As a father of young children, I’ve found the early morning provides a unique opportunity to get important things done. It’s one of the couple times in a day where there there is complete quiet and a low chance of interruption (the other being late at night). But even though I know it’s a valuable time, there have been countless times where I meant to get up early, only to end up lingering in bed way longer than I intended.

Simply knowing I should probably get up isn’t always enough to get me out of bed. However, I’ve found that if I take a few minutes the night before to plan for the next morning, I’m much more likely to actually get up and get going. Otherwise, it’s all too easy to find myself half awake the next morning, trying to think through what I want to do when I get out of bed, only to fall back asleep.

So in the evening I’ll take a moment to think through things like: What am I going to wear? What am I going to have for breakfast? What are the most important things I want to get done before I leave the house, and when will I do them? These may seem like fairly simple decisions, but I’ve found that if I invest a little time the night before planning how I want the morning to go, not only do I get out of bed more often, but I also tend to get more done in the time I have. I’m not using additional mental energy to decide things in the moment, since I’ve already made these decisions the night before.  There’s a plan in place, and I just need to execute.

Benefits of a little planning

You may not have a desire to get up early, but there are countless situations where a little planning ahead of time could be helpful.

In some cases a little planning can be the catalyst to actually getting started.

Perhaps there’s a big project at work or around the house, but the size or complexity of it is enough to cause you to procrastinate. But by taking a few minutes to identify your very next steps, and then to figure out a simple plan for when and how to proceed with them, you can make the process of getting started imminently doable. Instead of getting paralyzed by the mountain of details, you can simply focus on doing the very next step you’ve already identified.

The process of planning can also help you make more efficient use of the time you spend.

Think about the difference between a coach who goes into practice with no plan in place, and one who has thought about what they want to get done and how they’re going to get there. Who do you think will end up using their time with their team more effectively? The same is true of a teacher entering the classroom, or a leader entering a meeting? Those who spend time—even a little—in preparation are going to have a better shot of making the most of their time when it’s time to execute.

Even taking a few minutes at the beginning of the workday to get clear on the priorities for the day, and when you plan to get to them, can make a big difference. It won’t stop interruptions or changes to the plan from occurring, but it can at least give you a better shot of staying on track. A little planning may not guarantee effective use of the time, but it dramatically increases the likelihood of it.

For work and rest

A little planning can even play a role in non-work times like vacations or weekends. Taking a few minutes ahead of time to identify how you want to use your discretionary time can make a huge difference in how often you spend your time on the things you really wanted to be doing—even if it’s lounging around and doing nothing—rather than simply drifting though another day.  The key here is choosing to be intentional about how we use our time, even if that’s a choice to be “unproductive” for a season.

Planning, though, doesn’t keep us from those inevitable moments when we have to act without time to prepare. But if we know something’s coming (e.g. like tomorrow), it makes sense to invest a few minutes into planning how we want to spend our time when it gets here. Things may change, or something may come up, but I’ve found it preferable to have a plan, and then choose to deviate from it, rather than to have no plan at all.

Planning itself isn’t the end-all. It’s simply a means to better using our time. Whether that means helping us get going on those things we know we should be doing, or helping us stay on track once we’ve started, a little planning can go a long way.