Next Design Time Management

The Bubble Planner is the Next Generation of Time Management Tools for maximizing your personal resources. The Information Age is here and it moves at the speed of light. Like most people, you have probably found that your calendar is either filled with overlapping tasks and appointments or neglected altogether. You can no longer manage time as you have in the past. Just as Bill Gates never imagined how anyone could ever need more than 640k of RAM, traditional organizer designers never anticipated that anyone would receive thousands of digital requests on a daily basis.

Overview of the Bubble Planner

The issue facing you today is not managing time. What’s at issue are the choices you make with the time you have. Choices are the currency that converts the present to the future. Since you have the ability to work anywhere or anytime getting things done faster ever imagined, you must manage yourself differently to make the best choices for your future.

To fulfill your purpose in life, you must know (create, define, and clarify) the following:

• What do you want to be?
• What do you want to do?
• What do you want to have?

The key is to know these things at the precise moment of decision. In short, you need a time management tool that enables you to act at the speed of thought. The spatial design of the Bubble Planner allows you to organize your thoughts quickly. More than that, it actually behaves the way you think, which is in pictures translated into words. It moves beyond the linear limitations of traditional time management techniques such as task lists and taps into your brain's natural creative power.

Bubble Basics

The Bubble Planner combines powerful brainstorming techniques with life management principles. This combination recruits both the creative and logical sides of the brain. This tool allows you to capture ideas at the speed of thought and arrange them in pictures.

As an illustration, let’s say that you want to invite the Hendersons out to dinner for a couple’s night out. Simply add a phone call action to today with the relevant information. Since it is a couple’s night out, you need someone to care for the kids. Draw a line to the next bubble as a reminder to call your babysitter if Bob and Tina accept.

When you complete a task, you can either cross it out or highlight it (highlighting maintains readability). The Bubble Planner is intended to be flexible. There are many ways to do everything. The only limit is your imagination.

Sections

The Bubble Planner is segmented into six sections that all work together:

1. Radar
2. Roadmap
3. Rudder
4. Register
5. Renew
6. Review.

The first three sections (Radar, Roadmap, and Rudder) are directional. They are designed to propel your life forward in the direction of your purpose. The fourth section (Register) is a placeholder for things that must be done on a specific day. While it may be used as a calendar, it is designed as a planning tool to ensure you accomplish your goals. The fifth section (Renew) increases your capacity for production. The final section (Review) captures items for later reference.

1. Radar - Goal Setting

The Radar section is a big picture view of your life. It is critical to start from this perspective as it answers the question, “what do you want to be, do, and have?”. Where do you start? Start with the FISHES: Family, Intellectual, Social, Health, Economic, and Spiritual. These are goal categories. Spend time brainstorming what you want to be, do, and have in each of these categories. Feel free to dream in this section. When brainstorming, you should write down everything without filtering. Whether the goals are achievable or not will be determined in a later step.

After writing down all of your goals, select the most important goal from each category and complete a Future Reality page. This page clarifies our goals. The clearer the goal, the faster the manifestation. Here are the parts to the page:

What: Be as specific and detailed as possible. What is the end result? Add details, texture, sound, smells, feelings, or anything else that will bring the goal to life.

Start and Due Dates: Even if you change it later, setting a date is essential for creating a future reality.

Why: Each goal must have a reason. The best reasons extend beyond ourselves. For example, if you set a goal to lose weight, a reason may be to improve your health so that you will be there for your children and your children’s children.

Why Not: What are the barriers to achieving your goals? Often the reason that you don’t achieve your goals is fear. FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. If you give the fear a name, then you are in a position to address it.

Who: Who’s help do you need? Sometimes this bubble is blank. If you are really honest with yourself, it is very rare that you accomplish anything all by yourself.

How: This is where you break your goals down into actionable steps. The best way to move your goals forward is to have a plan for achievement. You may choose to use this bubble to capture milestones, projects, or tasks that are necessary to achieve your goal.

SMART: The final bubble is a self-check for the future reality that you just defined. Is it smart? If not, revise the plan until it is.

2. Roadmap - Project Management

Once something appears on the radar, it is time to map it out. First, write down your current projects on the brainstorming page. Now, make a plan using the Desired Results page. This page is similar to the Future Reality page excluding the Why Not and SMART bubbles.

3. Rudder - Task Management

The rudder is the steering mechanism. If you have properly defined your Future Reality and your Desired Results, your present moment decisions will be sharp and effective. The rudder will keep you on track and moving toward your dreams and goals.

4. Register - Calendar

While the monthly calendar pages in the register appear to be normal calendar pages, they are a key to creating your future reality. It is a great visual reminder when you place key actions and milestones on specific days. The objective is to keep your life moving toward what you really want not just what you really want right now.

The undated weekly calendars should also be a planning tool to help you visualize your goals coming to pass. It is not meant for keeping appointments and meetings as these activities are handled superbly by software such as Microsoft Outlook.

5. Renew - Habit Development

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

This section is intended to help you assess your current habits and change any habits that are not effective. There are two primary tools to accomplish this feat: The 13 Virtues and the Activity Log.

The 13 Virtues is based on Benjamin Franklin’s plan for regulating his own behavior that he developed at the age of 20 and used throughout his life. Give strict attention to one virtue a week but track your progress on every virtue daily. After 13 weeks, start the process over to complete the course four times each year.

Every evening, review the virtues and mark your progress. Put an “X” over the day if you missed the mark on a particular virtue and circle the day if you achieved the virtue. This is an enlightening process and, you must admit, quite humbling.

Where are you spending your time? The Activity Log is a Personal Efficiency Tool that answers that question. To use, select the major categories for where you should be spending your time, then add some time waster categories like surfing, chit chat, etc. Track every 15 minutes, half hour, or hour (just fill in the portion of the bubble used).

Use this tool just often enough to diagnose your efficiency. This could be for a full week every six months or for a day every three. It really depends. The best answer is just whenever you feel that you are not getting the results that you want.

6. Review - Reflection and Follow Up

This section captures items that maybe useful later. There are three primary forms: Follow Up, Discuss with, and Take Notes.

Follow Up: Place items on this page that you delegate to others. This is a page that you review at least weekly to ensure your own success even when you have given responsibility to someone else.

Discuss With: This will be one of your favorite pages. How many times have you just hung up the phone with your boss only to think, “I should have asked her about . . .”? This page creates a framework for communication for important people in your life. This could include your boss, your friends, your teachers, and even your spouse.

Take Notes: Often, the key to remembering things is using a consistent, effective methodology. This method is among the best available. Based on the Cornell Note Taking System, these pages prompt you to capture lectures, speeches, and even conversations in a way that engages your short and long-term memory functions.

During the lecture, use the “Take Notes” column to record the lecture. As soon after the lecture as possible, come up with questions based on the “Take Notes” column and write them in the “Review” column. After the lecture, use the “Summary” space at the bottom of each page to summarize the notes on that page.

Bubble Speak

Bubble Up: Make something a higher priority. Popular methods include enlarging the bubble, color coding it, or assigning it a number or letter.

Bubble Over: Move item from one bubble page to another by adding a baby bubble inside. For Example, to move to today.

Bubble Baby: A smaller bubble birthed from a larger bubble.

Outside the Bubble: Creative thinking.

Bubble Bath: Overwhelmed with the number of tasks.

Bubble Bits: A piece of a bubble. This is an effective way to make a task more manageable.

Bubble Management: Big bubbles first. This is the primary method of surviving a bubble bath.

Bubble In / Bubble Out: In the office / Out of the office. Alternatively, “Bubble me in . . .”

Bubblicious: Appealing. Desirable.

Bubble Vision: Being focused on achieving your dreams and goals.

Bubble Wrap: A protective environment. Also, the packaging for the Bubble Planner.

On the Bubble: On top of your day. This state of nirvana occurs frequently with the Bubble Planner.