Scoping is more effective than planning a day
Nothing happens according to a plan
A minute by minute delegation of work never helps. Measuring work against the delegated time slots neither. As for me, I have been a structured planner and not many of my plans have ever failed. I would modestly say that I am a well sorted out person but further, I feel ashamed that organizing my day lately has not been to fruition. My plans have started failing these days. May be I am tired.
Largely it is due to some influence outside in. When you get an opportunity people are on the look out like hawks to pick up my meal and enjoy the way I starve. That is not an issue for a person who is a chronic planner and goals bound since childhood who has never stopped a regimen living, never evaded a routine. By the way I have been with my books for the past 37 years, and I still do not want to do away with them. The day I read for 4 hours at least, after work, becomes my best day enabling me to rejoice in this accomplishment.
Obstacles are many. Still it creates more rigidity and resilience inside me to not quit. I was never an escapist, I might have faltered many times in my academic growth, but that is because my circumstances were dependent on others then, the power of deciding my life was placed with them. Those things are long gone, this is me without flesh and only my introspections that remain. Why so, is a boring marriage, family stuff that I do not like to bring up online. It is because I do not plan to write and defame others. I write to sort myself out, scoping a bit about what lies ahead immediately and what remains in a month’s time instead of planning an entire year.
Scoping is to figure out what is there for my growth on this day. How to make a focused effort towards some gain, some fruit to pursue towards my competence and spirituality. So instead of planning every hour, as mentioned by other bloggers as well as me, ( changed perspective since recent posts by Dr Akshad Singhi and Eve Arnold, thanks to them) which has more chances of decomposition, scoping still works.
If I am to write a book chapter, scoping about the topic is what I follow. I collect material to read, scribble a quick mind map or do it mentally to start with, about known to unknown concepts. Then I know what I would like to write uninhibited. Since, the work is evidence based, I prefer reading long hours before I jump to write. This is time consuming but is the best way I can increase my knowledge. What material is available to read, what book is at par with my mind map of the topic is enough scoping that will take not more than 15 to 20 minutes. Then I set out to read in between my classes to keep it going, not as a schedule but making use of the time that is available in between.
Rigid plans never work (though they have worked for me during the times when I mentioned to myself deep inside, if not now then when else!!). They do not work at all because you are not prepared with the scoping part. You can get bored, fear challenges, not bold enough to stay alone and mostly when you get distracted due to some lonely pursuits of dissatisfaction and resistance that you face against yourself from friends and family.
This loneliness is a common problem of the elderly, but also among the young and successful or working people who are routine bound and seldom let others encroach upon them for a futile gossip session. I know how to live alone but I am a people’s person who honestly blabbers things freely. It is complicated. I let it go, no more thought to it. Brevity.
So scoping about a book chapter, or the dress you need to buy or the next day’s summer look all in 15–20 minutes. I did not plan my looks or about a dress. It is like you embrace uncertainty over rigid plans but you structure yourself in such a way that you keep collecting a rupee to make it lakhs and crores one day with judicious spending. Scoping can follow a plan for those who need a whack to get things done, otherwise small enjoyable steps are good enough when you have achieved a position somewhere after struggling to achieve it in the first place. So why give up. Plan if you cannot do without it but seek information about the scope of your goal, its necessity and lucrativeness and also your personal oxytocin release, the feeling that you get once the book gets published or the lecture goes well or the product achieved modest money after you marketed it.
Scope about the available information, the diverse areas you need to dig, the evidence you need to produce, time it requires, approximate hours you need to spend and not the rigid time slot for each activity planned. Remember, scoping can lead to laziness so keep a plan also but if you don’t say “if not now then when else”, plan and say it aloud. This attitude will help anyone achieve a lot and break the procrastination to truly achieve what you set out to.
