At first, it doesn’t matter. Later, it does.
When I say that it doesn’t matter at first, I mean it. It really doesn’t.
You could do it at night, before you go to bed. You could do it in the morning, right after you wake up. You could do it at lunch, or when you get home from work, or after you walk your dog, or before you eat your daily taco. You could do it during your mid-morning bowel movement for all I care.
The point at the beginning is to do what works, not what is optimal.
You aren’t capable of doing what is optimal, when you first start out.
So you just do what you can. In time it becomes a habit, and you start to feel secure, knowing you’ll do it each day. That’s when you experiment a bit.
Try getting more detailed in your plans. Try being looser.
Or try it at a different time.
You’re no longer trying to build a habit, now you’re trying to optimize it.
Or maybe you’re just trying to keep it alive. Sometimes I’ll plan at lunchtime, or even later. It’s not ideal, but it keeps my habit in place. When I do, I usually write down the stuff I’ve already done for the day. This helps order my mind and also leads to greater honesty as I plan the rest of the day.
But for me, I’ve found that planning the next day works best at night.
Mind you, I don’t necessarily make my best plans at night. But remember, planning the day isn’t about perfect plans. It’s about ordering your mind. When I plan at night, I put an order in place. Then, I sleep, and my subconscious works on those plans in my sleep, sometimes manifesting them as dreams.
And then I wake up.
You’ve probably had the feeling of waking up and jumping out of bed because you were excited about the day.
That won’t happen. Well, it won’t happen all the time.
But it will happen more often than if you try to plan in the morning. And it’s awesome when it does.
It’s one of those blessings from the universe. You can’t force it. Sometimes, your moods, your energy level, and your plans come together to give you a perfect morning.
Of course, planning in the morning is something else I’ve done a bunch of, and it has it’s own benefits. When I plan in the morning I like to do it after some exercise. I’ve already got some momentum going with my day, and that carries into my planning.