Kindergarten Planning Works and Works Extraordinarily Well

Have you ever returned to your office after time away to find where you left off and what priorities you are working had escaped your memory?

I have. Too many times before I learned this...
Before I share the answer, come and experience my journey to the answer.

A year or so ago, I was returning after just taking Sunday off. That night, as I sat at home in my easy chair with my feet up and my review journal, I closed my eyes and remembered my day. Beginning from the time my feet hit the carpet to where I was now. It wasn't a productive day and my critic was trying to justify it away with, "Its okay, nobody has a productive day after coming back from vacation."

This was an eye opener for sure. I spent too much time fooling around with e-mails as I figured where I left off. During my review, I felt that lost feeling I was experiencing that morning that I kept pushing away.

A week passed and it was another Monday. I began to experience this again. This time I knew I needed to STOP it now and I didn't want to experience at the end of the day. "But how" I asked myself. I sat quiet and listened.

"Index cards" my mind answered.

"Index cards?" "Oh, okay," my mind responded but just because there isn't something better coming up.

I went into the supply cabinet and pulled out a stack of index cards and returned to my desk. I sat there staring at them. What’s next?

I heard, "Shhh...quiet...listen!" So, I did.

"Write one project on each card." I obeyed.

"Okay, what’s next?"

"Wow, you sure are impatient!"

"Yep, my parents complained about this too especially in the car on a trip."

"An hour or before you leave for a vacation, or even a weekend, write down where you left off and what was your next step," was the next message.

"Okay, gotcha. But...but...but this seems so rudimentary. This feels like returning to kindergarten planning! I have all these other methods on the computer that seemed much faster."

"Shut up; wear your Nike’s, just do it."
And so I did. To my surprise it worked. And worked well. In fact, I have given this suggestion to many clients. Yes, they too were saying the butts just as I did.

I went on to use this on a daily basis for a few weeks. Every night before I went home I updated my index cards. I crossed out the previous message, added new cards when there wasn't any more room on the card, and wrote in the last thing I did on that project and the next step to begin with tomorrow.

Eventually I moved everything over to Outlook but it wasn't the same including my success. Eventually I compromised. I wrote it all on a tablet instead of index cards -- I'm an environmentalist and need to save some trees.

To this day, I continue this process. I am able to dive right in to where I left off and it feels as if it's one long continuation.

Many writers actually use a similar method -- they stop in the middle of a sentence at the end of each writing period. After some practice of doing this they learn to pick up immediately where their thoughts left off.