From the author: In this article we will look at some pitfalls when making various plans. Let's try to touch on the topic of making plans “for life”, i.e. cover all important areas of your life. Let’s learn that plans, goals, priorities are not ossified structures, and we will use this. With simple practical advice we will get rid of the stereotype that drawing up and implementing plans is a chore and torture. Forward to ease! “PLANS FOR LIFE” or the secret of making plans with ease About the global and simple. Traps and tips. I remember when I couldn’t write on a piece of paper a plan for implementing my first training, but at one point a good friend told me: “It doesn’t matter whether what you write is doable or impossible; It doesn’t matter that the very next day you change your mind and want it differently. The process of focusing on your desires, plans, goals is important...” And I realized that then your first timid list of actions will be a starting point - stable and clear - on which you can build in the future. And along the way, you can already make changes, as necessary, in circumstances and mood. The first pitfalls Whatever one may say, writing a plan (daily, annual, life) is a whole process that sometimes you just want to put in the back drawer. “The illusion of significance” Not it’s worth linking the beginning of this business to certain events and dates: “when I quit, then I’ll sit down and write, then there will be time, then plans can be made,” “after the New Year/Birthday is the time to start a new life " Not only does this give reasons to put off and put off all sorts of undertakings. All this gives a special illusory importance to the process itself, elevating it to the rank of Event. Before him, there immediately arises a sense of awe and a desire to push this very event further away. In principle, “planning to write plans” is not only similar to “butterfly”, but in general it looks like a trap. Making plans should become a simple everyday procedure without unnecessary pathos and sacredness, mysticism of action. “Mission impossible, sir” We are often told: “Don’t plan the impossible.” But what if this is a dream? What if this is the idea that makes you want to live!? Write! Be sure to write. And there is no point in lamenting the impossibility of achieving what you want! And even more so, frighten yourself with this and reduce the level of claims below the plinth. Let this be your starting point, your guide! But don’t attach importance to it, like “do it in a month or die!” until you have completed all the procedures described below. Diagrams. “The whole volume of life” I propose dividing plans into CATEGORIES (work, health, self-development, etc.). It’s good when each category is considered separately and its own plan is drawn up for each. In order to make it easier to deal with all these categories: to highlight the most significant ones for yourself, not to miss the important ones, to set priorities - it will be good to take a comprehensive look at your life as a whole. This, by the way, is educational and fascinating. To do this, it is useful to identify for yourself the main AREAS OF ACTIVITY that you are engaged in, to which you devote your time, energy, and thoughts. And sketch them in the form of a general diagram. To avoid possible confusion, each sphere should be designated by figures of equal size, and connections should be made between them and subparagraphs should be created. Below is a schematic sketch of this version of the diagram. For orientation. The structure of the diagram is quite flexible and can change over time. If you make the next diagram “without prompts” (i.e., despite the previous version), then it will be interesting to compare them later: to look at the dynamics of priorities, the appearance or “forgetting” of points, changes in their significance. It’s interesting how the structure changes due to a change of job, the appearance or disappearance of a person from your life, or the arrival of personal psychotherapy. It is especially interesting to compare multi-year stacks of such diagrams, so make sure that they are stored in a separate folder. The main CATEGORIES that willIt’s easier to highlight based on the diagram; it’s already good and convenient to distribute by importance. This will help you navigate in the future. Additional tools. Help us! By the way, it is very good to additionally use the “Wheel of Life” option, in which there are already pre-planned directions of life, which you analyze and mark on a scale from 1 to 10 according to the degree of your attention to them and the strength of their development. You can read more about this technique on the Internet. Here I will give a couple of diagrams that can already be used. It’s also a great help for taking a comprehensive look at your life. But a diagram created by you personally will give a more complete, detailed picture of what is happening now in your life. “Goal by goal.” Level up It’s great if you can formulate a goal for each of the highlighted areas of life or categories. At least preliminary. For those who care how they build their lives, those who are ambitious, those who want to look at their lives in a new way, I can offer a deeper process. Looking at your diagram, we set a life goal. The nearest, important one, which simply excites you! Let’s imagine that you have achieved it - what will be the next one after it? We write everything down. Once the second goal has been achieved, what next? What goals do you set for yourself, what do you want to achieve? And so on up to 7-10 goals. Opposite the point after which we no longer know what to write, we put its serial number. Below we write the number of the next point and leave an empty space for the future, an ellipsis - let it languish us a little. For me personally, doing all this was not easy. It makes you think and reconsider your views on many things. But after all the work done, there is a feeling of such clarity and integrity! For those who are not ready to be burdened with difficulties, we move on to the stage of drawing up plans. Plans. Let's get started! Having our diagram and a list of categories/goals in front of you, you can already make PLANS. And in order not to burden yourself with meticulously writing out all the “target” plans for life at once, and not to intimidate yourself with the global nature of this process, I recommend that after drawing up a “general diagram” life" simply fill out one category each week, making a plan for it. By the way, you can already put this as an item in your weekly plan. Plans aimed at achieving basic goals, working with categories (i.e. “target plans”) will remind you of the important thing you are going towards, and will not let you leave anything behind. without attention, being distracted or carried away by one thing. Your whole life with its priorities at the moment will be in focus. The purpose of this diagram is not to cover all the pieces of our life, but to highlight the main thing. After all, usually when compiling a list of immediate tasks (for a day, for a week), we include in it tasks that are not directly related to our main goals and dreams: buy a chess set for our brother (he has long dreamed of it), wash the curtains, plant a tree. And often, we can get carried away with daily affairs and worries, losing sight of the important moments of our life, forgetting our dreams. In this case, it’s always good to have your chart in front of you and make sure that the weekly plan contains at least 2-3 items from the “target” plans, and that an item in one of the main categories is scheduled for each day. And our whole life is in the palm of our hands! And we manage it without missing anything! Then every day and week is filled not only with routine tasks, but also with what truly leads us to our dreams! Deadlines, results Setting deadlines for the implementation of certain tasks is an important point for the success of their implementation. Also, your plans should set dates or frequency with which you will summarize the preliminary and final results of the work. Periodic review of the results of task completion will be an important help for calibrating your ambitions, adjusted for your capabilities. And in no case another self-flagellation “again I didn’t do everything 100%” or an exalted pedestal “yes, I did all 2 points in a week.” Rather, looking at the results, it will be possible.