(作者：John Wiegley)
What is planning? It can be a nebulous thing to define. In its
essence, however, it is very simple: it's how we achieve our dreams.
Our days are filled with time, and hence with actions, whether they
be of a mental or physical sort. But there are two kinds of action:
reactive and creative. Reactive action is a response to the
environment, a reaction to stimulus. Had we enough instincts to ensure
survival, we could live according to this kind of action alone. It is
a mode of behavior we share with every living species.
The opposite to reactivity is creativity, when we decide upon a
course of action that is a wholly a product of personal choice. We
then make decisions as to the steps needed to make this wish a reality.
This is planning. Planning is essentially a creative endeavor at
every step.
First, create the idea, what you want to achieve. Very short-term
ideas do not need much more than thinking about how to do it. But
long-term ideas require planning, since the mind cannot contain all of
the details.
Second, decide how the idea maps into the circumstances you find
yourself in. Some environments will assist your plan, others hinder
it. But step by step, identify every barrier to the realization of
your idea, and devise a countermeasure to overcome it. Once you've
mapped things out from beginning to end, accounting for unknowables as
best you can, you now have your plan.
Third is to break the stages of the plan into parts that are not
overwhelming in their complexity. It is at during this phase that a
plan is turned into task items, each to be accomplished within the span
of one day's time. If a task requires several days, break it up
further. The smaller it is, the less your mind will recoil from
attempting it.
Fourth is to monitor your progress, identifying problems and
correcting for them as you go. Some plans start out unachievable, and
remain that way indefinitely, due to a simple lack of observation. If
nothing is working for you, change it. Otherwise, your plan is merely
a well-crafted wish.
Fifth is just to do the work, and be patient. All good plans take a
great deal of time, and *cannot* happen immediately. The groundwork
must be laid for each step, or else it will rest on an unsecure
foundation. If you follow your plan doggedly, applying some time to it
each day or week, it _will_ happen. Remember the story of the tortoise
and the hare. I've even written a short essay on the necessity of
gradual accomplishment, which can be found at
`http://emacswiki.org/johnw/essays/node2.html'.
How can this software help? Computers are ideal for manipulating
information, since they allow you to change things without erasing or
rewriting. And since all plans change quite a bit during their
implementation, a planning program can be very helpful.
Start by adding the following to your `.emacs' (or `_emacs'):
(load "planner")
Now, conceive your idea. I can't believe there's nothing you want
from life. More peace, time to enjoy the world, an end to war?
Everyone wants something. Search deeply, and you will find countless
unhoped wishes lurking therein. Choose one for now, and think on it
for a while.
Then open a file (using `C-x C-f') within the directory named by
`planner-directory'. Emacs will automatically recognize this file as a
planner file. Name the file after your plan, such as `BetterHealth'.
Choose an idea you really want to accomplish. Struggle to
differentiate between the things you want because others want them, and
the things you want for yourself. It takes quite an effort, and may
require a long time before you notice the difference. Many people want
to be more healthy to be more attractive, which is an externally driven
goal. Unless _you_ really want to accomplish what you envision, the
odds are you will fail. Only our own wishes and dreams possess enough
personal energy to see themselves to fruition. What happens to many of
us is simply that we never become conscious of these dreams: what we
love, what we desire most. When I talk to friends, so much of what I
hear is things they want because they feel they should want them.
There's just not enough energy there to pursue a good plan, because
nearly all of it is negative energy.
Do you know what you really want? Don't worry, many people don't.
It's not a question anyone really wants us to pursue, because often we
don't want what others do; it doesn't contribute to the social welfare,
and all that nonsense. Somehow we always forget that what's good for
the social welfare now, was someone else's crazy dream a hundred years
ago. The human aversion to fundamental change is always one's greatest
enemy, so don't waste any time getting bitter about it.
For the sake of argument I assume you really do want to be
healthier, because you've fallen in love with the ideal of purity, or
you understand the connection between your physical self and the world
around you, and how this can open up your spirit to desiring more. I
assume. :)
So you're in a Wiki file called `BetterHealth'. Start typing. Type
anything related to your idea: what you think about it, your ideas on
it, _and especially what the end will look like_. If you can't
visualize the end, you can't plan, since planning is about drawing a
line between now and then.
When you've typed enough to gain a vision of your goal, start
drafting what the possible intermediate steps might be. Then stop, get
up, walk around, enjoy life, and come back to it. Taking a long time
at the beginning is not a bad idea at all, as long as it's not forever.
As you chew on your idea, it will begin to become more and more
concrete. You'll have ideas about the smallest pieces, and ideas about
the biggest pieces. Keep going until it starts to take shape before
you, and you can see yourself in your mind's eye moving from the
present into the future. Write down this progression, and the sorts of
things you might encounter along the way.
As you continue, you'll naturally discover discrete phases, or
"milestones" as managers love to call them. These are very important,
because they let you know you're making progress. I recommend having a
big party with friends every time you achieve a milestone. A typical
plan might have between three and ten.
Between the milestones are the bigger pieces of your plan. Name
these pieces using MixedCase words, and you'll notice that Emacs colors
and underlines them for you. Like, FindGoodGym. Hit return on this
highlighted word, and you'll find yourself in another, blank file. In
this file, start drafting your sub-plan, just as you did with the
larger plan. You should find it easier now, since the scope is smaller.
As you break down further, you'll notice simple little things that
need to get done. These are your tasks. Every plan is a succession of
tasks. The difference from reactivity is that each task is part of the
larger plan. This is what it means to be systematic: that everything
you do helps further your plan. If you have tasks in your day that
contribute to no plan, they are reactive. Of course, life is full of
these, but don't let them take up more than 20% of your day. If you
allow yourself to be dominated by reactive tasks, you'll regret it at
the end of your life. I don't know this personally, but I do know that
striving for one's dreams - and seeing them come to fruition - is the
greatest joy a man can possess. It is the essence of freedom, of
living, of creation. Reactivity is the opposite of this, and serves
only to drain our energy and slacken our spirits.
Now that you've thought of a simple task, type `C-c C-t'. This will
ask for a brief description of the task, and when you plan to do it. If
you hit <RETURN> at the question `When', it assumes you mean today. It
will also pop up a three-month calendar at this question, so you can
see where your free days are. Make sure you set the variable
`mark-diary-entries-in-calendar' to `t' in your `.emacs' (or `_emacs')
file. This way, you can see which days your appointments fall on. (Read
about the Emacs Calendar and Diary in *Note Calendar/Diary:
(Emacs)Calendar/Diary.)
(setq mark-diary-entries-in-calendar t)
Once your task is in there, go back to your plan and keep generating
more tasks. Generate them all! Fully describe--as tasks--everything
necessary to bring your sub-plan to completion. Don't create tasks for
the other sub-plans. You may have good idea of what they'll look like,
but don't bother rendering them into tasks just yet. Things will
change too much between now and then, for that to be a good use of your
time.
Is your sub-plan now rendered into all of the tasks necessary to
reach your first milestone? Great! That is the purpose of planner.el.
The rest is really up to you. If you find that you keep putting
things off, and never do them, that's the surest sign you're planning
for someone else's dream, and not your own.
Here are some of the things planner.el can do, to help you manage
and track your tasks:
At the beginning of every day, type `M-x plan'. This will jump you
to the top of the most recent task list before today. If you skipped a
bunch of days, you'll have to open up those files on your own.
Probably some of the tasks that day won't be finished - that's OK.
Learning to properly estimate time is a magical, mystical art that few
have mastered. Put your cursor on those undone tasks, and type `C-c
C-c'. This will move them into today's task page. You can jump to
today's task page at any time by typing `C-c C-n' (from a Wiki or
planning page). I heartily recommend binding `C-c n', to jump you to
this page from anywhere:
(define-key mode-specific-map [?n] 'planner-goto-today)
As you look at your task sheet each day, the first thing to do is to
"clock in" to one of them. This isn't necessary, and is only helpful
if you're around your computer a lot. But by typing `C-c C-i'
(assuming you have my `timeclock.el' on your load-path), it will log
the time you spend working on your sub-plan (*note Time Intervals:
(Emacs)Time Intervals.). This is helpful for viewing your progress.
Type `C-c C-o' to clock out.
`C-M-p' and `C-M-n' will move a task up and down in priority.
Priority is represented by a letter A through C. 'A' tasks mean they
must be done that day, or else your plan is compromised and you will
have to replan. 'B' means they should be done that day, to further the
plan, otherwise things will be delayed. 'C' means you can put off the
task if you need to, although ultimately it will have to be done.
For reactive tasks, the letters mean something different: 'A' means
you must do it today, or somebody will roast your chestnuts over an
open fire. 'B' means you should do it today, or else someone will be
practicing patience at the day's end. 'C' means no one will notice if
you don't do it.
Again, reactive tasks are ENEMIES OF PLANNING. Really, until you
see them that way, circumstances will push you around and steal your
life away. We have only so many years to use, and everyone is greedy
to take them. It's insidious, almost invisible. A healthy dislike of
reactivity will do wonders for organizing your affairs according to
their true priority.
The last word that needs to be said concerns "roles". Every person
stands in several positions in his life: husband, employee, manager,
etc. These roles will tend to generate tasks not associated with any
immediate plan, but necessary to maintain the health and functioning of
the role. My suggestion is to keep this the smallest possible number,
and fulfill those that remain well. How you decide to apportion your
time between pursuing grand designs, and fostering deep relationships,
is a personal matter. If you choose well, each will feed the other.
I mention this to point that reactivity is something not exclusively
associated with tasks that have no master plan, because being a father,
for example, is something that rarely proceeds according to orderly
plans. But the role of father itself is its own plan, whose goal is
"to be the best one can", and whose component tasks are spending time
on whatever comes up. It is, in a sense, an implicit plan. But
reactive tasks follow no plan at all; they are parasites of time that
suck the spirit away, whereas properly chose roles actually help
fulfill one's own inner needs. At least, this is what I believe.
发表于 @ 2007年11月27日 16:10:00|评论(loading...)