Planning and Execution

This article is a Zhihu Salt Selection for Epoch. The more you work, the more energetic you become.

People who encounter procrastination often think of tasks before they are carried out. Every time a task appears in the brain, Soon you will feel irritable, so you choose to escape without making any real progress. It's a bit like using a tool to punch holes in a coconut. Every time you hit the hard part of the coconut shell, you stop, and it will happen again next time. So the coconut looks like it is riddled with holes, but in fact, we have never been able to break through the hard shell and taste the sweet juice inside. So effective planning is the process of using the right methods to break through the last layer of hard shell.

? The core of a plan is to think about and list the steps to perform a task. Only specific steps can promote efficient execution. Adding a deadline can only help you figure out when to delay. Don't go. So the process of making an effective plan is the process of thinking through the steps of the task.

? We are usually accustomed to thinking about how to do a task only when we actually start to perform the task. This will bring us double anxiety. Thinking itself will cause anxiety, and the difficulties faced in performing the task will cause anxiety, so we will keep procrastinating. The plan I'm talking about here is made in advance. When making a plan, you only make the plan and don't execute the task. When executing, you don't need to think about the plan, you just need to follow the plan that has been made step by step. In this way, there is less pressure in both front and rear links. The energy consumed is the lowest.

List of steps and mental rehearsal

The process of making a plan is divided into two situations.

The first situation is that you can think clearly about the entire process of completing the task and list the steps before starting the task. This applies to small tasks that take tens of minutes to a few hours. Such tasks are generally relatively simple and have no complicated links. You have already mastered the skills required for this task. For example, for the manuscript I am writing now, I can outline the entire manuscript in advance.

The second situation is that you cannot think through the entire process before starting the task. This is suitable for large tasks that take a long time, or the task has many links, and the later links depend on the previous links. execution results. For example, in this energy management course, before starting, I may need to communicate with students and editors. I may not be able to carry out the next step of work until the definite results are communicated. At this point, since you can’t list the steps of the entire process, what you should do is determine what is your first step? What result is to be achieved? Then think through the first step. For example, my first step is to communicate with the editor. I need to determine the time, location, main content and goals of the communication. After completing this step, I can also use this method to find the next step, so that I can eat away the big tasks bit by bit.

So in summary, there is not much difference between the two. One is to think clearly about the entire task and list the steps, and the other is to think clearly about the first step of the entire task and list the steps.

The process of listing steps is called mental rehearsal in psychology. That is to say, the task has been roughly performed in the mind in advance.

When you face a task and execute the task in your mind in advance, it will also greatly improve your efficiency when you actually carry out the task.

Therefore, the steps must be as close to the actual situation as possible during execution, and the more detailed the better. But how detailed should it be?

Detailed enough that you can estimate how long your task will take, down to the minute. If the steps you rehearse in your mind are reliable enough, you can predict the approximate time it will take to actually execute each step based on past experience. Adding up the time required for each step will complete the task. the time required. The more reliable your steps are, the closer the estimated time will be to the real value, and the more likely it will be that you spend that much time when you actually start executing the task. Your energy consumption is optimal at this time.

What I mentioned above is the entire process of effective planning. In actual execution, it only takes a few minutes at most to lay out the plan for a task that takes several hours.

Once you've laid out the plan and you're confident about the task, all you have left is choosing when to do it, even if you choose to do it a few hours before the deadline. , you will no longer be anxious about this task in the previous time, because you have already arranged everything.

So to see if a person is procrastinating a task, the key question is not whether he completes the task before the deadline, but whether he experiences anxiety and engages in a lot of ineffective thinking throughout the process.

Efficient execution

Let’s talk about the execution phase again. It will be much easier now because you already have a detailed plan and your task execution process has been rehearsed in your mind. , you clearly know how much time the current task will take, and all that is left is to focus on taking action according to the plan.

In order to help you focus more on executing tasks and reduce the energy consumption caused by distractions, you can even set yourself a watch and set a countdown when executing. Because you already know that the task will take 50 minutes to complete, and coupled with the promotion of the countdown clock, you will not accept driving the car to do other things in the middle and delaying the progress of the task.

If it is a task that takes a long time, such as several hours, then you can adopt a work-rest strategy. Every time you complete a step, take a break, relax, or eat something to reward yourself. Then move on to the next step, so that you are focused during the execution of each step, and you will not feel too tired or stressed after completing the entire task.

Using effective planning and efficient execution methods, there is an additional bonus, that is, when your plan and your execution basically match, you will get a sense of accomplishment the moment you complete the task. This This sense of accomplishment comes from successfully controlling your own time and energy. This feeling of being great can also give you extra energy, which is so profitable.

So next time you encounter a high-effort task and realize that you may be procrastinating, please try my method.