The Purposeful Planning Method, Chapter Three
How to Plan Your Day, Beat Procrastination, and Regain Control of Your Time
Copyright © 2019 by Matthew C. East
All rights reserved.
CHAPTER THREE
Why Does This Method Work So Effectively?
“The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.”
— Madame de Stael
The Purposeful Planning Method relies on two time-tested and straightforward concepts to ensure you plan each day effectively:
Prioritizing what you want to focus on each day is critical to your success.
Embracing positive habits into your daily routine is the most effective way to ensure you achieve what you want.
Those two concepts are the backbone of everything we'll discuss in this book. Let's touch on why each is so important.
Prioritizing is critical to our success because it helps ensure we intentionally focus on our most important projects, activities, and relationships throughout the day. Having clarity about our priorities is one way to ensure we’re thoughtful and effective with our time. And, behavioral scientists suggest our habits consume 40 percent of our day. This means being intentional about our habits can help ensure we use our time as purposefully, meaningfully, and productively as possible.
Of course, you didn't need to read this book to learn how prioritizing your time and creating good habits will help you be more productive. Although we know each of these is critical to our success, it can be a challenge to do them. And that's why this book is vital to your success. It provides a method to follow each morning to ensure you start each day with clear priorities and intentional habits.
I mentioned the intent of this book isn't to convince you how important it is to plan your day. After all, you already chose to read a book titled, The Purposeful Planning Method. This means you recognize planning is essential to your success. However, as you adopt this method, you may still interact with colleagues, friends, and family members who might try to minimize how necessary planning is. Be cautious about accepting advice from these people. If you encounter anyone who downplays the importance of planning, consider the level of success they have attained in their life before taking their advice. The truth is, planning and prioritizing is key for anyone who is looking to maximize their potential. I strongly encourage you to speak with as many successful people as you can to discover how they plan their time. Connecting with these high performers will only reinforce how critical planning and prioritizing is to your success.
Most people reading this book already understand how planning can help them be more productive at work. And it can definitely do that. But its benefits reach far beyond work. Remember, the purpose of using this method is not to do more stuff just for the sake of doing more. It's the opposite. The aim is to help you identify what is most important to you each day so you can plan how you want to use your time.
Beyond work, use this method to:
Reach your peak level of health and fitness
Dedicate more time to your meditative or spiritual practice
Get out of debt and create financial abundance in your life
Spend more time and be more present with your family
Nurture valuable relationships and friendships
Relax and enjoy your leisure time more
Have a thriving marriage
Or use it for any activity you choose. There are no limitations.
This method uses a proven scheduling technique called time blocking. Time blocking allows you to proactively assign blocks of time to complete tasks throughout the day.
The world’s most successful people have practiced time blocking for centuries. Ben Franklin, an entrepreneur, author, and a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and The American Constitution, used a block schedule to structure his day. Franklin shared his block schedule in his autobiography, and shared, "Every part of my business should have its allotted time." [1]
You can view Franklin’s block schedule in Image 1. Audiobook listeners can find this in the accompanying PDF within the Audible app, or you can easily find these examples online on my website at www.matt-east.com/book.
In addition to using the proven practice of time blocking, The Purposeful Planning Method leverages habit creation and routine development to perform at your peak. By embracing these techniques, you'll be using the same daily practices as the most successful people in the history of the world.
Examples include:
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin and a self-made billionaire, provides a great example of time blocking. Branson blocks time on his calendar to ensure he exercises daily. He says, "I play a very hard game of singles tennis every morning at 6." [2]
The media icon and philanthropist Oprah follows the same daily routine upon waking. "First thing in the morning, I brush my teeth and take the dogs out." Then she completes "a series of spiritual exercises that I do every day. Then I meditate." [3]
According to Walter Isaacson, author of the biography, Steve Jobs, "Steve had an evening routine where he would come home and sit at a nice long wooden table in the kitchen of his house in Palo Alto to eat dinner every night with his kids and his great wife." [4]
In The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the author Pico Iyer shares, "[By] nine a.m. the Dalai Lama himself had already been up for more than five hours, awakening, as he always does, at three-thirty a.m., to spend his first four hours of the day meditating." [5]
Other successful people known for relying on their daily routines to create an extraordinary body of work include:
Best-Selling Authors—Maya Angelou, Haruki Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, E.B. White, and Stephen King are known for the commitment to their routines.
King famously writes every day of the year without exception beginning work between 8 a.m. and 8:30 am.
Championship Athletes—Usain Bolt, Messi, Michael Jordan, Novak Djokovic, Carli Lloyd, and Tom Brady use game-day rituals and daily habits to perform at their peak.
In his book, Brady shares the following, "To create stronger, faster connections in our brains, we need to practice a habit, skill, or behavior again and again. The more we practice that habit, skill, or behavior, the more automatically our brains recognize it."
Beethoven, one of the greatest composers of all time, and Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, were both recognized for their commitment to process and routine to ensure their creativity.
Picasso said, "Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success."
I particularly love this quote because there is a misconception that creative disciplines don't require structure and planning. However, in most instances, you'll find the world's greatest creators are reliant on habits and routines during their most prolific periods.
Nelson Mandela, a beloved political leader and former President of South Africa, was well-known for his commitment to his daily workout throughout his life.
In his autobiography, Nelson says, "I attended the gym for one and a half hours each evening from Monday through Thursday. We did an hour of exercise, some combination of roadwork, skipping rope, calisthenics, or shadow boxing, followed by fifteen minutes of bodywork, some weightlifting, and then sparring."
These are just a few examples of extraordinary people who used routines and habits to achieve great things. The Purposeful Planning Method doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. It leverages the exact principles these leaders used to achieve incredible results. If there is a well-known person whose work you admire, I encourage you to learn more about their habits and daily routine. A simple Google search will do the trick.
I also asked clients for their feedback about why The Purposeful Planning Method works so effectively, and here is some of the feedback I received:
"I love planning this way because it ensures I'm proactive instead of reactive with my time. It ensures I take action on what's most important to me.” — Elise
"I've noticed by having a clear plan of attack for my day, I feel less overwhelmed. I have a plan for my day, but I also have a plan for when unexpected things pop up throughout the day. I feel in complete control of my time." — Mica
"Using this method has completely ended my tendency to procrastinate. Beginning my day with a plan and clarity about what I'm focusing on makes it so much easier to take action throughout the day." — Tobias
"This approach has allowed me to do activities around my energy pattern. This helps me align my peak energy with my daily writing and allows me to write more each day." — David
"Prioritizing leisure and time with my family has been a game-changer for me. I feel much more connected with my family, zero guilt when I'm relaxing, and I'm no longer burned out on my business." — Andrea
In the following chapters, you will learn exactly how to use The Purposeful Planning Method. As you reflect on your schedule, I encourage you to approach it as a self-experiment. You will see positive results immediately after adopting this method; you can use the 10-Day Challenge later in this book as a guide to get started. Enjoy the daily planning process; designing how you will spend your time each day should be a rewarding and pleasant experience. Embrace it and remove any pressure you've put on yourself. We're going to be striving for progress—not perfection—as we begin. Remember, there is zero downside to planning your time more effectively. But the benefits are endless, so stick with it. It will positively impact every aspect of your life. And remember, anyone can successfully use this method.
Chapter Recap
The Purposeful Planning Method relies on two time-tested and straightforward concepts to ensure you plan each day effectively:
Prioritizing what you want to focus on each day is critical to your success.
Embracing positive habits into your daily routine is the most effective way to ensure you achieve what you want.
Prioritizing is essential to our success because it ensures we intentionally focus on our most important projects, activities, and relationships throughout the day. Being intentional about our habits ensures we use our time as purposefully, meaningfully, and productively as possible.
The Purposeful Planning Method leverages the same principles used by the most accomplished and successful people to ever live.