Thursday, November 6, 2008

Taking Time to Plan

One of my principal believes that I have developed is that you need to take time to prepare. When I joined the Boy Scouts at age 11, I learned the Boy Scout motto BE PREPARED! Of course back then it was about making sure that you did not forget your mess kit, or making sure that you had a first aid kit with you on a campout. Today I take it to be much more.

Today I take the motto "Be Prepared" as my guide post to take time to develop a plan for achievement and to mentally prepare for Peak Achievement. Everyone is busy with lots of work, in fact most people are so busy with their work that they can do not have time to plan. Just ask them. You do not know how many times I have heard someone, most likely running around with to much work to do, say that they have so much to do that they do not have time to sit down and plan their work?

Many years ago I got into two habits that have serve me very well in my life. Those two habits were to complete a Weekly Planning Session and the beginning of each week, and a Daily Planning Session first thing in the morning.

The time that you spend planning will be saved three times over throughout the week.
  • Planning does not have to take forever, it can be done quickly.
  • Planning your week relaxes your brain to focus on what you are currently working on.
  • Planning helps you achieve a greater balance in your life.
  • Planning helps you avoid the "15 hour" work days.
  • Planning will help you stay focused on your goals.
  • Planning will help you build strong relationships with others.
Planning is just to vital to reaching Peak Achievement. So I want to dedicate November to learning to plan.

2 comments:

Jessica said...

What do your planning sessions look like? Do you just make to-do lists? or do you actually sit down with a calendar and schedule activities/tasks? How do you not get stressed out when something unexpected comes up and your whole plan flies out the window?

mtbiketx said...

jb
These are great questions and you are leading me right down the path that I was going to take with this discussion topic. Watch the blog over the next week and I will be discussing these items with you. Thank you for the comments and be sure to ask more questions!