PLANNING

PLANNING

How do you do anything?  Do you make plans?  You may think you don't plan much, but in reality, you plan everything you do each day.  Do you have a job, do you do voluntary work? Your day will start by you planning on what time you get up, what to wear (especially if you don't have a uniform or 'work' clothes), how you get to where you are going - even what you will be doing for eating during the day (and if you happen to be on a strict diet you will definitely be planning your food regime).  What about your vacation?  They don't just happen, they all take planning, some more than others.

Take about an hour or so at the beginning of your week. Write down all the things you know you will be doing, eg working for your boss, other commitments, training meeting, working for yourself - recruiting, product demonstration or doing whatever improves your business, etc

Your can use a standard diary to work out your schedule, but if it doesn't have the right time segments for you, create a simple sheet marked out by days and time blocks that will suit you.

Once you have made your weekly planner, put it in a prominent place as a reminder of your plan for the week.  If you have days where you need to do several different things, you may feel a daily planner would be better for those odd days. Remember though, if you do daily planners for every day this will take up much more of your time instead of doing your work.  The time you spend on this planning exercise should not be included in the time you are working on your business and should only be done in 'spare' time - and time needs to be set aside each week to do this planning exercise.

Some years ago, I was involved in a youth group leader’s training session and as part of this we were given an exercise using toy building bricks (I'm sure you know the ones I mean). Each group had a pile of bricks and told we had to build a replica of the model in the next room. Just one group member could go to that room at a time then return to tell the other members how to make the model. At the time, we had no idea of the reason behind the exercise, but it turned out that  each group were timed on how long the planning stage was before their model was begun and how long it took for the model to be built. The group who finished their model first had in fact been last to start building it as they had spent about 75% of their time planning how to build it first. The group who finished last were the ones who had started to build as soon as their first member returned from seeing the model - no planning at all. This was done many years ago but the idea and its reasons still stay with me.

Remember - if you fail to plan - you plan to fail.

Heather Reid

Working to improve other people's lives

+441142739863

heatherreid1200@gmail.com