The Purposeful Planning Method, Chapter Four

How to Plan Your Day, Beat Procrastination, and Regain Control of Your Time

CHAPTER FOUR

The Fluid Layer

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

— Mary Oliver

As I mentioned earlier, The Purposeful Planning Method uses two layers for planning your day:

The Fluid Layer
The Habit Layer

The Fluid Layer ensures we plan and schedule time for our most important priorities and tasks each day. It helps us determine what to focus on before the day begins.

Remember the ideas in this book build on one another, so for now, just focus on the concepts without worrying about implementing them. We’ll start by using the 10-Day Challenge later in the book.

I shared previously how your priorities are areas of your life that are important and meaningful to you. Priorities include projects you're focusing on at work or home, activities you want to do, or relationships you want to nurture. You achieve your priorities by completing actionable tasks associated with them.

In Getting Things Done, author David Allen shares how important it is for our tasks to be actionable. Actionable tasks are things we can do that will move us closer to achieving our priorities. Using actionable tasks to build your Fluid Layer helps your day flow smoothly from one activity to the next. For example, here are priorities and actionable tasks that could be associated with them.

Your priority may be to spend more time with your wife. The actionable task associated with it could be to make a reservation at your favorite restaurant for a date.

Or your priority may be to grow the revenue of your business. The actionable task could be to text or call ten prospective customers.

Maybe your priority is to stay in touch with your parents. The actionable task may be to call your mom or dad.

Creating your Fluid Layer includes three steps:

Determine what your priorities are for the day.
Identify the actionable tasks associated with accomplishing those priorities.
Block the time on your calendar to do your actionable tasks.

To build your Fluid Layer, you start by identifying your top three priorities for the day. Here are eleven guiding questions to help identify your priorities:

If I could only achieve one thing today, what would it be?
What’s the second most important thing I need to accomplish?
What’s the third most important?
What else needs to be done?
What could I complete today that would make me happy when reflecting on my day?
What can I do that will move me closer to achieving my goals?
Are there projects or tasks that others own but I should follow up on?
What key relationships in my life need my energy today?
What can I do to remove stress from my life?
What tasks can I delegate to someone else today?
Is there a task I’m avoiding that I should complete today?

After determining your priorities, you’ll identify the actionable task or tasks associated with each one and assign a time on your calendar for completing it.

A few important things to keep in mind when creating your Fluid Layer.

Tasks often take longer than we estimate, so you’ll want to block plenty of time to complete each task. I often find tasks take twice as long as I expect. Psychologist call this phenomenon The planning fallacy, and it explains how people tend to significantly underestimate how much time is required to complete a task. [6]
Build in open time blocks for unexpected tasks to arise throughout the day.
Most people tend to overestimate the number of tasks they can achieve in a single day. Don’t get discouraged. Planning your day is a skill, and you will continue to improve with practice.
Align your daily priorities with your broader career, business, and life goals whenever possible. This ensures your daily actions are moving you closer to your goals.
The top priority for the day will not always be the first task you schedule. For example, your top priority may be attending a one-on-one meeting with your boss at 4 p.m., but since it’s late in the day, it may be one of the last things you do.
Always start with blocking time for your top three priorities. After adding these, add any additional priorities you want.

I asked one of my clients, Eli Chastain, how prioritizing has helped him. He shared with me, “At this point, I can’t imagine a morning without time to prioritize and plan what I intend to make of my day. This simple act, every morning—before kids, before fitness, before emails, and before work—has helped me find meaning in the simplest acts. Finishing a huge project has the same accomplished feeling for me as taking my daughter to a movie, all because I decided that morning that each experience was important and worthy of my attention. This brings richness and meaning to everything I do, big and small. It all matters.”

Let's explore three Fluid Layer examples. Each is from a client I collaborated with. The examples first show their top three priorities for the day. Then the actionable tasks associated with those priorities, and last, the blocked time on their calendar.

The examples use Google Calendar, which is free with any Gmail account. However, you can use any electronic calendar or pen and paper for creating your Fluid Layer.

Fluid Layer Example 1: Corporate Professional

This example is from a marketing director who works from home for a Fortune 500 company. Her top three priorities for the day:

Finish creating copy for a product launch
Attend a product marketing meeting
Attend a one-on-one meeting with Michelle

To accomplish her top three priorities, she blocks time from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. to finish writing copy for the product launch. From 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., she blocks time to attend the product marketing meeting, and from 3:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., she blocks time for her one-on-one meeting with Michelle.

You can view her schedule in Image 2.

In addition to her top three priorities, she also wants to:

Run
Eat a quick lunch
Respond to emails throughout the day
Prep for her one-on-one meeting with Michelle
Keep time blocks open for unexpected tasks and items that arise during the day

To schedule time for each of these, she blocks the following time:

Email from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., run and shower from 12 noon to 1:30 p.m., lunch at from 1:30-2:00, respond to email from 2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., prep for her one-on-one with Michelle at 3 p.m., and respond to more email from 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.

She also left four, thirty-minute blocks open for unexpected tasks or to use for last-minute requests or meetings.

I love this example because she does a great job of proactively blocking time to process her email and for unexpected items to arise during the day. You can view her schedule in Image 3.

Fluid Layer Example 2: CEO

Below are the three top priorities for a CEO of a sixty-person tech company:

Meet one-on-one with the director of operations
Prepare for a meeting with a potential investor
Coach her daughter's soccer practice

To accomplish her top three priorities, she blocks 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. to prep for the investor meeting; from 3 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., she blocks time to meet with the director of operations; and from 4:30 p.m. to 6:15 p.m., she blocks time to travel to and coach soccer practice.

Notice she has multiple time blocks for a single priority: "Prep for investor meeting." You can view her schedule in Image 4.

Also, she wants to:

Check and send email
Keep plenty of time open for unexpected tasks and items
Review company financials
Review the sales funnel
Eat a quick lunch

To accomplish these priorities, she blocks time for email from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 12 noon, from 12 noon to 12:30 p.m. to review company financials, and from 12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m. to review the sales funnel.

She also left four, thirty-minute blocks for unexpected tasks or to use for last-minute requests or meetings.

I shared this example because I love how she prioritizes leaving work at 4:30 so she can coach her daughter's soccer team. You can view her schedule in Image 5.

Fluid Layer Example 3: Author

Below is an example of an author; her top three priorities are:

Write 1,000 words
Play tennis
Take a long walk

To schedule time for her top three priorities, she blocked time to write from 5 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., play tennis from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., and walk from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

You can view her schedule in Image 6.

Also, she wants to:

Have a large block of free time
Eat lunch at a café
Review her writing for an hour in the evening

To accomplish each of these, she blocks time for lunch from 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 p.m., she left 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. open for free time, and she blocks an hour in the evening to review her writing starting at 5:30 p.m.

I chose this example because I love how this client built large blocks of free time and multiple exercise sessions into her day. You can view her schedule in Image 7.

In the three examples, note how each person:

Determined what their top priorities were for the day
Identified the actionable tasks associated with accomplishing their priorities
Blocked the time on their calendar to do the actionable tasks

Sometimes clients feel creating a Fluid Layer isn't possible for them or it won't help in their specific situation. Let's address a few common concerns.

Objection 1: It takes too much time and effort to plan my day.

This is a misconception. It takes about seven minutes on average for my clients. Consider the reward of approaching your day with a clear plan versus winging it. Planning your day is the most important thing you can do to ensure your success, and it takes less than seven minutes.

Each morning, I ask my clients to send me their top three priorities for their day. I then send back encouragement and often ask how the previous days' priorities went. It's an excellent system for accountability. The possibilities of what my clients prioritize are endless. Here are some recent examples:

Turn off my phone for thirty minutes of uninterrupted play with my kids
Take a meandering two-hour walk with my wife
Meditate for five minutes
Start writing the book I've been thinking about for the past ten years
Learn to speak Spanish
Read a good book while sipping on wine
Attend yoga class
Fly to India from New York

Consider what you could be prioritizing during your day. Prioritizing your time is impactful because it allows you to be intentional and proactive about what you want to do. It's a missed opportunity if you're not planning your day because you think it takes too long. It's one way to ensure you’re spending time on activities you want to be doing. The truth is planning your day requires a minimal investment of time.

Objection 2: My work is repetitive and doesn't require prioritizing my tasks.

People who have little flexibility or input about how they spend their time at work often believe prioritizing their time isn't necessary. Many positions within retail and logistics fall into this category since the workflow is primarily dictated by reacting to customer needs or reoccurring tasks.

However, remember, setting your priorities is about planning to do things that are important and meaningful to you. Even if your work is repetitive, you still have things that you want to accomplish or maintain while at work.

For example, you could focus on your health by prioritizing drinking plenty of water or eating a healthy lunch. Or you could prioritize your work performance. That's the beauty of prioritizing. What you choose to focus on is up to you. If you've never prioritized your time, establishing your priorities for the first time will be empowering because it encourages you to consider what's most important to you.

If you work eight hours a day and sleep eight hours a day, you still have eight hours to prioritize outside of work. That's a massive amount of time. Sometimes when I mention this, people argue that after commuting to work, they have far less than eight hours available. So, let's cut that eight hours in half. If you work twelve hours a day and sleep for eight hours, you still have four hours. That's a significant chunk of time, even if your work and commute take fourteen hours, and you sleep for eight hours, you still have two hours to plan and prioritize. If you're in this situation, isn't it crucial to be hyper-focused about how you spend your time during those two hours?

The truth is, planning your day is critical for your success, regardless of the type of work you do.

Objection 3: My schedule varies too much from day to day.

A varying schedule is not a reason to skip planning your day. If you don't plan, it's tempting to get distracted by nonimportant items, which quickly leads to unfocused work and using your time ineffectively. Not prioritizing increases the chance of getting sidetracked by unmeaningful things and leads to procrastination.

The truth is, if your schedule varies day to day, you must plan your time if you want to be as effective as possible. By successfully planning, you approach each day with clarity, purpose, and focus.

Objection 4: I have too many "urgent" tasks I need to respond to throughout the day, so I can't plan my time.

All of us need to adapt to requests and demands throughout the day. Nobody wants to tell their boss they can’t get that urgent fix out today because it's not on their calendar. If it's common for you to respond to urgent items throughout the day, build in plenty of time for responding to these requests. You can also reprioritize your time and calendar to focus on these urgent tasks as they arise throughout the day.

However, if you tend to have many dramatic events happen during a typical day, develop new processes to minimize the number of these events from disrupting your workflow. Responding to urgent tasks can lead to feeling anxious and stressed out. Beginning your day with a plan is the best way to bring focus and clarity to your work, and that's the easiest way to combat feeling overwhelmed. The truth is, prioritizing your time will help you be more organized and focused, ultimately increasing your responsiveness and decreasing your stress level.

Objection 5: I'm not good at estimating how long tasks take.

Most people tend to underestimate how much time is required to complete a task. This is normal. People tend to be optimistic about how much they can achieve in a specific timeframe. Remember this is so common, psychologists have a name for it, the planning fallacy.

It can be disheartening, frustrating, and stressful when tasks take too long. We can combat this by understanding it’s common and blocking more time for our tasks.

The truth is, everyone feels this way, and it should not stop you from planning your day. You will learn to more accurately estimate how long tasks take as you continue to prioritize daily.

Objection 6: I'm worried I'll lose sight of my long-term goals by focusing so much on my plan for each day.

Your Fluid Layer should act as a lever for achieving your long-term goals. Your priorities should support and align with your long-term goals whenever possible. A personal example would be creating this book. One of my goals was to write a book. Instead of hoping that happened, I prioritized time to write each day. If I hadn’t prioritized time to write, I would have never achieved my goal.

The truth is, prioritizing your time each day will help you achieve your long-term goals faster.

Objection 7: I'm concerned prioritizing will reduce my creativity.

Planning supports your creative endeavors by giving you consistency and structure to create your art. It's a misconception artistic disciplines don't require planning. The truth is, the most prolific creators understand how to use habits, routines, and planning to increase their creative output.

Chapter Recap

The Fluid Layer helps us plan and schedule a time for our most important priorities and tasks each day. The purpose of the Fluid Layer is to ensure we're intentional with our time and energy. You can prioritize anything important and meaningful to you. Priorities often include projects you're focusing on at work or home, activities you want to do, or relationships you want to nurture. And sometimes, priorities are things that must be done. Like paying bills—these types of items aren't always fun, but they are important. You achieve your priorities by completing actionable tasks associated with them.

You'll learn how to create your Fluid Layer during the 10-Day Challenge. In the next chapter, we'll learn how to create your Habit Layer.

Go to chapter 5