The Power of Planning

I’m a great believer in the power of planning. If you aren’t working to your own plan, then almost anyone can hijack your attention and efforts to their cause. It’s not that you can’t have flexibility; you definitely can! But flexibility should come within your own plan for your life.

If you don’t have a plan, now is the time to make one!

If you aren’t sure where to start with your planning, here are some ideas that work for me.

Goals in roles.

We each wear quite a few hats in our lives; each of these is a role. Our goals can be chunked into goals by roles. For example, some of  my roles are wife, business owner (coach and consultant, which might be two separate roles), blogger and friend. When I think about what’s important to me, I consider each role. I might ask myself, ‘In order to be a better blogger, what do I want to achieve this week?’ This technique helps me to be sure I consider all the roles that are important to me, and lowers the chance of overlooking something that matters.

Steps toward a longer term goal.

What’s the most important goal you have right now? New job? Living somewhere different? Becoming self-employed? If you already have a big goal, break the journey down into manageable steps that you can work on today, or this week. For example, if you want to change jobs, what are 2 things you can do this week to get closer to this goal? What one thing can you do today? Put those actions into your plan.

Unfinished business.

When things are left unfinished or unresolved, they can become stressors. Unfinished business can affect your health, your sleep and your reputation with yourself. For example, I have an overdue commitment to finish transcribing a certain Scottish census from 1871. In this case, the problem is that I made a commitment to someone to do this task. As the weeks go by and I don’t complete it, my reputation with myself suffers. When I think about it, I groan inside, miserable that I haven’t done what I said I’d do, or renegotiated it. (In fact, I’ll do something about that today!)

Too many things to do.

Sometimes I’m simply overloaded with things to do. If I’ve any hope of getting beyond this feeling, I need to schedule them into my diary and then be quite disciplined about getting them done. I find that sometimes just getting them all down in a list of things to do, and then plugging away at the list item by item helps me feel I’m more on top of things. Or, I can ask for help (the list is evidence!) The cost of not doing this is loss of sleep, arguments with my husband and a general feeling of overwhelm.

I  encourage you to look at what’s the most important thing this week. What role needs attention? What long-term goal needs some forward motion? Is there any unfinished business eating away at you? Are you feeling overloaded?

You can do something about it. In fact, only you can do something about it, and you can start right now. What will you do today?

If you’d like to hear more detail about how I do any one of these types of planning, please leave a comment asking about it.

Related Reading

Rewrite your future – what you decide and choose today writes your future

Eat that frog – get the most important things done first

Consistency is underrated – one thing you can do to make a huge difference in your life