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You are here: Home / Archives for planning

planning

Planning your week for maximum impact on the things you care about

Zoey · July 16, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Ages ago I was listening to a podcast with someone who highly advocated never checking your email in the morning – and having it be an afternoon activity (and that it should only be a once a day activity – unless you have a specific job that requires you to check more regularly than that). The reason was that if you check your email first thing, then it tends to set everyone else’s priorities for your time for the rest of the day, rather than you pursuing your own priorities first. Often that first part of the day (especially for morning people like me) is my most creative time of the day, so it’s important that I prioritise it for that type of work.

This isn’t strictly about running, but the better organised you can be with your time, the easier it will be to fit the training that you want to do in. So I thought I’d share a little bit about how I structure my priorities and my week to get the most out of it. Because let’s face it, I have a full time job, two kids (thankfully at school, most of the time!) and my personal preference is for a high volume training week, so I need all the productivity I can lay my hands on.

This is what is working for me at the moment.

Write down your priority list

I don’t like thinking of it as a to do list. To do lists are stressful. Priority lists are about making sure the most important things are the things that get done first. I tend to look at my list from the week before to get in all the things that are weekly things that don’t really change and then I add in anything else that is particular to the week or in preparation for a bigger monthly or quarterly event. Next to each thing, I estimate how many hours it will take me. I also write down training sessions in my priority list, because they are important too and note down how long they will take as well. I like to make sure that everything is written down there. So if I need half an hour a day to respond to emails, that time is not going to come out of thin air, it needs to be on the list. And then I number everything from first priority to last priority.

Break up your day into 1 hour blocks, with breaks.

I find that I like to separate out my different things into sections so I might be working on the website for an hour, then I might have lunch, then I might do a weights session, then I might come back and do an hour of programming. That’s for a few reasons. It keeps my mind nice and fresh by switching between things. It allows me to be pretty focused because I’m only working on one thing at a time for at most an hour and it means I’m not sitting down at a computer for hours at a time. An interesting study found that when you think you are being hyper-productive with multi-tasking you actually end up losing about 40% of your time by switching from task to task, and you are much better off single tasking. So that’s really what I try to do.  But make sure you have time in between your slots because you aren’t a machine, you need to create a bit of buffer space between activities which also allows for wiggle room when something comes up unexpectedly.

Before I start adding things into blocks, I add up the total hours and make sure I have enough time through the week. In a typical week I might have about 25 hours on my hands once I take out appointments, stuff for the kids, school pick up and drop off and all the rest of it. So if my number is higher than that, then I’d need to make some adjustments to my priority list and move a few things that are low down the list into next week.

Start slotting your priority list into your time blocks

Now it’s time to start adding your priorities into your time slots. I like to put the things that require the most creativity first thing in the morning when I am fresh and the things that are more purely administrative in the afternoon. It’s good to work out what your sleep style is to work out when you work best through the day. As a classic early to bed, early to rise type of person I’m pretty good for anything I need to get done in-between 5 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon but after that I don’t really have the attention for it. If you can, structure your day around what is going to work for you. I also like to put things that I have a high level of resistance to (like rehab) earlier in the day. If I leave it to the afternoon I can get decision fatigue and really struggle to push myself to do it. Whereas if I do it earlier, I find it easier to get going and then I get to feel really smug about it for the rest of the day.

The good thing about this system is you can put in all of your appointments or meetings so you can see from the outset whether you have a fair amount of time through the week or if it’s a week that is jam packed and you are only going to be able to get the necessary things done through the week. I do tend to stack things a bit more at the beginning of the week so that Friday can be a bit more of a relaxing day or a day to do errands.

If you are able to: alternate between sedentary and active things and it will make a huge difference to what you are able to get done through the week.

And remember, nothing is set in stone

Planning is all about giving yourself the maximum opportunity to get things done. But life has a way of not going according to plan, regularly! I do find it’s often necessary to move things around through the week or if something comes up get rid of things that aren’t absolutely necessary from my schedule. Remember it’s there to make your decisions easier through the day, structure the day so it’s the most enjoyable and help you to get through what you want to get through, but don’t let it become an albatross around your neck either. If a friend comes over for coffee, or if you need to just not be doing stuff for a day, don’t sweat it. It’s a priority list, not a to do list.

2015 – are you ready to be epic?

OperationMove · November 7, 2014 · 19 Comments

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Some people are planners. They need to have a goal in place, a direction to follow, a training plan to work with.

I am one of those people. In the past, I’ve been one of those people almost to the point of it being unhealthy, and I am re-learning that spontaneity can be really fun too at the moment.

But some goals take more planning than others, and when it comes to bringing the team together we know that the more notice we can give you all, the better the chances that we will get to catch up with you at an event!

And so with that in mind, we’d love to share with you the planned team events for 2015.

Of course many OpMovers will be running in many events over the year, but these are the three where we plan on having most if not all of the exec team present, and we will be organising social catch ups and carb loading events the day prior to race day. So even if you are not a runner now, you can pop the dates in your diary and look at joining Learn to Run and taking part in a 5k perhaps? Or set yourself a heftier target then plan to join our Far and Fast monthly subscription for a personalised training plan to help get you there maybe? Or even just make sure you are free to come along and take the opportunity to meet some Movers, and cheerlead those out on the course on event day.

So grab your calendar and make sure to save the following dates!

May 16 – 17 – Great Ocean Road

Yep, we are heading back to the beautiful bay to head up hills and around bends and enjoy the amazing scenery of this run. The weekend includes many various race distance options so there is absolutely something for everyone.

Our exec team have registered for the full marathon, which we intend to treat as a long slow run (because HILLS) so if you see reference to the ‘picnic marathon’ or #phwooar15 then that is what we are talking about. Anyone keen to join us is welcome, we will NOT be racing this one.

The half is a beautiful run as well, and there are 14 and 6km race options available as well as a 1.5km kids run.

July 4 – 5 Gold Coast

The Gold Coast Airport Marathon is known to be one of the fastest and flattest in the country, plus it is on the GOLD COAST so for those of us who are feeling the chill in the southern states by July, a weekend escape to the sun seems like a great idea right?

Offering a marathon, half marathon, 10 an 5.7km races as well as a kids run, this weekend again gives everyone a chance to be involved no matter how new (or not new) a runner they are.

Mid October (dates TBC) – Melbourne

Back to where it all began, the Melbourne Marathon weekend is a key event in the OpMove calendar and we hope next year to see even more of you running across the many distances on offer.

We had SUCH a great time this year, and it is sure to be a fantastic event once again next year. Stay tuned for details as they are released.

Oh and I mentioned during the week that there was one great big audacious thing that Zoey and I are doing too, didn’t I?

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Yes. Yes we did.

On May 31st, along with the gorgeous Jo E, Zoey and I will be running 90kms uphill in South Africa. As you do.

Because if you are going to take it to the next level, you may as well do it properly right?

Surprise!

So your turn! What are your goals and dreams for the new year? Will we be catching up with you at any events?

If you want it, plan for it

OperationMove · March 13, 2014 · Leave a Comment

failure to plan

Hope is not a plan.

If you want something, write it down. Research shows that if you actually write down what you want or your goals, even if that’s all you do, you are far more likely to get there than if you don’t write it down. Making something real, has a way of bringing it into your reality.

Full disclosure. I’m a structured person. I don’t particularly enjoy surprises. I’m not that spontaneous. I can’t do Fartlek because what even is it? Pick some object in the distance and run fast to it. How far? And how fast? It’s impossibly confusing. I’ll let you in on a secret. There’s a reason I’m so structured. And it’s because I’m lazy. I have a lazy personality. Path of least resistance. Take the easy option. Take the way of doing the least work possible. At odds with this in my personality is the fact that I am a highly ambitious person. To get from point A to point B there are always certain non-negotiable things that need to be done. Even my lazy self recognises this. At a certain point these two aspects can come to an agreement of sorts. Ambitious person will identify the most efficient manner possible of achieving goal and Lazy person will agree to do those things because there’s simply no other way to get to point B.

The beauty of the plan

The fantastic part about a plan is that it will separate out what you want to achieve into chunks of things that are actually doable. And because it does this you have inbuilt markers for how you are tracking towards your goal. You’ve written it down which isn’t just an act of having something so you can remember it, it’s an act of intention and commitment. That act of commitment will help you get through the days when lazy person shows up and wants to sleep in because it’s a stupid freaking goal anyway and doona. The plan will get you out of bed when you are tired and whiny and have nothing resembling motivation. The plan will show you how far you have come. And the plan will stop that voice in your head that whispers seductively ‘ you could just run 5 today’, BECAUSE PLAN.

You can always change a plan, but only if you have one

It’s not to say it’s completely inflexible, it’s not. Having recently completely stripped my body of all it’s iron stores, I can’t do my normal long runs right now. I’m not going to insist that I stick to the plan there. But I change it. I sandwich medium runs on the weekend instead. And some days it isn’t the lazy person saying stay in bed, it’s your body saying I need a break and you need to listen to that too.

Reach the goal, anyway you can

No matter how you get to your goal, it takes hard work.

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.” – Michelangelo

I know myself well enough to know that without a plan I would not be capable of that hard work. I wouldn’t have a goal, I’d just have some vague wish off in the distance. With a plan my ambitious self and my lazy self can get along just well enough to agree that there are certain steps along the way that are necessary and that they will take together. Sometimes, I might need to change the plan but I will never change the goal.

You will never know your limits, until you push past them

The cool thing about writing a plan is that you can take something that looks achievable and then increase it to a level you wouldn’t think possible. Not by an insurmountable amount, just enough to test yourself. The brilliant thing is? When you get towards the end of the plan – it is within your reach. And as much as it rewards you to see it done, the ambitious person in your mind only has one word: NEXT.

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