He who fails to plan, plans to fail.

Planning.

        Planning is paramount to potential of success. In order to plan, you must have the big picture in mind. This means setting goals. So planning is essentially the step between chaos and order, it is a simple process. The way I plan (this is what I have found to be the most efficient for me) is I establish my end goal, what I want to accomplish.

Example Situation

Goal Time Estimation

        So, for sake of explanation, let's say I want to go skiing at cypress mountain for the weekend. My first step is to establish what I want to accomplish. From there, I will work backwards. My next task is to asses my room and decide approximately how long it will take me to clean it fully. From here I decide that it will take me two hours to clean my room.

Assesment
        A very important part of planning is stepping back and assesing your plan throughout the process. I now have spoken with my mother and realized that when she said "clean room" she meant tidy the entire room and then vacuum and clean out my dresser putting all the clothes I don't wear in a bag so that they can be donated. I originally decided that my room would take two hours but now that I have realized just how much work I will be doing, I must re-evaluate my original observation.

Revised Goal Time Estimation
        Now, looking at all the work I will be doing, I decide that in order to complete all these tasks, I will need three and a half hours. Two hours for tidying, one hour for clearing out my dresser, and a half hour to vacuum.

Scheduling
        Now that I have established what I need to accomplish, and how long those tasks will take, I need to fit it into my schedule. Today is Thursday, my mother has told me that I must have my room cleaned by the weekend (Friday night as I will be leaving on my ski trip Saturday morning). I have a friend's birthday party today after school today, from 4:30pm until 10:00pm. School ends at 2:45 and it takes me fifteen minutes to get home. leaving me only an hour and a half to clean today (Thursday). Tomorrow (Friday) I have school from 8:10 until 2:45pm. I have guitar practice from 4:00pm until 6:00pm, then go straight to basketball practice from 6:00pm until 10:00 and when I get home I will be far too tired to clean my room.

Reflection/Solution
        This is where the importance of planning comes in. By Friday, I will have completed one and a half hours of my cleaning but still have two hours of work to do. I only have one hour free after school and so I plan to clean from 3:00pm until 4:00pm. I still need to find time to clean for another hour in order to complete my cleaning on time. I decide to wake up an hour early in the morning and do the cleaning then, from 6:00am until 7:00am. If I had not planned my task, I would have failed. I would have not woken up and just tried cleaning my room as much as I could, and therefore would not have woken up early on Friday morning and would not have had enough time to finish cleaning.