Cliche #5 - Daily Planning

Frank's Management Cliche #5

"Spend three hours planning what to do with the other five hours in the day and you'll get more done than if you just go to work"


Explanation:

As in most of my cliches, there is a bit of exaggeration to make a point.  Probably most people will key on the eight hour day.  I know that most managers would love to only have an eight hour day.  Managers have many more things to do than they could possibly actually accomplish.  That means that a manager must be very good at prioritizing their work, delegating what others can do, and discarding what doesn't need to be done.  That can't be done effectively without a plan.  Every task must be weighed against all the others for both importance and urgency before deciding where to put effort.  This means that it is imperative that a manager spend some time every day evaluating what needs to be done and scheduling tasks based on their relative importance and urgency.  Without a plan, a manager will default to what is urgent.  The last email, the last colleague interruption, the last phone call, etc.  At the very least, the manager will end up spending several extra hours at work every day as they realize at the end of the day all the things that they didn't get to.  Without a plan, the day starts out slowly with lots of time wasters finding their way into the day.  The manager gets serious only after realizing that they have squandered away most of their time.  Unfortunately the same thing happens the next day. 

Tasks come to a manager from many different sources.  The boss gives tasks, subordinates need help, emails bring tasks, the phone brings tasks, meetings result in tasks, etc, and last but not least, the manager may have some tasks that they determine for themselves.  The effective manager will create a single list of tasks from all the sources and evaluate and schedule them in the appropriate priority.  This is not a two minute exercise each day.  Three hours vs. five hours is probably too much, but the point is that it takes time to plan properly, but the benefits are worth it.