How Much Work Planning Should You Do?

Everybody has to plan their work. But some people do not plan enough, and some people plan too much. Both over-planning and under-planning leads to stress, procrastination and a feeling of overwhelm.
Here we will show you the ideal level of work planning and how to plan for the maximum productivity.

How should you plan your work? How much work planning should you do?
Should it be specific or general? Should it be short term, only for the next hour, or long term, for the next month?
All these questions are important, because both over-planning and under-planning leads to stress, procrastination and a feeling of overwhelm.

1. Under-Planning and Over-Planning

Many people do not plan their work sufficiently. They might have a list of tasks that need to be done, but no idea on when to work on them. So they decide in the moment what to work on next.
This lack of planning leads to many unfortunate consequences:

• Procrastination
• Stress
• Feeling of overwhelm
• Lower productivity

On the other extreme, some people plan too much. They will not only plan all their tasks but put each task into a time slot over the next week or month. This kind of over-planning also leads to many unfortunate consequences:

• Frustration
• Stress
• Feeling of overwhelm
• Lower productivity

So the question is: How to avoid over- and under-planning and plan work in the ideal way?

2. Dimensions of Work Planning

It is possible to characterize the amount of work planning by these three dimensions:

1. Planning horizon,
2. Time specificity, and
3. Goal specificity.

2.1. Planning horizon

How long is your planning horizon? Do you plan for a full month or do you only plan for the next hour?
It is possible to plan for the following time horizons:

• Year
• Month
• Week
• Day
• Hour

If you are planning for a long time period you get more structure, foresight and stability but less flexibility.
On the other hand, if you are planning for a short time period you get more flexibility but less structure, foresight and stability.

2.2. Time specificity

Time specificity means how specific you schedule a task. Do you just schedule a task for any point within the next year? Or are you very specific about scheduling it at a certain date and time?
There are different levels of specificity:

• Fixing the month in which a task needs to be done, but not the week.
• Fixing the week in which a task needs to be done, but not the day.
• Fixing the day in which a task needs to be done, but not the exact time.
• Fixing the exact day and time.

2.3. Goal specificity

Goal specificity means the goal level at which you plan. On the one extreme you could plan on the level of the big objectives. For example, have a happy family or increase company value by 20%.
On the other hand, you could plan on the level of the individual action. For example, send an email to a client, or schedule a meeting.
There are different goal levels:

• Mission level
• Project level
• Task level
• Subtask level

If you are planning for a whole month you probably want to plan on a mission and a project level. On the other hand, if you are planning for the next week or day, you probably want to plan on a task and subtask level.

2.4. Over-planning and under-planning

Both over- and under-planning have many negative consequences. You are under-planning when you have:

• A short planning horizon
• A low level of time specificity, and
• Only a high level goal planning (mission level), meaning low goal specificity.

You are over-planning when you have:

• A long planning horizon,
• A high level of time specificity, and
• A low level goal planning (action level), meaning high goal specificity.

Below we look at different planning types, and see how they relate to the above three dimensions.

3. Evaluating Different Work Planning Methods

Below we will look at each of the most popular work planning methods:

• Monthly Calendar Planning (Extreme Planning)
• No Work Planning
• Just-In-Time Work Planning
• Daily Schedule Planning
• Weekly Calendar Planning
• Rigorous Calendar Planning
• Incremental Time Planning Method

3.1. Monthly Calendar Planning (Extreme Planning)

In monthly calendar planning you set all the tasks for the month, then divide the tasks into weeks and days of the month and then set specific timing for all your tasks for the coming month. As a result all the tasks for the month are scheduled in the calendar with their date and time of execution.
This kind of planning can be illustrated as follows:

		Next Hour	Next Day	Next Week	Next Month
	Hour-specific
	Day-specific
	Week-specific
	Month-specific

The above table illustrates monthly calendar planning. The four cells for “next month” are marked in yellow to show that for the time horizon of the month, the tasks are fixed to the maximum specificity of month, week, day and hour.
The columns for “next week”, “next day” and “next hour” are all grey, because there is no more planning for these time horizons as all the planning has already been completed at the beginning of the month.
Monthly calendar planning is the most rigorous form of planning as it covers a large time horizon with the biggest amount of time specificity.
This is overplanning and has many disadvantages:

• A person planning this way has every task defined for him every single day for one month in advance! This leads to stress and the feeling of overwhelm.
• Also, the person does no longer have the flexibility to react to changing circumstances. For example, during the months there might be changes in importance of different projects he is working on.
• Finally, the method is impractical as for most people there are too many unforeseen events making an exact schedule obsolete almost immediately.

Thus, monthly calendar planning is overplanning and is not recommended.

3.2. No Work Planning

At the other extreme we have no work planning.
That is when you just work according to what you think and feel you need to do at each moment, without any pre-planning and scheduling of tasks.
This clearly is under-planning and therefore also leads to:

• Procrastination
• Stress
• Feeling of overwhelm
• Lower productivity

3.3. Just-In-Time Work Planning

In just-in-time work planning you do not make any long term plans but only plan at the micro level of the next hour. So this is very similar to ¨no work planning¨.
This kind of planning can be illustrated as follows:

		Next Hour	Next Day	Next Week	Next Month
	Hour-specific
	Day-specific
	Week-specific
	Month-specific

The above table illustrates just-in-time work planning. The cells for “next hour” are marked in yellow to show that for the time horizon of the next hour, the tasks are fixed.

Even though the time specificity is high, as you are scheduling your tasks for the exact execution time, there is not enough stability and structure, as the planning is only done in the moment, without any longer planning horizon.
Therefore, this is also under-planning.

3.4. Daily Schedule Planning

In daily schedule planning you make a task list every day and put the tasks into the calendar, so as to give them an exact execution time.
This kind of planning can be illustrated as follows:

		Next Hour	Next Day	Next Week	Next Month
	Hour-specific
	Day-specific
	Week-specific
	Month-specific

The above table illustrates daily schedule work planning. The cells for “next day” are marked in yellow for both day and hour specificity, as you schedule each daily task to the exact hour.
Compared to just-in-time planning this provides more stability and structure. However, it still does not provide enough of a forecast on a longer planning horizon. Also, fixing the exact schedule for each of the daily tasks already in the morning means that there is less flexibility.
This means there is both under-planning and over-planning!

3.5. Weekly Calendar Planning

In weekly calendar planning you plan all your tasks for the week and put all of them into a calendar for the coming week. This is more rigorous than daily schedule work planning as you determine both the tasks and the exact timing of the execution not at the beginning of the day but at the beginning of the week.
This kind of planning can be illustrated as follows:

		Next Hour	Next Day	Next Week	Next Month
	Hour-specific
	Day-specific
	Week-specific
	Month-specific

The above table illustrates weekly calendar planning. The cells for “next week” are marked in yellow for week, day and hour specificity, as you schedule each weekly task to the exact day and hour.
Compared to just in time planning and daily work schedule planning this provides more structure and forecast, which is good. However, it still does not provide a structure and forecast for the month. Also, fixing the exact schedule for each of the daily tasks already one week in advance means there is no flexibility, which is a bad thing.
This means that we still have some under-planning, but also a lot of over-planning!

3.6. Rigorous calendar planning

Rigorous calendar planning with a calendar means that you do some preplanning for the month and then distribute each task into specific day and time slots at the beginning of each week. We call this planning “regiosour calendar planning” as it is like weekly calendar planning but more rigorous with the additional monthly planning.
This kind of planning can be illustrated as follows:

		Next Hour	Next Day	Next Week	Next Month
	Hour-specific
	Day-specific
	Week-specific
	Month-specific

The above table illustrates rigorous calendar planning. The cells for “next week” are marked in yellow for day and hour, as you schedule each weekly task to the exact day and hour.
The cells for “next month” are marked in yellow for month and week, as you already determine the monthly tasks and determine which week you will work on them at the beginning of the month.
Rigorous time planning provides a great structure and forecast for the whole month, however, fixing the monthly tasks for all weeks of the month at the beginning of the month as well as fixing the exact day and time at the beginning of the week is over-planning with all its negative consequences.

3.7. Incremental Time Planning Method

All of the above work planning methods are either under-planning or over-planning or both. The incremental time planning method is the ideal work planning method that neither suffers from over- nor undeplanning.
In the incremental time planning method you cover all time planning horizons and all levels of specificity:

• At the monthly time horizon you only plan to the specificity of the month
• At the weekly time horizon you only plan to the specificity of the week
• At the daily time horizon you only plan to the specificity of the day
• At the hourly time horizon you only plan to the specificity of the hour

This kind of planning can be illustrated as follows:

		Next Hour	Next Day	Next Week	Next Month
	Hour-specific
	Day-specific
	Week-specific
	Month-specific

The above table illustrates incremental time planning. The four yellow cells illustrate that as the time horizon becomes shorter from month to week, day and hour the specificity increases from month to week, day and hour.
Incremental time planning provides great structure and forecast while at the same time allowing for great flexibility and freedom. It is thus the ideal work planning leading to:

• Less procrastination
• Less stress
• Less feeling of overwhelm
• Higher productivity

4. Incremental Time Planning and Goal Specificity

Above we have described the most important types of work planning methods according to two dimension:

• Time horizon
• Time specificity

However, we have also seen that there is one more dimension: goal specificity.
We did not include this dimension in the above analysis as most people plan with different levels of goals at the same time. For example, they might plan the following tasks for the day: write an email to client X, work on project Y and spend time with family. These three different levels of goals:

• Write an email to client X: task level
• Work on project Y: project level
• Time with family: mission level

The best planning in terms of goal specificity is to get more specific as the time horizon gets shorter:

• Month horizon: mission and project level
• Week horizon: project and task level
• Day and hour horizon: task and subtask level

We can illustrate this for the incremental time planning method as follows:

		Next Hour	Next Day	Next Week	Next Month
	Hour-specific	Subtask
	Day-specific		Task & Subtask
	Week-specific			Project & Tasks
	Month-specific				Mission & Project

The above table illustrates the incremental time planning method with different levels of goal specificity. As we are moving from a monthly planning to an hourly planning we are getting from the top level mission and project goals to task and subtask goals.
That means that when the time horizon is long you do not want to think about specific tasks but about your broaders goals. But as the time horizon gets shorter you want to focus more on the specific actions you have to take.
This kind of incremental planning is an essential component of the Focus Cycles Productivity System. You can find more about it under www.focuscycles.com.

5. Incremental Time Planning Software

The incremental work planning method has the perfect level of goal and time specificity for each time horizon, and thus offers both complete flexibility as well as complete stability and structure.
However, if you are using a project management tool to plan your work you will find it difficult to adjust your tool to the incremental planning method.
This is why we developed a new project management system made on the basis of the incremental work planning method.

Workiamo is a Work Management Software that is based on the Focus Cycles Productivity System and is extremely simple. It is ideal for anybody that wants to be less stressed and more productive. As you are reading this, you have earned free, lifetime access! Register at www.workiamo.com by entering this code: ILOVEWORK.