The Purposeful Planning Method, Introduction
How to Plan Your Day, Beat Procrastination, and Regain Control of Your Time
Copyright © 2019 by Matthew C. East
All rights reserved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to anyone who believes in their dreams and has the guts to take action toward achieving them.
Thank you to my clients, it’s an honor to be a part of your journey.
And to my wife, Rachel, who encouraged me to write this book. I’m grateful for you in every way possible.
INTRODUCTION
You likely saw the title of this book and thought to yourself, "What exactly is The Purposeful Planning Method? And can it help me?"
The Purposeful Planning Method is the most effective approach for planning and prioritizing your time. And I'm positive it can help you. Unlike other time management books offering anecdotal tips, tricks, and suggestions, this book provides a specific methodology for approaching your day more effectively. It will help you:
Take more action toward your goals
Create better habits
Pursue your passions
Enrich your relationships
Regain control of your time
Enjoy your leisure time more
Beat procrastination
It can even help you live a more meaningful and happy life by ensuring you approach each day with clarity and focus. Regardless of what you're attempting to achieve, this method can help.
This method will help you accomplish your day-to-day responsibilities while simultaneously growing and improving any area of life you choose—including your career or business, health and fitness, meditative and spiritual practice, and even your relationships with your friends, family, and spouse or significant other. Not only can it help you achieve anything, it’s most effective when used across multiple disciplines in your life.
When I stumbled onto this method, I was working for a high-growth tech company. I was paid well, but I knew I could accomplish so much more with my life. It was difficult waking up every morning, knowing I would spend my entire day working on unfulfilling projects that left me uninspired and stressed out. I wanted to own my own business. The worst part, after spending all day working, I was often too tired when returning home to do the things I wanted to do. I was miserable, and it was taking a toll on me.
In my gut, I knew this wasn’t how I wanted to be spending each day. I wanted to thrive in every area of my life. I craved to fill my days with:
Impactful work I loved, while working on my own business
Ample amounts of exercise and movement
Abundant time for meditative thought, reflection, and leisure
Meaningful interactions with family
Inspiring conversations with mentors and friends
Exploring and learning new concepts, information, languages, and ideas
Dedicated time each day for cultivating an incredible marriage
Unfortunately, after working all day at a job I didn’t like, I had little time to focus on the things I wanted to do. I didn’t know how to effectively plan my day to both accomplish what needed done at work and also find time for everything else I wanted to be doing, like starting a business and exercising daily. On top of that, I was scared to leave the security of a well-paying job. If I started my own company and didn't succeed, I would feel like a failure. Especially if I couldn't provide as a husband. I was facing a ton of self-doubt about my ability to achieve my goals. I remember thinking to myself, If I can’t even plan my day, how can I ever run a business successfully?
That’s when I decided to learn everything I could about effectively planning my time, so I could start achieving my goals and eventually leave my job to begin a business of my own. To do this, I looked at research, read, and listened to audiobooks about time management, goal setting and achievement, habit development, workflow management, flow states, deep work, and productivity. I was determined to find a method for planning my day that would transform my life.
The problem was, I didn't find the books to be transformative. They buried insightful ideas and tips in nonactionable theories, unnecessary and inapplicable stories, and overly complicated practices. Uncovering them was a challenge.
That's when I had an epiphany. I realized in addition to reading these books, I needed to study how the most successful people planned and approached their day. I decided to read the writings, biographies, and autobiographies of the world's most successful people. I wanted to learn directly from the most accomplished leaders in the history of the world. I figured this would give me a massive advantage toward achieving my own goals and make me a master at planning my day.
However, there was a problem. This was time consuming; these autobiographies and biographies often took up to 25 hours to listen or read. Including the other books I studied, I spent well over 7,500 hours reading. My progress was slow.
Nonetheless, I began to see patterns emerge around how these high achievers approached planning their day. I started to have mini breakthroughs. And I tied these concepts back to the books and research I initially studied.
Then I distilled what I was learning into an approach for planning my day. I initially used it while still working at the tech company. My life began to transform. I began enjoying my work while simultaneously achieving goals in all aspects of my life.
This planning method, founded on how the world's most successful people plan their time, was working for me. It provided ample time for me to accomplish my work and also spend time on the things I wanted to do most. I had clarity, focus, and purpose each day. I began to feel like I had a superpower. It led to starting my business on the side, allowing me to leave my job. I've now consulted, collaborated, and coached hundreds of clients who have successfully used this method for planning their day. In this book, I've created what I was initially looking for: an actionable process for planning my day built on simple, time-tested principles anyone can use.
You do not need a particular IQ, education level, or any unique personality traits to use this method. Any person, in any industry can adopt this approach at any point in their life. Better yet, outside of the expense for this book, The Purposeful Planning Method costs nothing to use.
In the upcoming chapters, you'll learn exactly how to plan and prioritize, so you can spend more time and energy on the projects, activities, and relationships that are most important and meaningful to you.
HOW TO READ THIS BOOK
I've intentionally kept this book as concise as possible, hoping the brevity encourages more readers to finish it and adopt this method. However, I still include many client examples for you to reference. In addition to examples, I'll share the following about The Purposeful Planning Method:
What it is and why you should invest your time reading this book
Why this method works so effectively
How to plan your morning, day, and evening using it
How to get started with the 10-Day Purposeful Planning Challenge
Common questions and objections about the method
Because the chapters build on one another, I encourage you to read or listen the first time through from beginning to end. When reading or listening to nonfiction books, it's tempting to jump ahead to the parts most applicable to you. But for this book to be as useful as possible, I recommend completing it before adopting any of the techniques. The 10-Day Purposeful Planning Challenge later in the book will help you begin using this method successfully. Your likelihood of adopting this method will increase if you first read the entire book and have a clear understanding of the techniques before beginning to use them. So, for now, absorb the concepts without worrying about how you will implement any of these ideas.
The audiobook version of this book includes an accompanying PDF, so listeners can view examples of the planning techniques I share. These examples should help to conceptualize how The Purposeful Planning Method Works. Each example is from a past client who has successfully adopted this approach.
SOME ENCOURAGEMENT BEFORE WE BEGIN
Clients often share with me how they struggle with planning. They'll say, "Matt, planning just doesn't come naturally to me." I understand if you feel the same way. I felt the same way before developing this approach. After all, in school, we aren't taught how to plan and prioritize our time effectively, even though it's the most critical skill we could develop. Then we enter the workforce, where working long hours at a frenzied pace becomes the standard. This seems like it would be the perfect time for someone to teach us how to plan our time but, of course, at this point, we're expected to already know how to plan effectively (even though nobody has taught us).
I frequently collaborate with PhD level clients. These are doctors with over twenty years of formal education. And they've never been taught how to plan their time effectively. I'm sharing this to say, it’s normal to feel like you aren't good at planning your day. How would you be effective at planning if nobody's taught you how to do it?
Not only are we not taught how to plan at school or work, most of us grew up in homes where planning wasn't the strong suit of our parents. It’s likely they were also never taught this skill.
Is it possible you have it within you to be an effective planner, but nobody has taught you how to do it? If so, it means this book can change your life, because regardless of your ambitions, learning to plan effectively and prioritizing your time can help you achieve your goals. My promise to you is that if you read this book and adopt this method. It will help you plan and operate each day at the highest level possible across all areas of life.
As you use this method, I would love to hear about the success you create in your own life. You can share your stories by emailing me at matt@matt-east.com. It may take a few days, but I promise to respond to your message.
I firmly believe you can achieve anything you want with your life. And I hope the information in this book offers a plan for acting on your loftiest goals and dreams. You can do it. If nobody's ever told you, "Your dreams are possible," they have now. Anything is possible with the correct amount of planning and, most importantly, the right amount of action. I 100 percent believe in you. Now, let's dig in.