The Lost Art Of Planning
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Oct 7, 2010
Within my last post I talked briefly about planning one's activities so that you can free your mind of things you have to do and just get them done. I realized today that telling people to plan in that fashion hits a lot of deaf ears, because it seems planning is a lost art.
 |
I've always been someone who has plans for this or that. I'm not a serial planner, and that's probably a problem because I think I'd get a lot more done overall if I planned all the time. However, I plan a lot; let me share a little bit of it with you.
I mentioned that I use C. J. Hayden's Get Clients Now to help me plan certain things. That's actually a monthly planner, so you put in things you want to get finished for the month and then use the planner to keep you on track as much as possible. Long term planning is a good thing, but without short term planning it doesn't do a lot of good.
Since I mainly work in my home office, my first plan every morning is to get to the gym. I've been going regularly since May, and it's become almost a way of life. There are a few mornings here and there when I can't get to the gym, but overall I like to get it out of the way so the rest of my day can be dedicated to other things.
I've found that I have to plan my meals. I'm on a metabolic eating plan, and two of the things it's making me do is have at least 3 meals a day and making sure I eat enough food. I'm also not supposed to go more than 4 hours between meals, and when I don't plan things out, I tend to go longer. That leads to snacking, which I'm supposed to limit, and that's the purpose of eating more food at my regular meals. Hey, I've been losing weight, so I really need to stick with this one.
When I plan my week, I try to use my knowledge of how I like to do things to my maximum benefit. For instance, marketing day is Monday. I rarely like to write anything of substance, other than blog posts, on a Monday, so it's the best day of the week for me to try to reach out to both new and previous clients. I will admit that marketing isn't the best thing I do, but having a day dedicated to it works for me. The rest of the days I plan out which projects I'm going to do and for how long.
I plan my break time, and of course I plan when I'm supposed to eat. I plan my meetings and events so I don't miss any of those things. Of course things worked better when I had my Palm, and I'm hoping to get another one at some point, but the calendar on my phone and computer are keeping me going at this juncture.
In both our business and professional lives, there's so much going on that without doing some type of planning, you're going to forget things, miss deadlines, and just plan ol' be stressed out. Planning helps relieve the stress a bit, keeps you and others on track, and helps you get things done. And who could ever complain about that?
Planning is a wonderfully useful and simultaneously irritating concept, isn’t it!
It makes so much sense (most of the time), but sometimes it’s just plain easier to skip!
Thanks for adding a bit of depth to it!
Glad you liked the post, Danial. It’s definitely easier NOT to do many things, but it really behooves us to do it, both professionally and personally.
Hello Mitch,
I don’t know where you got the buzz that planning is dead. I think in the last week I found over 10 blog posts about planning and people showing their calendars with tasks, breaks etc.
Also, I am planning my day too, it’s way better then doing it by ear. When I have things planned I always finish my days ‘chores’ faster then when I have no schedule, which makes me unorganized and inefficient.
Alex, those of us writing about it are in the minority. Do this test; find 10 of your friends and ask them if they plan their days, and I bet that, unless all your friends are wealthy business people, you’ll find anywhere from 0 to 2 who do any type of planning at all. None of my friend plan anything, even though I tell them all how much it might help, and most of my professional friends don’t plan things either, unless they’re booking appointments, which counts only partially in my mind because they don’t plan anything else. Give it a shot, then let me know what you find.
Mitch, I totally agree with you. Planning is very important before we start anything. A perfect planning will make you to take a wise decision and that will lead to success.
Thanks Ala. Actually it’s rare to have a perfect plan, but any plan is better than no plan at all.
I think people plan and plan but at the end of the day most people never carry the plans from that to the actual execution. I say most people are fireman they live there lives constantly putting out fires instead of making sure they never start.
Mitch
I think that’s a great way of putting it, Mitch. However, I also believe lots of people dream more than they plan, because the actual act of planning, which also means putting in processes to get there, might seem too hard for some folks.
Success in business comes as a result of planning. You have to have a detailed, written plan that shows what the ultimate goal is, the reason for the goal, and each milestone that must be passed in order to reach your goal.
It definitely makes things easier doing it that way, Jeremy. Of course people also have to be ready to alter the plan if things aren’t working the way they expected them to.