Until recently, my attitude towards the popular game of cards—comprising the 4 suits: diamonds, hearts, spades, and clubs—was very negative. I never learned to play any card game at all because I had a mistaken perception. It is difficult to pinpoint how I developed this erroneous impression, but somehow, I always associated card games with gambling.

That changed when my teenage daughter introduced me to a card game that looked entirely different. This piqued my curiosity, and as I paid more attention, I began to appreciate the deep lessons embedded in some of these beautiful card games. I learned that in card game flavours like bridge, whist, etcetera, the suits are ranked either by default or through bidding, and the suit that eventually becomes designated as the highest in ranking—and therefore the most powerful suit—is given a special name: the “trump” suit. Within each suit, the individual cards—king, queen, ace, etcetera—are also ranked. Most importantly, I discovered that a card from the designated trump suit can beat any card from the other suits; it’s called a trump card. If a player holds a trump card, they can strategically use it to win a round, even if their opponent plays an otherwise originally higher-value card from another suit. For instance, if the spades suit is designated as the trump suit, then a spade becomes the trump card, ranking higher than any of the clubs, diamonds, or hearts. A trump card provides a decisive advantage—a resource one can leverage to gain an upper hand in a situation.

When it comes to time management, planning is your trump card! And the basic rule is… Before you do anything else, do something else first; plan!’

Planning helps you to begin with the end in mind, and can help you to eliminate waste, double your efficiency, and thus double your productivity.

Indeed, “Proper prior planning prevents poor performance!” and “Failing to plan implies planning to fail”.

When you take any action without first planning, you are likely to be ineffective, or fail. It’s like shooting without aiming; it’s so absurd!

Note that this applies to even what you intend to say in a discussion or a meeting.

See more at seersapp.com/tm-basic