You Have to Make Time to Make Time

Editor’s note: I recorded this as a podcast for Productive Flourishing long after I originally published this post. I hope you enjoy it, and if you’d like to hear more episodes of the podcast, you’ll find them in the show’s archives.

Eric Grey from Watershed Wellness started a great conversation about our Momentum Planner Digital Pack via email that I wanted to share here because it's such a common theme that people ask me about:

I want to buy this again, truly. I’ve bought them for a couple of years. But here’s the problem - I never actually USE them. Not because they’re not useful (they are!) but because I cannot figure out how to make time to use them. Does that make sense? I feel like to take advantage of a system that plots out what you are going to do over a given period of time, you actually have to interface with that system enough to use it.

I use a GTD system with Omnifocus and have for the better part of ten years. It works wonderfully well for me in part because it only requires me to look at it when I need a task and once a week or so when I review the whole mess. But the problem is that it doesn’t seem to give me the structure I need to get closer to my goals partly because it’s very much an “in the moment” and “everything is the same” type of system.

I need a hybrid approach, but I feel that hybrid approach requires me sitting down and spending real time with it on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Am I right? How do you use the system? What have you seen be successful? I’m interested!

Here was my response, kept the way that I normally respond to people via email. I've made a few edits and added reference links to aid new readers and enhance on-page readability.

Not because they’re not useful (they are!) but because I cannot figure out how to make time to use them. Does that make sense? I feel like to take advantage of a system that plots out what you are going to do over a given period of time, you actually have to interface with that system enough to use it.

Here's the truth of it: if you don't have time to make time for planning, you don't have time to not plan. This is true of fantastic doers as much as of the planners and visionaries, for they get 60% of the way through something before they realize that they shouldn't have done it in the first place and that what they've done has displaced the other stuff that was more important to them.

The hard part is the startup cost of using a new system. It might take a couple of hours to sit down and think about quarterly, monthly, and weekly roadmaps, but once you're done with that, it takes 30 minutes a week to adjust them. However, not sitting down and building the roadmaps makes the process take an additional 90 minutes every week. #OurSurveySays

You're absolutely right that you have to regularly engage with the system. The planners are designed to facilitate this happening naturally, especially when printed out. When you flip into the next week, you have a weekly version of your preferred planner that will probably be empty, so it's a great time to review your monthly objectives and what you did last week. When you roll into another month or quarter, the blank monthly or quarterly planners serve as a reminder that you need to spend some time reviewing your plans.

But the problem is that it doesn’t seem to give me the structure I need to get closer to my goals partly because it’s very much an “in the moment” and “everything is the same” type of system.

That's my problem with OF (OmniFocus) and most digital apps, to be honest. I use them mostly to memorize and to remind me, not to actually sort through what to do. Paper is better for that.

When I use the planners, it's normally when I really do need to chunk, sequence, and plot out what I'm doing. I'll then put that information into OF, Basecamp, etc. rather than use the planner as my dashboard. Because of what I call "strategic mindfulness," I know that what shows up in those apps is aligned with what I need to be doing, so what's present "in the moment" reflects where I was aiming for things to be. I don't use them every week, though, because it's so ingrained into the way I think about the world AND because I work in a much more team-centric workflow now, I've had to figure out how to externalize my projects and tasks. (This is still a huge work in progress.)

I need a hybrid approach, but I feel that hybrid approach requires me sitting down and spending real time with it on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

You're right about both the hybrid approach and the time required. Strategic thinking and planning is some of the hardest, most creative work we have to do; done right, it's also some of the most important work we'll do.

You have to make time to make time. (Tweet this.)

When you make time to make time, you can start to see that some of the things you're already doing may not be what matters most and so can be downscaled or eliminated, or you can figure out ways to do what you're doing better. The thing about firing from the hip or being behind is that they're self-perpetuating habits: firing from the hip reinforces not learning how to make better shots, and being behind keeps you so far behind that you can't figure out how to get caught up.

One last thing: no productivity system can override your choices. A system can support you to help you choose the things you'll focus on, but you also need both self-mastery to focus on your chosen goals and the expectation that focusing on them will help bring about the results you want.