Constraints on Personal Planning

I’ve been learning about different systems of planning days, months and quarters lately. As much as I love software, I’ve begun to wonder if the best solutions for personal planning might actually be simple templates on paper.

One example is the Daily Manifest. This is a simple, one-page template. It gives you three blank spaces for your current ninety day goals, three for your current thirty day milestones, and three for the current day.

It’s so simple, but it makes some key decisions for you. It decides for you that the ideal period for longer term goals is ninety days, the ideal period for milestones is thirty days and the ideal task load per day is three tasks. And it includes a space for tracking a few habits and jotting down a few reflections each day.

A person could spend so much time experimenting and arriving at these decisions, or one could just use this template. And as a productivity geek, I know that people like me waste a lot of time building overcomplicated solutions to the ultimately simple problem of setting goals and maintaining focus on them. Something like the Daily Manifest is the antidote to digital tooling excess.