Hey there!
This week, I want to share with you a powerful productivity principle I recently learned from a skillshare class by Ali Abdaal – the Pilot, Plane, and Engineer Framework.
The framework is broken down into three parts or roles that we can step into throughout our day, each one of them is essential for optimizing our time, maximizing efficiency, and steering us toward the kind of life that we want to live.
The roles are as follows:
The Pilot
The Pilot takes the helm and sets the course for your life.
This involves having a clear vision of what you want to achieve and identifying the tasks that will lead you in the right direction. This is fundamental, being productive is not about working endlessly on an infinite list of tasks, but rather doing the ones that are important and are going to move the needle toward your desired outcome; the job of the pilot is to find these and make them a priority.
The Plane
The Plane is all about execution.
Once the Pilot has charted the course, it's the Plane's job to follow it diligently. This means taking consistent action, being disciplined, and avoiding distractions that could deviate you from your goals.
Having clear moments for execution is a great way to act with discipline rather than depending on being in the mood for working and to avoid overthinking the projects that we want to see turn into a reality
And just like a plane, we need to learn to take off by starting on our tasks promptly and land safely by creating limits that prevent work to intrude into our time for relaxation and enjoyment.
The engineer
The Engineer's role is to make the Plane more efficient.
Its main focus is around optimizing and organizing the systems of the plane, which could involve exploring productivity tools, strategies to optimize your workflow or improve your health, and most importantly, learning from the mistakes and failures along the way. This way we unlock the opportunity of continuous improvements that might help us move forward.
Balancing the three roles
If this sounds like a good mental model that you might want to apply into your life, you need to know that for it all to work we need to bring it all together first, so that each of the roles can perform their essential part effectively.
On paper, the time you spend in each mode should look something like this:
Pilot → 10% of the time
Plane → 80% of the time
Engineer → 10% of the time
These numbers are rough estimates and might vary depending on what it is that you’re trying to do, but the idea behind them is important: to make sure that we are taking action toward the right objective in an efficient way.
And one final point, remember that this framework is always a tool, a strategy to serve you and help you do the things that you want to do and live the life you want to live, not the other way around.
I hope this post brings you value and helps you navigate the journey of life with clarity and purpose. Until next time!
-Alan