How to Plan: An Easy Method

Hi everyone…..as you know I am a Leadership Coach and one of the areas I coach or assist leaders to be more organized or to be better planners. I want to share a bit of what I know with you my followers. Most people don’t take the time to plan and simply keep everything in their heads. They also move to complete tasks as they remember, or they write down to-do lists, then wonder why at the end of the day they didn’t seem to complete anything of worth.

To-do lists are simple and what most people do to start their day and they think this is planning but it’s not. With a to-do list you tend to write down first whatever comes to your mind then the rest flows, but are they in order of priority? Are you doing the task that is important and urgent or as your list indicates, whatever is first. We tend to do the tasks on our list that are easy, quick to do, tasks we like or the tasks that was simply first.

Lets start at the beginning, to understand what is the best process to be a better planner:

How to Create an Action Plan to Achieve Your Goals

1. Make Sure Your Goals Are SMART.

2. Work Backwards to Set Milestones.

3. Determine What Needs to Happen to Reach Your Goals.

4. Decide What Actions Are Required to Reach Your Goals, be very specific.

5. Break up large tasks into smaller tasks

6. Put Your Actions Into a Plan, that is in order of priority

7. Set a Schedule for each task.

8. Follow Through.

9. Set a Deadline for achievement.

10. Monitor/Track your progress, keep a record of all your activities

What is a Goal?

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality. The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life.

After you’ve determined what your goal is (start with something small and simple), then develop an Action Plan. An action plan is a plan that contains enough detail to achieve an objective or goal. This typically includes an outline of goals, objectives, measurements, action steps and responsibilities for each step. In some cases, dates and budget are also included.

The Steps Required to Achieve Your Goals are:

1. Set the Goal (s), with target dates and completion dates

2. Break down within a Month what you need to complete or do to be able to accomplish the Long Term Goals

3. Break the goals into specific tasks required to achieve the goal(s)

4. Determine weekly what tasks you have to achieve for each goal

5. Determine Daily what are the tasks required for completion, for each big goal

6. Once you know all the very important tasks that must be completed to achieve the goals then set dates when each task can or should be completed. Scheduling is what happens now. Block the times to do specific tasks

7. All other secondary tasks that follow must also be listed and dates set for their completion

8. Schedule all of these tasks into your calendar and any appointments that must occur

VISIT MY ETSY SHOP HERE. GET  YOUR PLANNER

REMEMBER: EVERYTHING MUST BE DOCUMENTED. WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!

ADDITIONAL STEPS IN THE BUSINESS AREA:

1. From the business perspective, set all the relevant meetings that are needed to help you achieve the tasks listed.

2. Develop a delegation list listing who you will delegate which task to for completion

3. Track the performance of all your team members you have delegated to, to ensure they stay on track and within the timeline.

4. Track all the tasks delegated and their status.

Items Needed:

1. Paper to write all your goals (you can use a printable planner)

2. A planner journal or Diary/Calendar

3. Pen, pencil, eraser, highlighter

Additional Requirements:

1. Have a positive attitude

2. Stay determined despite any obstacles or distractions (your plan can be flexible so changes can be made and times rescheduled)

3. Have someone who can support you or give encouragement when needed

4. Take some downtime if necessary

5. Visualise the end result (you can even do a vision board as part of your planning process, so you see what the outcome will look like)

How To Plan: The Easy Method, Right Here

I hope you enjoyed what I shared on how to plan as this is part of what I do for my clients, helping them to be better planners. If you need additional help let me know and we can always connect for you to get further coaching or guidance.

Later people. Look out for the other parts of this series, where I talk about Easy methods to handle other business and personal tasks, such as, delegate, solve problems, manage your time and more.

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