Project management plan for failure in 2022

By planning task management, we can shorten the work time considerably, at the same time devoting less energy to it. All it takes is 5-10 minutes spent with a calendar in our hands, with an application or just writing a checklist. Using a checklist improves efficiency and helps prevent the "I'll do it later" attitude. Let’s take a closer look at the most common mistakes that stand in the way of effective planning and what can help in this process.

What makes a plan a failure?

Without a doubt, we all had a few plans that fizzled out. Why does that happen? One of the most common reasons for this failure in the field is trying to make use of every minute of our time. Meanwhile, it is impossible to avoid unforeseen events during the day. Not without reason, experts recommend that you plan no more than 60% of your workday. Leave the rest of the time for unplanned activities and, above all, for some rest without which it is impossible to work effectively.

The key element of effective planning is to create a hierarchy of your responsibilities. Determining which tasks are the most important for us and focusing on the first will give us energy and motivation for further work. Even if it turns out that we are running out of time, forcing us to move less important tasks to tomorrow, we are still one step closer to our final goal.

Effective planning cannot be successful if we do not know the pace of our work. Usually, we are too optimistic about the number of tasks we can perform in a given period, and, as a result, we do not have enough time for less important activities that we have to postpone over and over. To avoid being overwhelmed by work, it is worth assuming that a given task might take us twice as much time as we expect. Our checklist will automatically shorten. It appears, however, that it is better to complete fewer tasks rather than wrap up the day with frustration and a feeling that you did not work well enough, right?

To plan the work day, you can use a simple paper notebook and a calendar. You could also benefit from the advantages of new technologies and try out some applications helping with time and task management, such as ICP. Using it, we might not get the satisfaction of checking the consecutive points on our "to-do" list with a pen, yet the conveniences offered by the system make up for this minor drawback. What can we gain? Above all, access to our task list from almost any place and the possibility to share it with other team members. There is no need to persuade anybody that this could improve the workflow in their team. Even the best checklist created on paper cannot, unfortunately, be synchronized. Time management in ICP is also simplified by the built-in calendar, which displays tasks entered into it. We do not have to remember the date of their implementation; the system will remind us of this with a special notification.

Let’s sum up what you can do for the planning to be effective:

• Leave yourself a margin for error.
• Prioritize the tasks
• Start with the hardest assignments
• discover your working pace
• embrace the opportunities offered by modern tools

Higher motivation, better quality of task execution, and time savings are just some of the benefits of effective planning. Although this skill is, indeed, a form of art, mastering it does not come without effort, by all means, it is worth practicing. This is an investment with a great rate of return that will help to avoid a plan for failure.