فصل 21

Plan Weekly

Take fifteen minutes each week to plan your week and just watch what a difference it can make. Why weekly? Because we think in weeks and because daily planning is too narrow a focus and monthly planning is too broad a focus. Once you have a planner of some sort, follow this three-step weekly planning process.

Step 1: Identify Your Big Rocks. At the end or beginning of each week, sit down and think about what you want to accomplish for the upcoming week. Ask yourself, “What are the most important things I need to do this week?” I call these your big rocks. They are sort of like minigoals and should be tied into your mission statement and longer-term goals. Not surpisingly, you’ll find that most of them will be Q2’s.

You might come up with a list of big rocks that looks something like this: My Big Rocks for the Week

• Study for science test

• Finish reading book

• Attend Megan’s game

• Complete employment application

• Party at Isabella’s

• Exercise 3 times

Another way to identify your big rocks is to think through the key roles of your life, such as your role as a student, friend, family member, worker, individual, and whatever else you do and then come up with the one or two most important things you want to get done in each role. Planning your life around roles will help you stay balanced.

ROLE

Student

MY BIG ROCKS FOR THE WEEK

Get started on history report

ROLE

Friend

MY BIG ROCKS FOR THE WEEK

Mario’s birthday Be more complimentary

ROLE

Family

MY BIG ROCKS FOR THE WEEK

Take Colleen to mall Call Grandma

ROLE

Job

MY BIG ROCKS FOR THE WEEK

Get to work on time

ROLE

Me

MY BIG ROCKS FOR THE WEEK

Go to concert Write in journal every night

ROLE

Debate Team

MY BIG ROCKS FOR THE WEEK

Finish research Practice openings

As you’re identifying your big rocks for the week, don’t get carried away. Although you may feel you have forty big rocks that must get done, be realistic and narrow your focus to no more than ten to fifteen.

Step 2: Block Out Time for Your Big Rocks. Have you ever seen the big-rock experiment? You get a bucket and fill it half full of small pebbles. You then try to put several big rocks in the bucket, on top of the pebbles. But they don’t all fit. So you empty the bucket and start over. This time you put the big rocks in the bucket first, followed by the pebbles. The pebbles neatly fill in the spaces around the big rocks. This time it all fits! The difference is the order in which the rocks and pebbles were placed in the bucket. If you put the pebbles in first, the big rocks don’t all fit. But if you put the big rocks in first, everything fits, big rocks and pebbles. Big rocks represent your most important things. Pebbles represent all the little everyday things that suck up your time, such as chores, busy work, phone calls, and interruptions. The moral of the story is, if you don’t schedule your big rocks in first, they won’t get done.

During your weekly planning, block out time for your big rocks by booking them in your planner. For example, you might decide that the best time to get started on your history report is Tuesday night and the best time to call your grandma is Sunday afternoon. Now block out those times. It’s like making a reservation. If your big rock such as “give out three compliments each day this week” doesn’t have a specific time attached to it, write it somewhere in your planner where it can be seen.

If you block out time for your big rocks first, the other everyday activities will fit in as well. And even if they don’t, who cares? You’d rather push aside pebbles than big rocks.

Step 3: Schedule Everything Else. Once you have your big rocks booked, schedule in all of your other little to-dos, daily tasks, and appointments. Here’s where the pebbles go. You may also want to look ahead on your calendar and record upcoming events and activities, like a vacation, concert, or birthday.

Adapt Daily

With your weekly plan in place, adapt each day as needed. You’ll probably need to rearrange some big rocks and pebbles now and then. Try your best to follow your plan, but if you don’t accomplish everything you set out to do, no big deal. Even if you only get a third of your big rocks accomplished, that’s a third more than you might have accomplished without planning ahead.

If this weekly planning method feels too rigid or complicated, don’t scrap it entirely, just do weekly planning light. For example, you may find you only want to schedule two or three big rocks for the week and that’s about it.

The point is: The simple act of planning ahead each week will help you focus on your big rocks and consequently accomplish so much more.

Does It Really Work?

Does this time-management stuff really work? You bet it does. I have personally read numerous letters from teens who have had great success with the above suggestions. Here are comments from two teens who were taught about the Time Quadrants and began using a planner and doing weekly planning: Jacob:

I remember looking at the diagram of the Time Quadrants and saying, “Man, this is true. I do a lot of last-minute things.” Like homework.

If a paper was due, I’d do it Sunday night to turn in Monday, or if there was a test on Friday, I’d skip school on Thursday to study for my test. I was pretty much in crisis.

Once I figured out what was important to me, I started to prioritize and started using a planner. If I wanted to go fishing I would say, “Well, this other thing is more important. I’ll do that first, and then maybe tomorrow I will have the whole day to fish.” Eventually I started studying more effectively, aced my tests, and everything just fell into place. My life would have been less stressful if I only had used my time more effectively earlier.

Brooke:

My stress level has decreased because I am no longer constantly trying to remember what I have to do a few days ahead. Now I can just pull out my schedule and I’m all set. When I get in a bad mood and stressed out, I look at my schedule and realize that I still have time to do everything, especially the things just for me.

One of the few things that can’t be recycled is wasted time. So make sure you treasure each moment. In the words of Queen Elizabeth I on her deathbed: “All my possessions for one moment of time.” • THE OTHER HALF

Time management isn’t all there is to Habit 3. It’s only half of it. The other half is learning to overcome fear and peer pressure. It takes courage and guts to stay true to your first things, like your values and standards, when the pressure is on. I once asked a group of kids, “What are your first things?” to which they answered, among other things: “family,” “friends,” “freedom,” “excitement,” “growth,” “trust,” “God,” “stability,” “belonging,” “looks.” I then asked, “What keeps you from putting these things first in your life?” Not surprisingly, “fear” and “peer pressure” were two of the top responses. So we’re going to talk about how to deal with these.