The Art of Short-term Planning

Lately, I have rediscovered the joy of cooking. It’s a great stress reliever. There is something about making things with my own hands; It brings me back to the present moment. If you are a working woman, it’s very likely that you either cook far too often- it’s a daily obligation, or you have outsourced the task. I’ve done the latter. In both cases, you might have forgotten the joy of cooking.

If you are a man, it’s very likely that you cook rarely. It’s also likely that you are completely oblivious to what it takes to manage a kitchen. You are missing out on one of the great joys of life. You are also creating an obligation for your partner to cook/manage a kitchen every day by not sharing that responsibility. If you cook often, or share the responsibilities of managing a kitchen with your spouse equally, I believe you are in the minority.

A great writer once said, “one person cannot do two full-time jobs, but two people can do three full-time jobs, if they share it equally.”

I believe every person should cook well enough to feed themselves and their family and should do it often, regardless of gender.

Anyway, lately I’ve also been thinking about the role planning plays in cooking. If I don’t have a long-term plan, I will be overweight with a heart condition when I am sixty-five. If I don’t plan for the month, I will be out of cooking oil. If I don’t plan for the next hour, I will find myself chopping onions, and a dangerous amount of smoke coming out of the overheated oil.

Same thing applies to work. One day, twenty years ago, my mentor asked me, “You’re working eight hours a day, for six days a week. Where is all that time being spent?” And I didn’t have a clear answer. That’s when I became a planner.

The number of professionals who don’t plan at all surprises me. Many of us have a goal. But we often miss that it needs to be broken into smaller objectives for the year and for the month. Short-term planning is crucial, and it needs to be in sync with the long-term plan.

Once I have set a long-term goal (spanning three to five years), I sit down at the beginning of the year, and think. What are the objectives that need to be taken up for this year? Then, I prioritize among these objectives based on time sensitivity, and importance.

After that we move into the territory of monthly plans. I like to think of this with two fictional managers. One who plans the month: Sulekha, and one who doesn’t: Nandini.

Nandini has an overall plan, but she doesn’t plan her month. So, her time gets hijacked constantly. By ‘hijacked’, I mean this-

Nandini works very hard, but it feels like more work keeps popping up! It’s not because there are too many tasks and not enough time. That’s true for every manager. So, what’s the problem?

When Nandini gets to her desk she remembers about that important project. By the time the meeting she called about it is over, half the day is gone! Her team members come to her in the afternoon with problems they are facing. But her colleague Aakash comes striding in with something very urgent. By the time Aakash’s problems are heard, and a plan of action is made to address them, the day is almost over. When Nandini’s team finally get a chance to talk to her, she learns that they were approaching their task the wrong way. She sets them on the right track, before the phone rings. Her boss asks for an update on the fortnightly marketing activity. It’s the evening by then, and Nandini’s day is just beginning. She wanted to travel every other week to connect with other branches…forget it.

What went wrong? Nandini didn’t decide what’s important & what’s urgent. And by not deciding, she let others decide for her. Others’ priorities became hers. Her day was hijacked.

How would Sulekha approach this day? She plans her month and her week. So-

In the morning, she looks at the schedule for the day. After a quick glance-through, she calls her daily team meeting. She sees her team getting side-tracked, and corrects their approach. Her calendar has also reminded her about the fortnightly marketing activity. She asks her team to set it up in the second half. Clear about what to do, her team works energetically. When the not-so-urgent project is brought up, Sulekha knows it’s not high priority. She has already scheduled that meeting on the 25^th, she informs them. Instead, it’s important to review the sales numbers against targets. She finds the month is slow. Maybe because there were some recent changes in policy. So, she designs and launches a reward scheme.

In the second half, Aakash comes striding in. But after listening to his problem in brief, she stops him. She is assertive, because she knows that it’s not the priority. Instead, she looks at her calendar and sets up a meeting with him. In the second half, she completes the marketing call, and when the boss calls, she is ready with an update. It’s the evening, and her day is over. Sulekha goes home to rest, because she is travelling to the other branches tomorrow. All the necessary arrangements were done by the admin team a week ago, according to her travel plan.

Sulekha only did these seven things at the beginning of the month:

1. She listed down everything she wanted to do in the month (as per the year’s plan and previous month’s actionable)
2. She set time aside for strategic objectives like networking, and made a travel plan.
3. She looked at her transactional objectives, and planned weekly reviews after setting the month’s target.
4. She thought about the projects and decided which ones are not very urgent and consciously decided to delay them.
5. The urgent and important ones were scheduled in the first week.
6. She left some unplanned time for real surprises.
7. Everything she decided went into her calendar and was sent to the concerned parties.

Sulekha and Nandini are extreme cases. Sulekha is perfect, proactive. Nandini is a mess, reactive. Since Sulekha is perfect, she would also review her month at the end, and incorporate the feedback she gets in the next month’s plan. No one can be Sulekha, but I find it very useful to be more like Sulekha and less like Nandini!

Plans are not fool-proof. In fact, they are bound to change, and go wrong. But with practice, things begin going according to plan on many days. And that makes all the difference. It’s the difference between cooking a delicious meal, and having to eat barely edible food.