I wrote a post about the importance of personal 1:1 meetings and self-reflection last week and have received a bunch of requests for the daily one page plan I use. So, as a follow-up to that post I figured I would just share it here so anyone interested could grab it, use it, and make it their own. Emphasis on the ‘making it your own part’. I’ve found that to be the most important thing in productivity. It’s creating a system that works for you. If you try to force an existing system on yourself, chances of success are slim. That’s been my experience, at least.
When you open up the template, you’ll see a few different sections. Here are some notes on how I use each section. This is in completely editable format, so you can change things up to fit your particular role and style of working. Here are some general tips on how I use it.
- I print it off each night before I leave the office so I can write in my plans for the upcoming day. This helps me set my intentions for tomorrow.
“Your attention follows your intention.” ~George Mumford
- The first part is the week’s number one priority. This tends to be a bigger project or task I need to get done that may take more than a day. But I’m planning my activities around getting that important task done.
- The next section is my daily cadence. These are the things I just do every single day like clockwork. They never change, unless my role changes. Creating repetition and habit on certain aspects of our jobs is important.
- To the right of the cadence section are four disciplines I try to keep in mind for everything I do. These could be completely different for you, so feel free to change them.
- Below that section is ‘Today’s MITs’, which stands for ‘Most Important Tasks’. These are the 3 things I absolutely need to get done that day. Some of them are very likely related to the week’s number one priority, but not all the time.
- Below the MITs is a section for any follow-ups I need to do that day. In some cases I will also mark those on my calendar, but not always.
- At the top of the right side of the page I have priorities for the quarter. This is a constant reminder of bigger picture projects I need to be executing on.
- Below the priorities for the quarter I have some blank space for notes from the day. These tend to get moved over to either follow-ups or MITs for the next day, depending on what they are. (The entire second side of the sheet is blank, too, in case you need more room for notes. I’m almost always spilling over to the second side of the page).
- At the bottom of the sheet I copy/paste a snippet of my calendar. It’s always for the next 5 work days in a rolling fashion. This may seem strange, since I could just go look at my calendar on my computer, but it helps keep everything in one page right in front of me all day long. There’s never a question of what I have coming up on my schedule, what I need to think about cancelling or moving, etc.
- Lastly, I have a few words right above the calendar. This reminds me to stay focused on things of significance and not just things that make me busy. And the number 1440 is a reminder that there are only 1,440 minutes in each day, and I need to be mindful of how I spend each one of them.
Here’s the template: https://www.slideshare.net/TJWaldorf/daily-one-page-plan-template
Hope this is useful! Best of luck with your personal productivity improvements.
