We move forward and once again make the planning methodology a little more complex.
Duration: 1 year.
Goal: refine the habit of planning, move from chaotic weekly planning to planning medium-term goals, and develop the habit of finishing what you start.
Here I decided to explain the title right at the beginning of the section. If for the word monthly, I think you can already guess its purpose. As for the word sprinter, I actually embedded two meanings. In the primary sense, a sprinter is someone who runs a sprint — that is, takes part in a certain type of race. The second term is more IT-oriented and implies working in "sprints" — that is, work planned in advance and bounded by time limits. Sprints are carried out within the Scrum methodology. Accordingly, in this sense a sprinter is someone who takes part in these sprints — in carrying out tasks agreed upon in advance. By the way, even in IT circles the word sprinter is not used, and let us assume I invented it for greater resonance and associative connection with the section. After all, I built this item around the IT term, because several years ago, when I rebuilt my life planning through the Scrum methodology, that was when it hit me, and I realized that a project approach to planning can very easily be applied to personal life as well. I wrote an article about this earlier in my blog. And although this Scrum is nothing like full-fledged IT Scrum, its conceptual approach helped me in life. However, it does not matter at all what I would have called this section or what associations I used. What matters is that you manage to follow the recommendations from this section.
https://shitik.com/en/blog/scrum-and-sprint-life
(Article «Life by Scrum with Sprints»)
We have come close to being able to work with certain short-term goals and plan their completion. This will be the final item in our planning that is not tied to any time frame at all. And although sprints in IT have preset durations, our sprints for now will be practically open-ended — or rather, the deadlines will be more advisory in nature. To be precise, roughly 1 month, although nothing stops you from planning tasks for 1.5 months or even 2.
The essence of this section is also quite simple and similar to the previous items. To start, draw up 4–6 (or even more) medium-term goals you would like to accomplish. In the first months I would not recommend taking more than 5 items, but as you put this section into practice and, of course, understand how much you can get done, you can adjust the number of goals.
Here it is extremely important for now to keep in mind 2 key points:
1) These 5 items must not include tasks and activities you already do regularly. Going to the hairdresser, picking up a child from school, and similar items will not do. But items such as "Take a weekend trip to a neighboring regional city," "Hold a picnic with all close relatives," "Read a book," and "Complete 10 workouts" could fit well here.
2) Roughly, we draw up this list so it can be completed within a month. The key word here is roughly, and if you go beyond a month, there is nothing terrible about that.
So, let us look at an example based on the tasks I suggested above. You can form a general list and include the following goals:
SPRINT 1
- Take a weekend trip to a neighboring regional city
- Hold a picnic with all close relatives
- Read a book
- Complete 10 workouts
You can format the heading of our list at this stage in many different ways:
— "TASKS 1." After they are all completed and it is time for the next goals, title the list "TASKS 2," then "TASKS 3," and so on.
— "MONTH 1." Looking ahead, I will say that this is the format we will use later, but in this section it is still not quite appropriate and correct, because your sprints may stretch beyond 1 month. But if you still decide to stick with this naming, the next list should be titled "MONTH 2," then "MONTH 3," and so on.
— "SPRINT 1." As I see it, this is a good option. In this section we are working with sprints, and it is a good name for the list. As new sprints come along, increase the number to 2, 3, and so on.
So, we have 4 small goals we have set for completion. Before moving on to a detailed breakdown of tasks and planning our weeks, it is important for us to understand what these goals actually include. Let us look at each one in more detail.
1) Take a weekend trip to a neighboring regional city. Necessary steps:
— buy tickets
— book accommodation
— look up possible sights
2) Hold a picnic with all close relatives. Necessary steps:
— notify relatives about the idea
— find out their free weekends and adjust to a possible date
— decide on a location
— decide on activities
— decide who will get there and how (if necessary, arrange transport)
— decide on food and drinks
— buy food and drinks
3) Read a book. Here everything is quite simple and there is no need to break out subtasks. Although for me reading a book is always more than just reading a book: I also need to take notes as I read, selecting what is interesting and new; then format the notes, reread them, add the book to my file of books read while filling in the data, prepare a preview and comment about the book for posting on Instagram, and finally post on Instagram — only after that do I consider the book read.
4) Complete 10 workouts. Similarly to the book, in our example I will not describe this in more detail, although I could have listed workout types.
Having this list, we can apply the "Weekly Beginner" practice to our list as well. When initially planning these tasks for roughly a month, we will assume that a month has 4 weeks. Although in fact it is slightly more, but those will be reserve days to rest or finish loose ends. If you want to stretch your sprint beyond a month in advance, you will have more than 4 weeks at your disposal, but in our example there will be 4 weeks.
Our initial task: roughly plan all our activities by week, and also plan everything in detail for the first week. For the first two goals we have subtasks and steps toward the goals, but for the book and workouts we do not. For those we can simply divide the number of pages and the number of workouts evenly across all 4 weeks. Suppose our book has 240 pages — then we will need to read 60 pages each week. We will also need to work out 2–3 times a week on average to end up with 10 workouts in a month. Ten workouts do not divide evenly across 4 weeks, so in some weeks (say, the least busy ones) we will work out more, and in other weeks (the busier ones) less.
Here is what our plan split across 4 weeks might look like:
Week 1:
— Trip: buy tickets
— Trip: book accommodation
— Book: read 60 pages
— Workout: 3 times
— Picnic: notify relatives about the idea
— Picnic: find out their weekends and adjust to a possible date
Week 2:
— Trip: select sights
— Book: read 60 pages
— Workout: 3 times
— Picnic: decide on a location
— Picnic: decide on activities
Week 3:
— Trip.
— Book: read 60 pages
— Workout: 2 times
— Picnic: decide on transport
Week 4
— Book: read 60 pages
— Workout: 2 times
— Picnic: decide on food and drinks
— Picnic: buy food and drinks
— Picnic
In the simplest version, planning tasks by week can look the way I described above. Next we take the first week and describe it in detail. Here is what that might look like:
Week 1:
(Mon):
— Trip: buy tickets
— Workout
…..
(Tue):
— Picnic: notify relatives about the idea
— Picnic: find out their weekends and adjust to a possible date
— Book: read 15 pages
…
(Wed):
— Book: read 15 pages
— Workout
….
(Thu):
— Book: read 15 pages
— Trip: book accommodation
….
(Fri):
— Workout
….
(Sat):
— Book: read 15 pages
….
(Sun):
….
You will agree, this is far from a rigid schedule, and what is planned for these days can easily be accomplished. I also very much hope that you continue to record your other activities in your weekly tasks — activities that take up your time but are not overly mundane and daily. So instead of ellipses you will most likely have additional notes.
I also want to point out that in this example for the first week's tasks I did not describe them in table form (as I did in the "Weekly Beginner" example), but used an even simpler option — a list. In essence, both recording options are equivalent, and you can use either one or come up with your own. Surely there will be people for whom it is convenient to enter this in the Calendar app and other similar programs or services. Pen and paper is also a good tool for planning days, weeks, or even sprints.
After the first week comes to an end, we take tasks from the second week and lay them out the same way. If something from the first week was not done during the first week, it automatically carries over to the next week. After the second week we take the third, then the fourth. In the current "Monthly Sprinter" section it will not be terrible if your tasks shift in time. You are still learning, which means you will make plenty of mistakes in planning tasks. You have defined your sprint — in our case it consists of just 4 small goals — and we strictly follow completing these goals. Before applying the practices from the next section, I would strongly recommend that you practice with this kind of approach and complete at least 8–12 sprints.
Finally, I will not stop repeating the same phrase. Every day, repeatedly check against your current plans and tasks. Each time you look at the list, you should remind yourself not to forget to complete the planned activities, and also analyze completed and stalled tasks.
