Opportunity Planning

Continuing on with bucket lists... and I have.

My "thinking time", which I actually enjoy doing, has become the daily bus trips or occasionally a brief period snatched during the day. It's really simple. I write lists, that are not really lists, in a book and see what I can do of them. They're not really lists because they are more just 'things I would like to do if I get the opportunity' rather than 'things I must do or my life is bad'.  A very important mental distinction. The key thing that I am doing is in that in writing them down, I'm a) identifying these things as opportunities I would like to take if I get the chance b) identifying the time/space slot at which I am most likely to get these opportunities c) thinking through a little what is involved in trying to get these opportunities done d) even if I don't get the chance to take this opportunity in that time/space I've at least thought about it and will try to slot it in another time if it remains as something I continue to want to try to do.

It goes like this; I open my book (yes, a dead tree product with an implement for manually making marks), and I write some simple 'lists' about opportunities I might take during that day. All this exercise helps me to do is identify potential points at which opportunities to do things might happen, and which particular opportunities have a priority for me at the moment.

So for example here is Thursday's opportunity planning under their respective headings written on the bus in the morning:
- Work

• Cluster Actix
• Cluster Radioplan
• Check Natfly special event
• Prediction Tocal special event + area checks

- Lunch

• Cable for phone/Kindle
• Present for Geoff - freckles
• Tea purchase
• cardboard for book covers
• ring kitchen person
• International money transfer

-After Work

• DJs for tops
• Bunnings outdoor items, tap

The items I actually did?

• Cluster Actix
• Check Natfly special event
• Cable for phone/Kindle
• Present for Geoff - freckles
• Tea purchase
•  International money transfer

 Extra things that I took the opportunity to do instead which I didn't plan for:

• Spent an hour talking through explaining congestion with Capacity Planning
• Working through some additional special event data.
• Lunch with Dad
• Dying my hair
• Raiding with guildies

Pretty happy with the bits and pieces I got to do. It was nice having lunch with my Dad - the opportunity popped up that morning and I grabbed it as higher priority. Similarly raiding with my guildies - mid week it's often hard for me to get raids in. Other stuff can get done another day and did. It's more that if it had fitted in to do as an opportunity I would have grabbed it as I'd taken the time to think about it as something I wanted to do.

It doesn't have to be done every day. It doesn't have to cover off every thing. Sometimes I will think about dinner on my way home and that stops me making dumb decisions about what to eat when I'm too hungry to think. It's fluid. It can include very short term, mid term and long term items. It's written down so I can flick back. And it doesn't matter if it's on an old list, I can just make a new list ready for the new immediate future.
 
If I'd actually done my opportunity planning on Wednesday instead of the Thursday bus trip I would have bought the Kindle cable then because I dropped in on a friend in JB Hi Fi at Wednesday lunch - who possibly would have even offered me a discount. I didn't think of it. Because I didn't plan it. And that was an opportunity missed.

Opportunies.

Planning them.

Or at least planning where then might fit in.

Thinking hopeful things and not so much focusing on things that are missed.

Worth it.