How much flexibility should you allow for in your planning

As I am writing this post while 38,000 ft up in the air en route to Zürich I’m thinking about how to get better at scheduling. You see, as I was looking at our plane flying circles before coming into Amsterdam airport I realized my perfectly planned day required some updates.

Usually I plan my entire day the evening before, so that when I start my day I never have to think about what I should do next. When the day involves travel, I do of course add some buffers to account for potential delays. But with my arrival in Zürich now being delayed by 1.5h, changes are needed.

Earlier this week I was listening to a podcast episode of the Tim Ferriss show where he was interviewing Sam Corcos. One of the things I took away from this episode was that Sam time blocks his entire day, but leaves about half the day for unforeseen events. And although I think this is probably not the worst idea, I can’t help but think this probably isn’t the most efficient way either. If you usually schedule full days, your usual schedule for a month would now take two months... For myself, I usually leave about 20% margin on my planning. Which works most of the time.

I do not have the answers yet though, but I do know that every experience will built a better gut feeling for what your schedule allows. Making that you naturally get better at planning the more you do it.

If you have any advice on this topic or want to share what works for you, please send me tweet!