I’m writing this at night, and I just planned tomorrow.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve gone back and forth on planning my day either the night before, or the morning of.
You should do it the night before.
You’ve just gone through the day, and you might be tired. But you’re also intimately connected with what worked and what didn’t. You know how you need to start the next day, and you can make a plan for it.
Whether you’re an early riser, or a night owl, the pattern for your day is set when you wake up. And if you’ve already planned that out, you’ll have a much better morning, and then a much better day.
You don’t need a morning routine, like so many claim.
It might actually be better to have a nightime routine, one that includes 5-10 minutes of planning for the next day.
What can you do to make evening planning effective?
First, schedule it in. If you’re planning today in the morning, add planning tomorrow to your evening plans.
Second, don’t do it right before you go to bed. You’re likely going to be planning on a screen. Best to do that earlier in the evening, rather than later. I like to plan the next day once we get our kids put to bed.
Third, if you’re planning well before you go to bed, include your plans for the rest of the evening. You can make your nighttime hours much more productive by thinking about how you want the next day to go. It gets easier to go to bed early enough to sleep well, to prepare a few things to make the morning go easier (setting out gym clothes, prepping the coffee pot, etc.).
And if you feel good about the day and know you’ve earned a break, it can be awesome to plan tomorrow after planning an evening of relaxing television or one-on-one time with your spouse.
Now, that said, I’m not perfect, and I often plan my day in the morning. Here are some tips for making that work.
First, don’t plan your day first thing. Your mind is not ready to do that. Ideally, you’ll plan after doing some form of exercise and eating.
No social media or web surfing before you plan. Yep, you should exercise and eat breakfast in peace. If you start checking Twitter or Facebook, it’s all over.
List the stuff you’ve already done in your plan for the day. Writing those down, and checking them off, gives you momentum that you can carry into the rest of the day.
Make it happen! It will be very tempting to slide right into work, whatever that is, and not take the time to plan your day. If you do that, take a break, set work aside, and make it happen.
I just did. Will you?