How much planning and thought do you put in weekly on achieving your goals?
I continuously meet folks that are searching for a new job, trying to drum up new business, or studying to enter the market in the near future. Many of them have a good idea of what they want to do and where they want to be financially, professionally, or academically five to ten years from now.
When I ask these same people what are doing this week to reach those goals, I almost always get the same blank stare. In fact, I’ve been challenged a few times recently and realized I’d fallen off the “planning wagon. ” It seems many of us tend to think well when considering what we want to do mid to long-term, but we don’t consistently plan our monthly, weekly and daily activities to insure we reach the end-goal the way we want.
In the words of Napoleon Hill, we all need to “plan the work and work the plan.” I’ll be specific. We need to do this for every week and day. Franklin Covey has a drawn out method for determining your long-term goals and reviewing them weekly to plan out what steps you’ll take this week to get closer to your goal. Each weekly plan is prioritized and the list is re-evaluated daily. The priority is based on what will derive the biggest value.
In other words, what can you do today that by the end of the day will help you come closer to and feel better about reaching your goals? Do these first. Likely these are also the things that we dread doing. For sales and marketing it’s making the 5 to 10 calls a day, meeting 15 to 20 people a week.
You may find that you have too many things to complete today. Then cut down your list. It’s better to have and complete five high priority tasks today then having 15 tasks and completing ten that are mixed high and low priority.
This concept applies to not only your personal and professional goals, but to how you prioritize and manage your projects for your company and clients.
So, how are you planning your day?