Organize tomorrow today

By Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo

A book that has an alternative approach to time management is that of authors Jason Selk, Matthew Rudy, and Tom Bartow entitled, “Organize Tomorrow Today:  8 Ways to Retrain Your Mind to Optimize Performance at Work and in Life.”  The 8 ways can be summed up into two main ideas below.

Organize Your Tomorrow by Planning It Today

Authors Selk and Bartow say, “Highly successful people rarely complete everything they want to do in a given day, but they always get the most important things done each day.”

The trick here is to plan what you need to do the following day, today, just before you take a first bite of your lunch.  Why not do it in the evening before you go to bed?  Because you might be too exhausted and your brain would be hardly functioning fully to be able to plan.  Take five minutes to write down the three most important things you need to do tomorrow and put a star beside the one most important thing you must get done.  When it is done way ahead, your subconscious mind will help process the data, and could come up with a better solution to your tasks.

You can classify your important tasks into two:  short-term and long-term results.  Short term means immediate results within a week such as increasing your sales for your business or winning a sports competition this weekend.  Long term means results in the coming months or years such as learning a skill that could make you get ahead more of your competitors or develop a new product for your business.

Once you’ve written down your three most important tasks for tomorrow and put a star beside the one task you must get done, put an estimated completion time next to all three tasks.

Now that you’ve intelligently planned tomorrow, you need not worry about future results – just wake up tomorrow and direct all your energy and attention to your “3 & 1.”

Expect the Worst

What I like with this time management method is having a contingency plan when things don’t work out well as expected.  Be realistic because an ideal day does not happen.  Much like what boxer Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”  How do you react when things don’t go your way as you’ve planned out?  First, the authors say take a deep breath and try not to lose your composure.  Next, reason out that you have to do things outside of your “3 & 1” list because they are urgent and important.  This will give you some peace of mind because you have to do what matters the most.  Life is all about doing those priorities that gives true meaning and purpose to life in relation to God, family and work.   Third, ask yourself what can you salvage for the rest of the day by doing something in your “3 & 1” list.  Then do your best to accomplish from what is left from that list and leave the rest for the following days.  If we follow these principles day in and day out, success on any undertaking is guaranteed as hall of fame football coach Bill Walsh once said, “If you do your job, the score takes care of itself.”