Planning for 2022 (Part 2: Execution)

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In the previous post, we learned how to prepare our plan in Part 1: Preparation, where I share with you some tips on making a sensible schedule that is easily tracked and followed up. I also shared a free and complete planner with you to keep up with your schedule. But before we get down to the article, do not forget to like ❤️👍 this post and subscribe 🔔 as this will help the channel grow! Also, feel free to share this link with anyone who might find these 2022 planning tips helpful ✍️

Now, let's get down to business. I would like to invite you to execute your plan with me, so those brilliant ideas we brainstormed earlier will not just sit on the shelf, gaining dust. But wait, what were those ideas again? Seven days after New Year, your mind seems to be as blank as the newly hung calendar on your wall. Remember, planning a new year is indeed essential, but it is more necessary to execute the plan and put those brilliant ideas to work! 📖✍️ In this post, I will cover the second part, namely execution.

1. Revisit Your Planner

It is normal to forget our own ideas; that is why keeping those ideas stored somewhere we have easy access to would be handy. If we want to make a habit, we need to ease ourselves into accessing the habit, and the first step is to have easy access to revisit the plan we have designed for ourselves before (Clear, 2018). This is how my iPad home looks like, and to access my planner, I just need to tap on the Collanote logo (the third bottom left).

Once clicker, here is how the inside of my Collanote app looks. You can see that each book is stored neatly under each section except the planner because I want to have direct access to it every time I log in. Since the key is easy, I never have any problem or feel lazy to access my planner. 📖✍️

2. Execution

According to Forleo (2019), writing makes our goals more concrete and tangible, and indeed, a written to-do list is simpler to execute, review, and alter as necessary. Here is a sample of my daily to-do list from January 1 until January 7 using the planner design I attached in Part 1: Preparation post.

Now, once we revisit our planner easily, let's try to understand our mechanism. Here I will explain how my mindset triggers my actions. Take an example on "Study for self-growth" and "Read Bible". As you can see, those are two of the to-dos that have the most ticks. What do I do to execute these plans well? It relates to my hour-to-hour schedule. Here is one of the examples of how I arrange my hour-to-hour list.

As Clear (2018) explained, habit stacking is essential as it becomes a cue for another chain of habit to follow along as well. For example, when I gain consciousness in the morning, the first thing I do is to reach out to my AirPods and plug them into my ears, which triggers me to play a podcast playlist, which easy one-tap shortcut I put on my iPad home. As the voice of the podcast speaker echoes my eardrums, I feel more awake, and I have enough consciousness to grab a bottle of lemon water which I put on my bedside table the night before. The acidity of the water slaps me hard and remind me clearly that I want to have a healthy life. This, in turn, motivates me to open the door and walk to my exercising equipment, which I put just outside of my room, once again for easy access.

The study for self-growth through podcasts becomes my cue to make my next stacked habit.

The same easy access plus habit-stacking also become why I can do Bible reading every day. My lunchtime becomes the cue for me to eat, not only with my mouth but also with my eyes. I become triggered to read something as I much on my lunch, and because the Bible is located on an easy spot to tap, I can read it without making too much effort on lunch breaks. 📖📚

3. No Excuse

It is easy to be disappointed in ourselves. "Oh my, I woke up at 6.15 today, it is already too late to do any exercise! Let's just cancel for today and do it tomorrow." No. Just do it. Even if I wake up at 6.55 due to a malfunctioning alarm setting (yes, I am guilty of this), I still hop on to my jumping jack and squat routine several times. Because once you permit yourself to be sluggish, then you are on the right track to metamorph into a real slug 🐌📚

Moreover, when you feel like not doing something, ask yourself, why not? For example, sometimes I feel lazy reading the Bible because my eyes are strained from looking at the screen for too long, so I do not want to read any letters throughout my breaktime. But, there is no excuse as I can opt to listen to Bible audio readings or Bible podcasts from the JW app.

In conclusion, what is important is not my mean goals on how I will execute my plan, but my end goal is to do what I have planned for myself without reasoning myself away from it. Once I capture the project, I pin it down as a written form on my planner, then I put it into action no matter what. As the saying goes, "Better is done than perfection."📖✍️

Reference(s):

Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits. Instapdf.in. Retrieved January 7, 2021, from https://instapdf.in/atomic-habits/

Forleo, M. (2021, January 6). Everything is figureoutable - Setting goals? 2 Steps to achieve. Today Novels. Retrieved January 7, 2021, from https://www.marieforleo.com/2017/01/goal-setting/