.”

In this article we will take a closer look at the calendar for planning tasks as a method successful planning. There are many in various ways time management and as well as planning methods, of which the simplest and most convenient is the calendar for planning things. Using this method, you can always write down your plans, tasks, and see what needs to be done first.

Calendar planner as a time management method

Time management– the ability to properly manage your time. Having mastered the skills of successful planning, you will always complete important tasks on time, you will never be in a rush at home and at work.

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Every person plans in advance the things he wants to accomplish in a certain period of time. For planning to be effective, you need to be able to properly allocate your time. It is time management that helps to complete tasks correctly and on time, which contributes to the successful achievement of results. Clearly allocated time helps to complete work of any complexity efficiently and quickly. Don’t be afraid to develop your abilities and skills to achieve your goals, only you can help yourself with this.

Nowadays there are many various methods time management: to-do list, time distribution using the Eisenhower matrix, planning tasks based on their importance. Scientists in the field of time management claim that of all the methods, the simplest, most convenient and popular in our time is a calendar for planning things.

IN modern world With the development of technology, scheduler programs are available everywhere and to everyone. You can also create a planning calendar yourself in a regular notebook or notepad. Which calendar to choose is entirely up to your desires and capabilities. The most important thing is that it is always at hand for important notes and notes. Daily or weekly planning, according to scientists, is the most effective method achieving goals.

“Take care of time: it is the fabric of which life is made.”

S. Richardson

Time is too precious to waste on unnecessary things. This is why scientists have been researching the basics of time management for many years to save time. A calendar for planning tasks is effective way use the time by directing your energy in the right direction.

Well-known businessman and researcher in the field of time management, Kevin Cruz, who has written many books in this area, advises always and everywhere to carry a notepad and pen with you, so that at the right time you do not lose a thought, but record it and act to implement it. In his opinion, greater success in business can be achieved with daily or weekly planning. In this case, a person has specific plans for the day or week, and not a huge to-do list for six months, which only confuses and distracts the person.

Effective Planning Tools

As we have already mentioned, you can create a calendar for planning things either in a notebook or on your phone, tablet or laptop. Thus, we can highlight the most popular tools for successful task design.

Diary. Here you can use a notepad or notebook, as you wish. In a notebook, you can make two columns: in one you can write down important things to do, in the other - valuable thoughts and ideas for implementing plans.
Mobile phone, without which it is now simply impossible to imagine modern life. On your phone, using your calendar and notes, you can set a reminder about an important meeting or urgent matter. You can also write notes on your phone that will always be at hand. The only drawback of the phone is the ability to discharge, and if you do not have the opportunity to charge it, then your calendar will be temporarily unavailable, which may not be very convenient.
Computer, laptop, tablet. These task writing tools are essential for people who constantly work at a computer. At any time during their work, they can create notes for the day or week, view, change, and delete what has already been done.

You can choose the most convenient way structuring tasks that will be convenient and accessible at any time. There are also some basic options for effectively designing and executing ideas that will help you get more done throughout the day.

Constantly work on your daily task lists. Every evening make plans for the next day, adjust them in the morning and act. Having written down the important things, you will know what needs to be done without fail, and what can wait.
Try to make the most of every minute of your time. Even in your free time, try to do something useful, for example, read your favorite book. This does not mean that you should never rest at all, just be able to choose from all your favorite activities the most useful for yourself.
Learn to make real plans. The reason for constant “underachievement” may be that a person takes on a lot, projects something that he cannot physically do in one day. Having made a bunch of plans for one day, a person begins to panic, he does not have time to do anything, his body is physically and psychologically exhausted, and he gives up.

In order to always be on time with everything, you need to adhere to the basic rules of successful design, which will help you organize yourself, highlight what is valuable and important in this moment.

You sufficient quantity time if you prioritize correctly. By highlighting the most significant goals, you will save time and be able to achieve results within the desired time frame.
Calendar days for planning tasks are filled as soon as possible so as not to miss important thoughts and ideas. That is why scheduler programs should always be at hand.
If you're doing great today, try to do more, because tomorrow you may not have the mood or strength to do similar work. While you have enthusiasm, work, but if you don’t have the desire, it’s better to put off important tasks rather than do it through force.
Install for yourself constant mode work, stick to it.
If you find it difficult to start something, try small things, this will help you get ready for work .
Divide your goals according to their importance at the moment.
Always try to nominate important meetings for the morning.
If you have to big job, be sure to break it down into smaller, simpler tasks, this way you will achieve results easier and faster.
There are no two equally important tasks, there is always one with higher priority. It is important not to confuse yourself; try to express your thoughts clearly and understandably.
Try to highlight one most important thing every day that requires more time and effort.. You can break it up into parts throughout the day.
Don’t think about yesterday’s tasks, do what you have planned for today and tomorrow.
Always and everywhere write down your thoughts and ideas. Remember this rule. Having written down what you have planned, you will already be one step closer to the result. Write for yourself - and you will set your brain to do it.
Learn to filter information correctly. It is important to be able to filter out necessary information that really matters to you. Immediately weed out everything unnecessary from your plans so that useless things do not interfere with you or take up precious time.
Limit your time on social networks, checking Email . Set a specific time for checking emails, and clearly limit your time on social networks, for example, set an alarm clock for 15 minutes so you can stop on time. Remember that wasting time stops progress on meaningful tasks.
Learn to say no to things and even people that distract you. Always remember that your result depends on your performance, and being distracted by trifles or fulfilling the requests of other people stops your work. At first it is difficult to learn to refuse, but later you will see that you feel much more comfortable if you act strictly according to plan and do not promise anything to anyone.
The rules we described are not at all complicated and understandable. By adhering to them, you will be able to keep up with everything, plan correctly, and make good use of the calendar to plan things.

Basic conditions for self-organization

Planner programs will certainly help you structure your thoughts and actions and achieve best result, but the calendar itself is not enough for this. You need to be able to self-organize yourself to work; self-discipline is an important component of successful time management.

In order to effectively structure notes in your planner every day, you need to adhere to certain self-organization conditions, namely:

constant order on the desktop, where there should be only everything necessary for work and nothing superfluous;
home comfort, cleanliness. It is much more pleasant to work in a clean and tidy environment, especially if you work mainly at home. All things and objects should be in their places so that at the right time they can be taken as needed, and not searched for in a pile of unnecessary things, wasting precious time;
When purchasing a notebook for notes, choose the one that brings you aesthetic pleasure, then, every time you open it, you will already have good mood to work;
learn to get up early, but at the same time get enough sleep, i.e. go to bed on time. Even if you have a day off, this is not a reason to sleep until lunch, do not rebuild your body, accustom it to a routine;
try to maintain a normal diet and rest. Physical strength The body, just like psychological ones, has the ability to be exhausted, so the body needs to be constantly filled with energy. If you have lunch on schedule, then do not ignore it even in favor of the right thing, always replenish your body’s resources. To relax, do what you love, a hobby that will fill you with strength and good mood.
Your self-organization begins in the morning, learn to get up an hour earlier in order to have time to do your morning procedures, make time for yourself in the morning, this will fill you with energy for the whole day. Remember that your entire mood and positivity for the whole day depends on your mood in the morning. Organize yourself correctly and your goals will be achieved in the near future.

As we have already mentioned, it is the calendar for planning things that is most effective in the design process. Now let's look at why.

A planner for a day or, in extreme cases, for a week helps you quickly identify priority goals for yourself; you will never have a bunch of unnecessary written down goals for a year or six months that cause a mess in your head when doing work. You can break the day in your notebook into specific blocks of 15-30 minutes. At first it will seem difficult to you, but after completing the work according to the schedule for a couple of days, you will see how you can get everything done on time. With plans like this, you will be able to implement them 95%. This figure has been studied by scientists in practice.

Always try to do what you plan, written in your diary. If you experience force majeure, reschedule important tasks, but do not cancel their implementation. Place the highest priority tasks on morning hours, since this time is considered the most productive.

Kevin Cruz, in his book dedicated to the secrets of successful planning, writes that everything known to the world successful people constantly use a diary, not a to-do list long periods time, since 50% of the plans of such lists are simply not fulfilled. It is much more effective to write down tasks for the day and monitor their implementation.

When you schedule your day, try to approximate the amount of time you will spend on each task. This will help you strictly adhere to the schedule and always be on time in everything. If you do not limit the time for certain tasks, then the execution of the task may drag on for the whole day. A clear schedule is the key to your success.

Have you ever wondered why many successful famous people always go with notebook? Precisely because to always have important thoughts and urgent matters at hand. It would seem like such a small detail, but it is actually the most important on the path to achieving your goals. Don't waste your time, just try to create a calendar for yourself to plan things and you will be pleasantly surprised your work results.

For thousands of years, people in all parts of the world have set goals for themselves at the beginning of a new calendar year. And some even achieve them after that. If you have faith in yourself and a desire to act, then you may find a small selection of services useful that will help you plan your achievements and acquisitions for 2017.

1. Set goals

This goal setting service is very simple. And this is its main advantage. It has everything you need to set goals and create subtasks within them. There is also a separate tab where you can write down your dreams. And a minimum of unnecessary things.

When setting a new goal, the service reminds a person that the goal must be S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time specific), that is, specific, measurable, achievable, fit organically into your life and be time-limited.

2. Set goals in Russian

If you are uncomfortable dealing with English-language services, then you can try the Russian-language analogue of lifetick. It's even easier to use. Many lovers of minimalism will get a kick out of using it. It will also appeal to subscribers of public pages with quotes about achieving success. Each time your goal list is updated, a new motivating picture appears in the corner.

3. We monitor the achievement of the goals of others

Smartprogress.do - social network, which unites 130 thousand people. They describe their life goals(“Hello, I’m Anton and I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been trying to quit drinking for five years.”) and regularly write reports about their successes and failures (“Yesterday I held on with all my might, but today I accidentally drank a bottle of vodka”).

Most of the goals are very similar to each other: earn money, lose weight, find a partner, buy a smartphone/car/apartment, learn English, pass a test, run a marathon. But sometimes you just come across creative masterpieces.

The service is very convenient and beautiful. It is more pleasant to formulate goals in it than in the previous two. But not every person likes to put personal affairs on public display (although it seems possible to hide goals there), so he is in third place.

4. Developing habits

There is a theory that if you force yourself to do something every day for 21 days in a row, then on the 22nd day you develop a habit and start doing it automatically. On this service, you can specify your desired habits and report on its implementation for three weeks in a row.

5. Visualize achievements

Create a virtual tree and branches on it. The tree is your life. Branches are areas of life in which you want progress. Small branches on them - specific goals in these areas.

They need to place different nice pictures, which remind you of what has already been achieved. For example, if you set a goal to improve your sleep schedule and created a thread for this, then you can post your photos on it, which show how your circles under your eyes are decreasing over time.

6. We keep records of routine actions

On this service, you can report for an unlimited time on the completion of daily actions that are important to you or record the implementation of prohibitions that you have set for yourself. All your successes and failures are clearly visible.

7. We are planning acquisitions

On wishlist.com you can mark things you want to buy or receive as a gift. To the name of each item you can add a photo, price and a link to it in the online store. It is convenient to use this service for planning your budget or for “subtle hints”.

If you are going to use any of the services listed above or just a notepad and pen to set your own goals, I recommend reading

Making a list of goals for the year is perhaps a long-standing tradition for many people, which they follow on the eve of the country's largest holiday. They decorate the Christmas tree, buy tangerines and champagne, and plan life changes. It's exciting and not at all useless.

The meaning of the list

Firstly, we are not just talking about some list of tasks for the coming year, but about drawing up a personal annual plan. Forming such a list is the first step when switching to new level self-development. And that's why:

The man takes things seriously. He asks himself questions - what does he need in the coming year? What would he like to strive for? What would you like to gain? Where to be and what to achieve? Then he gives himself answers, passing the questions through the prism of personal values, and forms a goal.
By writing it down on paper, he once again comprehends his task and visualizes it. Secures in in writing, one might say, makes a reminder to himself, which serves as an additional incentive in the future.
A person thinks how to become better. After all, a goal is the final result of aspiration. And it is impossible without the desire to improve yourself or your life. Making a list of goals for whole year, a person once again evaluates his capabilities, resources, abilities and thinks about how and what he will have to work on for the sake of the result.

Such a plan is a means that leads its compiler to achieve what he wants, which also allows him to grow and expand the boundaries of reality. At a minimum, such a list of goals, which is in plain sight, will “push” you in the back and remind you of the desire to strive for something when it is overpowered by the craving for procrastination and laziness.

Compilation rules

The first thing you need to learn is that the list of goals for the whole year should be structured, neat, clear and orderly. And it’s better to write out tasks not as a single “canvas”, separated only by bullet points, but to divide them into blocks. It is desirable that each of them also has a distribution of tasks by month. For example, the block will be called “Finance”. And inside: “January - open a savings deposit at the bank with interest. Start keeping track of expenses and income. February - explore everything modern methods earnings and business options.” And so on.

And, of course, you need to be guided by the SMART goal setting system. According to it, any task should be:

Specific - specific.
Measurable - measurable.
Attainable - achievable.
Relevant - relevant.
Time-bound - limited in time.

Following these principles allows you to set the clearest possible goal, and also forces you to think deeply about your capabilities. SMART is a separate topic, and we can talk about it for a long time. But the fact is this: when making a list on it, a person will ask himself great amount questions and imagine more clearly what he wants. He will not just include “Buy a car” in the list, but will know which one, when, for how much and how he will earn money for it.

Personal goals

It was said above that it is better to divide the list into blocks. It's comfortable. One of the main ones should be the “Personal Goals” block. Everyone will put something of their own into it. But here are the ones that most people in the world ask themselves most often:

Lose weight.
Start writing a book.
Stop procrastinating - putting off things and dreams for later.
To fall in love.
Find true happiness.
Get a tattoo.
Spontaneously take off on a trip, deciding it literally in one second.
Start writing a blog or diary.
Learn to save.
Read a lot of books.
Living an interesting and active life.

In general, the list of personal goals for the year includes tasks that not only have special value for a person, but in most cases require some effort and work on himself. It also includes dreams and hopes.

Spirituality

As many people know, this term refers to highest level self-regulation and development of mature, whole personality. Many people want to become more highly spiritual, but this requires major work on themselves, their character and views, so that it can be formed into a goal list for the year. Here are examples:

Learn to be calm and calm in any situation.
Try meditating.
Learn to think coldly, quickly and soberly in particularly tense and emotional situations.
Practice gratitude.
Help someone for free.
Give up stereotypes and clichés, learn to understand and accept other values, respect them.
Overcome three of your fears.
Find answers to important questions: “Who am I in this world? What is my role? What is the meaning of my life?

Also in this block of the list of goals for the whole year you can include reading thematic books, practicing various meditations and states, watching educational lectures and programs.

Money and work

This block must also be included in the list of goals for next year. Here, by the way, specificity is especially important. Fortunately, it can be expressed in numbers, and in the future we can strive for them. Here's what it might look like:

Set aside 15,000 rubles from your salary every month for vacation.
Buy a new powerful laptop for ~70,000 rubles.
Go to Greece for 10 days in the summer, the price of the trip and accounting for expenses is ~70,000 rubles.
Increase your income by at least 20%.
Find a new area of promising activity and try yourself in it.
Start watching blogs successful people, read books about them.
Practice time management.
Improve productivity.

Composing financial list goals for the year, there is no need to neglect the numbers. In the same block, you can highlight several additional “windows” in order to visually calculate in them the amounts necessary for earning and saving, which will then be spent on purchases.

Personal growth

Every day you need to get better. This is one of the most correct. Following the steps in the block “ Personal growth“, a person at the end of the coming year should note with satisfaction that he did everything he wanted. He's gotten better. Here are the goals on the list New Year you can enable:

Start learning foreign language, by the end of next December, master it at an everyday conversational level.
Read 12 scientific books.
Find an interesting but not entertaining hobby. For example, start studying chemistry.
Sign up for some courses.
Unlearn making “emotional” purchases. It's about about purchasing those things that he wants at the moment, but two weeks later a person has a question about why he took them?
Develop your lexicon. Learn one new term a day and remember its meaning.
Master mnemonics.

This block can include: educational purposes, and those associated with purely personal self-improvement.

Health

This is also a very important block. Here is an example of a list of health-related goals for the year:

Avoid white sugar completely.
Start eating right, balance your diet.
Refuse to drink alcohol for no reason, a la “Yes, I’ll just have a bottle of beer in the evening.”
Join a fitness club and hire a personal trainer.
Go to the pool.
Instill in yourself the habit of drinking 1.5-2.5 liters of clean water every day.
Start running on the track. Over the course of a year, increase the speed from minimum to maximum.

Numbers may also come into play here. This is especially true for girls - many of them include weight loss in their list of goals for the year and carefully describe how many kilograms they want to get rid of in a month.

Relationship

Everyone knows that they need to be worked on. And if the question arises about how to make a list of goals for the year and what to include in it, then you need to not forget about the topic of relationships. Here the list could be like this:

Learn to listen and hear your partner.
Accept people for who they are. Understand that attempts to “reshape” them are disrespectful, because it’s as if the person is saying that he doesn’t care about their true, sincere essence.
Learn to find the right words of support that your interlocutor needs at a particular moment, which could really comfort him.
Give nice gifts to friends and family just like that.
Find a new joint hobby with your significant other. Do something unusual, bring newness to the relationship.
Experiment more in intimacy.
Learn to give constructive advice.
Instill the habit of putting yourself in other people's shoes in order to better understand them.

Well, there are many more goals that can be formed. But in this case, not only quantity is important, but also quality. Only what is truly important and of value should be included in the list. And then, having compiled it and designed it beautifully, you can pin it in a visible place. Or even put it in a frame - it will look better and provide additional inspiration.

Another year has begun. We tear down old calendars and hang up new ones. We break old deadlines and set new ones)) In general. Have you ever wondered why one month has 31 days and another 28, and how it would be convenient to remake the calendar so as to cover all the work at once at one glance and on one sheet? If so, here's an excellent article from author, blogger, and entrepreneur John W. Richardson.

I hate the standard yearly calendar. It starts with an odd numbered day and is divided into months of varying lengths. Every year is different and difficult to break down into parts that we use in planning. Then add leap year, and everything is really difficult to get. For example, here is a standard calendar for 2015

Note that it starts on Thursday, which is a holiday and effectively gives you one working day at the start of the year. If you divide 52 weeks into quarters, you get 13, a prime number. Try splitting it entirely. This already gives me a headache. You may also notice that each month has an odd number of weeks (4.2, 4.5, etc.).

When planning, I like uniformity. I understand the world uses a basic calendar with different holidays depending on the country, but I need something that makes sense to me. As an online entrepreneur, I work primarily from home and create posts and interact with others when they are working, typically Monday through Friday. I tried many solutions, but most turned out to be too complex to work. Personally, I like to look at the calendar and know where I am without using any crazy formulas.

After many hours of research and planning, I created a Life Planning System that uses just three basic numbers...

5 — 10 – 50

Also, the plan itself consists of three main parts:

1. Long-term priority planning

5-line destination planning
10-year master program
50 year legacy

2. Setting realistic priorities

5-day week (10 hours per day, 50 hours per week)
2. 10 week goals
3. 50 week year

3. Daily action plan

5-minute: do it now
10-Minute: Taking Action
50-minute: hourly priority

For this post, I want to look at a 50 week year. To create it, I simply took a standard calendar and started counting from the first full week. For 2015, such a week begins on Sunday, January 4th. I simply numbered all the weeks after it in order. They end in mid-December, taking into account the holidays in the last two weeks at the end of the year. This is what such a calendar looks like:

I divided each week into a planning day (Sunday), five work days (Monday to Friday) and a rest day (Saturday). I basically modeled this calendar around the standard work week that most organizations use. I simply indicated the first day of the beginning of each week, as well as the month to which this date corresponds. Now I have 50 weeks, which I can easily divide into the five or ten week chunks I need.

In my experience, ten weeks is the ideal length for most purposes. You can easily lose 20 pounds, write a book, train for a 5K marathon, finish most projects, and generally have a period of time that is easily divisible and meaningful.

In my five-day work week, I work 10 hours. That gives me 50 hours a week. In fact, that's how much time most people spend away from home (8 hour workday, one hour lunch, and two and a half hours commuting). And since I work from home, I'm usually able to work 10 hour days most time

The basis of the system is 50 minute hour priorities. During this time, you focus on only one goal, complete one task that is a priority for that hour, and then take a ten minute break. Just set a timer for fifty minutes, turn off all distractions, and get to work. Repeat as needed throughout the day (I usually manage to work three or four of these hours productively during the workday). Plus, fifty minutes can easily be divided into 5 and 10 minute chunks (and they're already marked on the clock) to get more done. simple tasks. This system has revolutionized my work. After implementing single-task priorities completed in 50-minute chunks, my productivity increased greatly.

Now, let's look at the simple mathematics of this system:

5 days x 10 hours per day = 50 hours

50 hour work week x 10 weeks = 500 hours

5 ten week periods per year = 2500 hours per year

Now you can see how easy it is to plan your projects. For shorter ones, you can use 5-week segments, or divide the year in any other way convenient for you.

Here's another cool thing: if I want to take a break for a week during the year, I simply change the start dates of the week in the first column in the calendar, and add another week at the end of the year. Unfortunately, real world is not organized so easily, and is periodically interrupted holidays, as well as deadlines and stages arranged on the basis of the traditional calendar. Of course, as an entrepreneur, I have a more flexible schedule than most people, but for general planning this approach will help you understand your year.

Here is a PDF copy of the 50 week calendar. The start dates of the week are listed in the first cell:

In future posts, I'll show you how great this system works, but for now you can play around with the data you have. With 50 weeks in your year, you can easily divide up your projects, set goals, decide which weeks will be vacation days, and easily figure out how many hours you'll need to complete a given job.

P.P.S. If anyone needs an adapted and translated version of the calendar, I’ll send it to you!

Entrepreneur Shinivas Rao on ditching to-do lists

To bookmarks

Blogger and entrepreneur Shinivas Rao wrote a blog post on Medium about why switching from to-do lists to calendars leads to increased productivity.

“After reading dozens of books, talking with hundreds of people who are productive and successful, I found that there is only one common pattern - they all do not rely on to-do lists. They rely on calendars,” writes Rao.

The blogger gives examples of typical tasks that accompany the life of every person: deadlines from the teacher, time until the destination Google Maps, duration of machine repair. “If you understand the role time plays in your life, you will understand why you need to focus on time rather than tasks,” concludes Rao.

Planning with a calendar

The idea that a calendar can change behavior may seem far-fetched, the author writes: "But that's exactly what the Timeful team did when they founded their company - they were soon acquired by Google and integrated the project's solutions into their own calendar."

Imagine that you have a calendar. And imagine that there are things that can be presented in the calendar, and some that cannot. Usually, meetings with people are put on the calendar. Things that are not on the calendar take you 30 or 100 hours. Sports or meditation. Or when you call your mom. What happens next: the things you easily put on your calendar get done, and the things you don't get done don't get done. Thus, your life becomes filled with things that are not related to your agenda.
- Dan Ariely, founder of Timeful

According to Rao, he tried to follow Ariely's advice and put the tasks he wanted to do on his calendar. This made getting work done more consistent, and he also didn't miss a single task on his calendar.

For some reason, putting tasks on a calendar increases the likelihood that they will get done.

Calendar for tasks and reminders

The main difference from a to-do list is that a calendar primarily takes into account time: you have to work within the constraints of 24 hours a day. In addition, time constraints force you to make decisions each time about which task has priority.

“Reminders work great for small tasks - like paying a bill or sending an email. What's nice about the calendar is that the task will remain on the calendar until you delete it.”

Calendar for setting goals

When creating a goal, you can specify how much time per week you are willing to spend on it. Google Calendar will automatically select the time to work on your goal. If the selected time overlaps with another activity, the activity will be rescheduled to another day. Gradually, the Google Calendar system will learn to select optimal time to work on goals based on your preferences.