Do you have nothing planned for tomorrow? Don’t be surprised if you sleep in and get nothing done.
Being responsible for your recovery means planning and prioritising. This is nothing new and dead poets of all shapes and colours know this. If you don’t plan, you will "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (Shakespeare HAMLET) and become a "slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men" (Donne, HOLY SONNETS). "Therefore, throw off this ignoble discouragement" (Krishna, BHAGAVAD GITA) and take responsibility for your time by planning what goes into it.
How do you plan? People keep telling you to eat breakfast, and you know it is a good idea. But you never do it, because you don’t have a plan! Now write down "Tomorrow and each day I will rise at 7AM and eat three Weet Bix." Now you have a plan.
So you rise at seven then realise that you don’t have any Weet Bix. Great! Your plan is working. You have just improved your life by realising that you need to buy Weet Bix and whatever other ingredients you need. Add this to your plan then execute your plan now.
Expect some false starts to every plan. They are a sign that your plan is working!
After a while you won’t be taken surprise by flaws in your plans. Weet Bix is now on your shopping list. Even if you forget, you are reminded of it each morning at 7AM when you rise to have breakfast. This creates a virtuous circle. If the supermarket runs out of Weet Bix you will see it as a chance to try Vita Brits, not as a sign from the Lords of Chaos that they want you to fail.
A lot of people think planning is only for work and therefore does not apply to days when you are not at work. The original Time Management guru Alan Lakein wrote about 50 years ago that your life plan STARTS with PERSONAL goals. Work is how you pay for it all.
Prioritising things is a topic worthy of an article of its own. I have made a note on my list of things to do, to do an article on prioritising and I have given it a high priority. Look out for it in Panorama.
By Warren Heggarty, Panorama Magazine
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