The Unraveling of your Planning

by | Happy Hour Blog: Leadership For Women | 0 comments

planPlanning and Multi-Tasking

Two of our 16 female leadership strengths. Does it sound like they may work against each other? Or is one not optimized unless you have the other?

AND HOW! For me, they help create the ideal, which is slowly and painfully disassembled as the day progresses. Walk with me through the before and the after …

The Ideal Day: (a la Katie)

7:30 am       Working emails & calendar

(Allow more for some of your situations but look to diminish email time. See managing emails for tips from a corporate client who regularly received over 200 per day.)

8:00             Morning Kickstart: PPT
(Personal Productivity Time – protected and non-interrupted!)

Material development for clients and website

Writing and being creative
Library or bookstore for research
Lots of meaty things accomplished!


9:30            Check in on Email

Phone calls
Set up appointments
Requests answered on email


10:00          Out and about: Face-to-face’s with prospects and present clients

11:30          Lunch & other errands

Start planning dinner
Dry cleaners, bank, post office, etc.


12:00 pm    Exercise (pre-empted until later if there is a lunch meeting)

Usually a bike ride where I merrily greet passers-by.

1:00            Coaching Calls with Clients

4:00            Working emails & calendar

4:30            Administrative, billing

4:45            Write plan and actions for next day, must-do’s for tomorrow

5:00            Make dinner

Reality:

7:30 am      Working emails & calendar

Location changed for morning meeting, spend time getting directions, another client suddenly needs a proposal by noon, reset SPAM filters which self-righteously rejected everything overnight


8:15            Personal Productivity Time (started 15 minutes late)

Material development for clients, a little slow on creativity, probably because it was a bad-hair day, got distracted and checked into airfares for Thanksgiving trip, got tempted by the new iPhone and researched online blogs for switching from Verizon, wandered for a while into the garden to get back on track. Nevertheless, still made good progress on some new material for next month’s workshop.


9:30            Work Email and marketing

Phone calls, some of them dreaded, wrote a proposal which was a painstaking process


9:50            Answered Phone Calls

Phone calls from clients and ended up leaving late for 10:15 appt across town, return several phone calls en route


10:20          5 minutes late to a project meeting

11:30          Lunch

Quick bite, swing by drug store to get more Advil (stiff neck from holding up bad hair)


12:00 pm    Exercise

Took a bike ride, several people did not acknowledge my hospitable greeting, swerved avoiding a lazy lizard and skidded on some gravel, bike fell over (dang toe clips), scraped myself in the exact location where I had already hit myself with the tennis racquet the day before (clearly, my follow-through needs some work)


1:00            Coaching calls start

Ahhh. Nice, quiet concentration


3:00            One coaching call re-scheduled (client has the flu)

Ran over to Kinkos to check a proof for a workbook, spent $47 at Office Depot on ink cartridges, then spent nearly that much on a latte at Starbuck’s


4:00            Project-related work

Tried to organize my notes from the morning meeting & entered the action items on my calendar, build an itinerary for a trip next month

4:25            Work emails

4:45            Admin stuff

pay online bills, client billing, balance checkbook, put in new ink cartridges, took call from Accountant and learned that California wants income tax from me (looking for ways to legally hide from that)


5:15            Declare MYO night for family dinner (Make-Your-Own) and open a bottle of Red