Ep. 394: Do I Need a Better Planning System?

How do you decide what to do with your day when everything is pulling at you, from email to streaming? This show is about finding depth in a distracted world, so we need a planning system you can actually stick with; today I’m bringing on Sarah Hart‑Unger, physician, mom, and host of Best Laid Plans, to get practical about building one.

Thanks for having me; I’m excited to dive back in.

Some argue planning commodifies time, but I see the opposite: without a system, life turns chaotic and you become easy prey for digital drift; why is planning worth caring about?

Planning is not about cranking the capitalist wheel, it is how you make room for what you truly want and still keep the trains running; intentional leisure often requires forethought, and good planning both protects meaning and tames the flood of little tasks.

Your clinical work is structured while many knowledge jobs feel like endless knobs to turn; did medicine’s structure help you avoid the anti‑planning backlash?

I have lived both worlds, from leadership email avalanches to very structured clinic days; during training my hours were spoken for, so the slivers left had to be intentional, which lit my passion for planning and the feeling of finishing a day’s work.

Quick aside sparked by the HBO series: help us decode med school to residency and who is called what.

Med school is four years with core rotations in year three and more focused rotations in year four; you are called doctor when you begin residency, with the first year known as internship.

Back to the core: what makes a planning system actually work?

Three pillars: one master calendar that shows everything, airtight task capture and processing across every inbox, and nested goals that cascade from year to season to month to week to day through brief, consistent rituals.

Tools are not systems; a planner is one piece, not the whole machine; how do you run your master calendar and is it analog or digital?

I use paper for my master view with a vertical weekly layout and a small band for kids logistics; I still check my electronic health record for patient details, and while I love analog, digital works great if you prefer it.

Do you place non‑appointment work on the calendar?

Yes, I assign tasks to a time, a specific day, or to the week; the key is defining clear holders so you always see the right thing at the right moment, regardless of the tool.

Let’s talk airtight task management, which sounds like full capture done right.

Map every intake path like email, texts, WhatsApp, school apps, and give each a sane check rhythm; do one‑minute items immediately, and send the rest into your system, then process to zero unread at day’s end.

When you process, where do items go?

I drop them into this week, a future week, or a named calendar slot; I use one storage spot only, and each week I either do, move, or delete leftovers in a quick bullet‑journal‑style review.

I avoid opening big task apps when I am slammed; keeping tasks in the planner I must consult anyway lowers that activation energy.

Exactly; I limit my gaze to today and the current week so I can act without the stress of seeing everything I could do.

I also overload project lists with detailed future steps; better to let big goals spawn near‑term tasks at weekly review.

Keep possible steps as reference, but only commit when the season, month, or week calls for them; let work trickle down instead of flooding your plate.

Here is my flow: a loose seasonal plan, a weekly meeting where I marry goals to my calendar with protected blocks and big‑win moves, then a daily time‑block plan.

I add a strong monthly view to gauge variable capacity, and I pre‑schedule less; on non‑clinical days I choose which deep work windows to use that morning so I feel flexible yet focused.

I must prebook to defend time from calendar squatters, and I created a studio day on Tuesdays to protect recording and writing.

That makes sense, and I appreciate you fitting me in around it.

Let’s hit seasonality, since we both reject the idea of running at one speed all year.

I divide the year into five seasons and run short planning retreats before each; I schedule joy as seriously as work, with summer looser, back‑to‑school busier, and the holidays reflective.

Your job’s workload may not change much, but life outside work can, and many knowledge workers can dial intensity more than they think.

Even in structured roles you can bank vacation for slower months and lighten creative commitments to create a gentler rhythm.

What is the simplest on‑ramp for listeners who feel scattered?

Start with one trusted calendar, thoughtful inbox processing, and a simple layered goal ritual from year or season down to week and day; any tool is fine if you commit to longer, present planning sessions and quick daily picks.

One more: should we outsource planning to AI?

I want humans to choose how they spend time; assistants that parse schedules are fine, but I do not want a model deciding my life’s priorities.

Where can people find more of your work?

Best Laid Plans is my planning podcast, and Best of Both Worlds with Laura Vanderkam is about fitting work and life; my book Best Laid Plans is out and was picked by Amazon editors.

Great having you; take control of your time or big tech gladly will.

Thanks for having me, and yes, I loved talking about the pit.

Listener question: are TV shows killing surprise by previewing next week and then previewing again?

It mirrors YouTube’s hook strategy and counters choice overload by proving upfront that payoffs are coming; we will ask dopamine expert Anna Lembke when she visits, but abundance of options likely drives the format.

Another note: movies feel longer now.

They are, by about thirteen minutes on average over twenty years; directors favor epic runtimes while fewer theatrical releases mean long event films weigh the average upward.

A workplace angle: phones seem to wreck focus even in meetings.

Phone habits are eroding baseline attention so people drift even when they cannot pick up the device; fix it by leaving attention‑economy platforms and by changing team collaboration so email and chat are not the work itself.

Heard your Zitron chat on AI.

I asked hundreds of programmers how they use agents and most find them helpful under close supervision, not for set‑and‑forget builds; it is a beta phase with language gaps and lots of iteration, and I am considering a short AI roundup podcast and newsletter, so send feedback.

Reading and watching: finished five books in February including The Last Kings of Hollywood, and saw The Smashing Machine and Song Song Blue, both strong performances with stories that did not fully cohere.

Before we wrap, quick note on your quest to finish the best picture slate.

Yep, we put on Train Dreams because my wife and I are knocking out the nominees. We traded one each so her Frankenstein and my Hamnet both count, and we still have Train Dreams, Secret Agent, and Sentimental Value to go.

With your half-hour reading pauses during those three-hour films, this mission might take a while, right?

It does run long, but that pause resets me. Alright, enough shop talk; we will leave it here and be back next week, and until then, keep it deep.