How Watership Planner is Different from Other Planners

Watership Planner is the first planner to take a problem solving approach to planning. Problems are obstacles that we must resolve to achieve a desired goal. Problem solving then is the process of moving from a given state to a desired goal state. Watership Planner’s system is based on the famous work of Hungarian Mathematician George Polya’s book How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method.

Overview of the System

Watership Planner supports these four steps of the planning process. Other systems fall short as they don't support these phases:

Envision

Create a vision of the person you want to be.

Plan

Devise a plan to achieve goals that support your vision.

Act

Take focused action on the tasks that will have the most impact on your goals.

Reflect

Review your progress so that you can continue improving your skill.

Watership Planner supports How to Solve It's problem solving steps

Envision

Watership Planner allows you to discover the underlying principles behind the actions you most value. From there you can divide your life into the areas that are most important to you and plan the outcomes that you would like for each. Envision the person you'd like to become and start building goals to fulfill that vision. Start thinking about what you can be doing for long term fulfillment.

Imagine a high school dropout working as a dishwasher. Would he be more successful working an extra 2 hours a day for more money? Or would he be more successful if he spent an hour a day reading about what he is passionate about, electronics?

The envision step is about asking: What kind of person would I like to become? What would I like to achieve with my life? What are my values? What do I find fulfilling in life? What do I value? What is most important in my life? How do I determine success? How do I want to grow in the next year? In the next 2 years? 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? Create a blueprint of the person you’d like to become and then base all your actions on top of that.

Discover your values and color code the different areas of your life.

Plan

After we know where we want to get to, we can begin to brainstorm ideas as to how to get there. Stimulate different possible courses of action and evaluate their consequences. Get all your ideas out into a system and then organize them in order of importance so that you can later take action on your most important ideas. Experience the feeling of a silence mind that doesn't remind you of things you need to do when you aren't in a situation to complete them. Tag items with the context needs to complete it. Set up a balance between the different areas of your life. Create a list of small steps needed to complete a goal so you can make steady progress.

The plan step is about asking: What steps do I need to take to achieve this goal? What actions would be most impactful towards completing them? What are the most important things that I need to accomplish today? What is the best use of my time today? When do I have time to accomplish them?

Break down large ambigitous goals into a series of steps you can manage.

Add todos to a date and automatic scheduling allows you to envision how that day will play out.

Automatic scheduling rearranges the day for you in the event of interruptions, changing priorities, and appointment reschedulings.

Act

With a list of tasks that need to be accomplished our focus now is on effectively taking action. Hit a global hit key and instantly get a screen with up to the second information as to how your day is turning out so that you can make the best decisions in the moment. Quickly notify Watership Planner of interruptions so that it can automatically reschedule your day and record your time. Get instant statistics on how your day is turning out. Immerse yourself in the current task knowing that the system will notify you of any conflicts, alarms, or appointments. Stay in the flow by quickly entering new tasks, comments, and reminders for later without switching applications.

The act step is about asking: What is the best use of my time right now? Should I take this interruption? When is my next meeting? When do I think I will be finished with a certain task? How effective am I being so far? What am I focused on right now? I need to quickly schedule an appointment for next week.

Keyboard based interface allows you access your information without switching applications. Stay in the flow while you are working.

Reflect

Through measurement we can rate where we are. By striving for a small 2% improvement weekly we can continuously improve. We can view the progress we have made on our goals. By taking some time to analyze how our days went we encourage making habits of acts of excellence and come up with strategies for addressing areas where we are weak.

The reflect step is about asking: Where was I most effective? Where did I misestimate how long something would take? How can I do more in less time? How much progress did I make towards my goals? What did I do well? What would I have done if I could to today over, how can I learn from this?

Get a breakdown on where your time is going.

View the progress you are making on your goals. Analyze what is working and what isn't.

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