Planning 101

This video about a brick layer is a good example of poor planning and how accidents can occur as a result of this. So there is no mistake like the brick layer makes, it is important to plan and logically organise information in a document (Eunson 2012). Costigan (2014) explains that planning is establishing a scheme or structure for how you are going to do something. A study by Niedwienska, Janik, & Jarczynska (2013) demonstrated that adults who had to perform detailed planning completed their intended activities better than those who did not plan for their intentions. 

Firstly, what is your message? It is important to sit down and work out what the message you are trying to convey is. Once you have that sorted, it is important to work out a structure of what you want to have in your document. When I plan something out in an essay for example, I will put a heading on each paragraph stating what the main topic will be.  Then I will have dot points on the key points in each paragraph. As a result, this makes what I have to write about much more clearer.

Another crucial aspect of planning is time. It is very easy to not manage time correctly and soon enough, time would have run out and then it is too late to do your document. The University of Kent (2015) share some advice on time planning which includes prioritising which is focusing on urgent and important tasks rather than those that are not important; list making to remind you of what you need to do when and avoiding procrastination. Locker and Kaczmarek (2011, p. 64) suggest that 'you should set aside two-thirds of your time for planning and revising when writing and this is appropriate for most communication practice'.

Time Planning
Source: Next Level Partner, 2015

Planning is a crucial part to conveying a message effectively and hopefully through these tips and tricks, it becomes much easier to do so and not have any mistakes like the brick layer.

References:

Eunson, B 2012, Communicating in the 21st century, John Wiley & Sons, Milton.

Locker, KO & Kaczmarek, SK 2011, Business communication: building critical
skills, McGraw-Hill, New York. 

Niedwienska, A, Janik, B & Jarczynska A 2013, 'Age-related differences prospective memory tasks: The role of planning and personal importance', International Journal of Psychology, vol. 48, issue 6, p. 1291.

University of Kent 2015,  How to manage your time effectively, viewed 22 April 2015, http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/sk/time.htm

Time Planning 2015, digital image, Next Level Partner, viewed 22 April 2015, http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20148c84c27ab970c-popup

Zeffizzle 2007, Poor planning, video, 7 April, viewed 22 April 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4irivw_UlI