How a 5-minute Daily Planning Routine Significantly Increased My Focus and Productivity

Past Monday, I began the working with 4 tasks in my mind. End of the day, I accomplished 3 of them, 4th one I didn’t do. As the day unfolded, a new task showed up. I made room for it on my to-list and lowered the priority of one item on my list. A plan needs to be flexible to accommodate changes in reality.

For the past few months, I have been trying to begin each workday with a plan. Each night, I write on a piece of paper 3–4 tasks that I want to work on the next day. I feel that the difference between a day with a plan and the day without one is that between day and night. When I begin a day with a plan, I feel more focused, in control, and energized. In contrast, the day without a plan becomes just another day on the calendar.

With planning a day before it has begun, we become proactive and do something about the future as Alan Lakein wrote in 1973: “Planning is bringing future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”

With a plan, we instruct our subconscious mind, a worker we own, to get ready for tomorrow’s work. When we fall asleep, our mind works in the background and often generates fresh ideas that help us accomplish our next day’s tasks more efficiently.

Planning brings clarity to our day. Clarity helps beat procrastination. And the flip side of procrastination is productivity.

Planning is an important daily activity that is surprisingly simple and takes only a few minutes. Here’s my current planning process:
(1) Before bedtime, I take a 4x6 ruled index card and a pen.
(2) I ask myself, what are the 3–4 important tasks on which I want to make progress tomorrow?
(3) Next morning, before beginning my workday, I write these tasks on a whiteboard.

Writing my daily tasks on a board also gives me a visual reminder to work on them throughout the day. Before each task on the whiteboard, I put an empty checkbox. As I complete a task, I check this off the list, which boosts my motivation to working on the next item on the list.