"A goal properly set is halfway reached"  - Abraham Lincoln

Planning can be considered to be an investment in efficiency and success of managing time effectively. Planning is the process by which you work out what you want to achieve, and then think through who, what, when, where, why and how of achieving that goal in the most effective way possible.

By planning well you can ensure that you concentrate only on those tasks that will move you towards your goal in the most effective way possible, without being distracted by unimportant but urgent tasks. Planning is best done by setting Goals.

Visualise and think for few minutes about the following questions.
o How do you want to lead your life?
o What kind of a person you want to be?
o What skills and attitudes do you want to possess?
o How do you want to be remembered by your friends, family and society?
o What kind of comforts and materialistic things do you want to enjoy and provide your family?
o How do you want your retirement life to be?

Your Lifetime Goals
You need to work on your life first; unless you have a dream and destination that you want to reach and realise, your efforts would not have a purpose. The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime - setting Lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.
 
? Artistic - Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? If so, what?
? Attitude - Is any part of your mind-set holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? If so, set goals to improve or cure the problem, even if the goal is only to get help.
? Career - What level do you want to reach in your career?
? Education - Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to achieve other goals?
? Family - Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
? Financial - How much do you want to earn by what stage?
? Physical - Are there any athletic goals you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
? Pleasure - How do you want to enjoy yourself? - You should ensure that some of your life is for you!
? Public Service -Do you want to make the world a better place by your existence? If so, how?
? Social - Do you have any social ambitions?
Once you have decided your goals in these categories, assign a priority to them from A to F. Then review the goals and re-prioritise until you are satisfied that the goals and priorities you have set reflect the shape of the life that you want to lead.

Achieving your life goals
Start to Achieve Your Lifetime Goals - Time is your fundamental investment.Once you have set your lifetime goals, now set a 25-year-plan of smaller goals that should be achieved if you are to reach your lifetime plan. Then set a 5-year-plan, 1-year-plan, 6-month-plan, and 1-year-plan of progressively smaller goals that should be reached to achieve your lifetime goals. Finally set a daily to-do list of things that you should do today to achieve your lifetime goals. At this stage many goals may simply be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your goals so that you can improve the quality and realism of your goal setting. Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

Once you have decided your first goal plans, keep the processes going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on a daily basis. Some people recommend doing this as the last thing done the day before, others as the first thing done in the morning - this is up to you. Periodically review your other plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities.

Tool - Prioritised To Do Lists

What are To Do Lists?
'To Do Lists' are lists of tasks to be carried out to achieve goals. These goals might be specific targets, or may simply be the efficient administration of your day. Whilst To Do Lists are very simple, they are also extremely powerful, both as a method of organising yourself and as a method of reducing stress. Often problems may seem intimidatingly large or you may have a seemingly huge number of demands on your time. This may leave you with a feeling of loss of control, or of being overburdened with work, or of facing hopelessly huge obstacles.

Process
Write down the tasks that face you, and if they are large, break them down into their component elements. If these still seem large, break them down again. Do this until everything that you have to do is listed. Once you have done this, run through these jobs allocating priorities from A (very important) to F (unimportant). If too many tasks have a high priority, run through the list again and demote the less important high priority items. Once you have done this, rewrite the list in priority order. You will then have a precise, sharp plan that you can use to eliminate the problems you face in the order that they need to be eliminated. This allows you to separate important jobs from the many time-consuming trivial ones, and gives you control of the problems facing you, reducing stress hugely.

Action Plan 
An action plan is a brief list of tasks that you have to carry out to achieve an objective. It differs from a To Do list in that it focuses on the achievement of a goal, rather than focusing on goals to be achieved in a period of time. It resembles to CAF and you need to set your way of handling each of it and the time lines.
Wherever you want to achieve something, drawing up an action plan allows you to concentrate on the stages of that achievement, and monitor your progress towards that achievement.

Time Management Tip
Take the time to plan and organise. You may look at your calendar and note upcoming assignments, and update their lists.

Break large assignments and tasks into their component parts. Break a term syllabus into many smaller and more manageable tasks such as finding a topic, conducting literature searches, gathering articles and books, reading and taking notes and revising. You should make a list of all tasks required to complete a major assignment.

Set goals and deadlines. Set realistic deadlines for each stage of completing a major assignment
Prioritize lists and tasks. Adapt to the "big-picture" approach. Look at the big picture from that you need to choose the tasks to complete and decide what's most important. Which assignment is due first? Which is the most difficult?
Be flexible. Create to-do lists, which will help you, organise and prioritise your life. Allow time for interruptions.
Go with your flow. Think about their biological peaks and lows and plan your day accordingly. You must save your most difficult work for the times when you are at your best.
Say "No." Sometimes we take on too much, whether it's extra courses, job responsibilities, helping other, accepting things that we do not want to do, pleasing somebody or extra-curricular activities. You must consider how important each is to you and your Life goals before agreeing.
Make use of wasted time. Have you ever noticed how much time you spend commuting, standing in lines, and waiting (for doctors, advisors, etc.)? Carry pocket work to make use of that time that would otherwise be wasted. Use the time to write in your planner and organise yourselves.

Tool - Activity Log
What is it?
An activity log is a tool that helps us to consciously take a note of the time that we spend on our day-to-day chores and also the way we do them. It also helps us to identify areas and methods on how to and what to do to make our actions more productive and Goal oriented.

Process
A revealing technique is to keep an Activity Log for several days. Without modifying your behaviour, note down the things you do as you do them, from the moment you start working. Every time you change activities, whether opening mail, working, making coffee, dealing with friends, gossiping, going to collect your records etc., note down the time of the change. Noting how you feel as well, whether alert, flat, tired, energetic, etc. This should be done periodically throughout the day.

Analysing your log
Once you have logged your time for several days, analyse the log. You may be alarmed to see the length of time you spend opening mail, talking to colleagues, dealing with disruptions, or doing low value jobs!

You may also see that you are energetic in some parts of the day, and flat in other parts. A lot of this can depend on the rest breaks you take, the times and amounts you eat, and quality of your nutrition. The activity log gives you some basis for experimenting with these variables.