The Trick to Achieving Success: Have a Plan

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January is almost over; time to review your first month’s progress for the New Year.

Did you achieve your goals?

If this question makes you uncomfortable, I’ll take it that you either

  1. Didn’t achieve your goals for the month, or
  2. Didn’t set any goals to begin with.

Worst case, you did not develop a plan for the year at all.

Let’s have a moment of silence for anyone without a plan.

The trick to achieving success is to have a plan.

This includes setting goals. The plan does not have to be an elaborate PowerPoint presentation with schematics set to music. What it does need are realistic, achievable, goals with action items and a time table for results.

Some people refer to these as SMART goals. Whatever you need to make it work, just do it.

Recently Hubby and I met with our mortgage lender who works independently without the comfort of a large firm backing him up. He’s smart, easy to work with, explains the details in a way that we understand, and watches out for our best interests. And he’s successful.

In his office I noticed a small grease board with “2016” written at the top. Below was the number of new mortgages he was going to close; the number of new clients he wanted to engage; and personal goals that included vacations and flying lessons. This small board hung on a wall facing his desk so he had to see it every time he looked up.

It’s a daily reminder of what he needs to do in order to be successful in 2016.

His board made me realize I was behind in my planning and had failed to set my goals for the year. Usually I write them on my own grease board and place it in a prominent location. This year, they are still in my head, swimming around with all sorts of to-do lists and other distractions.

Successful people are not successful because it just happens; they are successful because they plan the work and work the plan.

We’ve got a few days left in this first month, people, to get this year started on the right foot.

  • Write down your goals for the rest of the year.
  • Include dates for completion.
  • Review your plan each month.
  • Adjust accordingly.

Most importantly: place your goals where you can see them every day.

Now, GO! We have work to do.

Project Tango: Dancing With a Deadline

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Sometimes I wonder why I ever bother with planning. Try as I might to have a plan in place to keep my hectic life in order, somehow things change and the plan becomes more of a guideline. This is okay in many aspects, such as weekend social plans. I actually prefer doing things “spur of the moment” instead of having every waking minute of the weekend scheduled. While Hubby and I are usually good planners for big social events, we win the prize for lack of planning when it comes to regular weekend activities.

Given our very hectic and incredibly structured work weeks, this laid-back weekend approach is a nice change. There are drawbacks, of course, as you would expect with a lack of planning. The newest and best restaurants get booked in advance, so we can’t arrive without a reservation at the normal dinner hour of seven and expect to be seated at a table before ten. Go figure. And because we lack the energy to plan most of our weekend social events, we sometimes miss opportunities for serious fun. I mean, should I really look at the paper or internet for fun and exciting local entertainment? Seriously, who has time for that? No, I’m not bitter that we missed our favorite local band that played last night. Close by, at a great venue. For free! It’s Hubby’s fault, I tell you, that we didn’t get to dance the night away. Hubby says, “whatever”. He’s not bitter either.

Where lack of planning becomes a real issue is with work projects. Hubby and I both work in industries that require a great deal of planning, yet also require a great deal of flexibility. Simply getting a project approved to start takes some serious patience and lots of work. Once approved, projects start and stop multiple times, details of the project are in constant flux, and even deadlines may change. It’s enough to make a person go mad.

I like to think that I’ve grown accustomed to my industry, with all of the changes and last minute do-over’s. But lately it’s getting the best of me. A planner at heart, I like to have some sort of organization and schedule. Plans are necessary as they provide a roadmap not only for the company but also my team. Plans allow me to manage more effectively, and hopefully maintain some work-life balance. In theory, anyway. Since I never seem to get to stay with my plan, I’m not sure that it would really work.

Planning for work is sort of like doing the tango, a passionate dance that moves back and forth with aggression and purpose, each side trying to wrestle the other one to their way of thinking. I’ve had a project on the calendar for more than a month now, leading the team through the various stages, each week building on the information from the previous week in an attempt to meet our deadline without causing everyone to pull an all-nighter at the last minute. There’s that “work-life balance” thing again.

It’s occurred to me as we enter the last stretch of the project that no matter how hard I’ve planned or how hard the team has worked, we are probably going to pull an all-nighter. In our “project tango”, the rest of our projects will get pushed to the side; we’ll work non-stop in the final days to finish the current project as changes fly at us right and left, and then, without a minute to rest, we have to pick up the pieces of the other “planned” projects that were ignored as we tangoed the project out the door.

My conclusion on work planning: the only good thing about doing the “project tango” is finally the music stops and the dance is finished; we’ve made the deadline. The bad news: we’ve rearranged all of our other project plans and we can see more all-nighters on the horizon.

The music starts, and the dance begins. Project Tango is underway again.

Feast or Famine

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I’ve never understood why my calendar is such a mess.  Physically it’s a cute calendar, all hot pink and black (my favorite colors).  I’m talking about the schedule of things that fill my calendar.  It’s either feast or famine with my obligations and social events, with too much to do or nothing at all.  At least that’s the way it seems.

The problem is not so much that I have plans but that my calendar seems to fill up at the last minute.  This is particularly true of weekends. Plans come at me rapid fire, faster than I can really think about them.  Before you know it, I’m running from one event to the next and the weekend is over before I know it.  Fun, yes, but not very relaxing.  By Sunday night I’m exhausted, and frustrated that I didn’t accomplish much on my to-do list.

Take last weekend, for example.  With no family plans or other obligations except for regular stuff like grocery shopping and my weekly manicure, Hubby and I had a completely free weekend.  My mind raced with how to spend the time. 

Writing was on top of the list. Organize my craft room.  Prep for an upcoming presentation. Sit by the pool with a good book. Watch a movie – or two.  Hubby’s list was growing too, including organizing his work bench in the garage and heading to the driving range to try out his new golf club.  We both had visions of a date on Saturday night, maybe dinner at a nice restaurant. 

This plan was still in place as late as noon on Friday.  With a free weekend in mind, I was in no hurry to get started on my list of “want to-dos” because the whole weekend was free.  So off I went Friday afternoon for a quick visit with a colleague, figuring I could continue with my fun to-do list Friday night or Saturday. It’s just an hour, I thought as I headed out the door.

First, I should know better than saying I’m going to visit with anyone for only an hour.  I simply don’t know how to do that.  Two hours later and I was on my way home.   In the car, I could hear my phone pinging with new emails and texts.  Checking the computer as soon as I got home, I saw the first email was an invitation to network with a new acquaintance, asking if I could meet during the weekend.  I picked up the phone to check weekend plans with Hubby – after all, I never know what super-awesome surprise plans he may have waiting for me. While it wasn’t exactly a super-awesome surprise, he did remind me that my alma mater was playing the first football game of the season Saturday afternoon, and of course I was not going to miss watching the big game.  No problem, I can network on Sunday since watching the game can’t possibly take that much time.

Then the phone rang. Our wonderful next door neighbors offered us tickets to the high school football game – that started in 2 hours.  Primo seats on the fifty yard line.  Of course we couldn’t let good football tickets go to waste!  Any work or projects would have to wait until Saturday. 

Saturday morning I overslept. That’s okay, I thought, aside from my manicure, the only other activity for the day is watching the game, and that’s only a couple hours, right?  After my manicure I figured I had time to spare – no obligations, right? – so I lazily walked through a shop or two (or three) before heading home.  Hubby was on the computer researching places to watch the game, which I thought was on TV.  Augh! It’s on cable – and since we don’t have cable that means we have to find a sports bar or restaurant to watch the game.  Still not quite grasping the time suck that this would be, Hubby tells me we need to leave an hour before the game starts to make sure we can get a seat.  Sigh.  There goes my afternoon, I thought, but figured I would have time after the game for things on my list.

Wrong!  The game took for-ev-er, with all the commercial breaks.  My butt became permanently attached to the barstool I was sitting on.  Before we knew what hit us, we were eating dinner while still watching the game.  By the time we got home, walked the dog and ran a quick errand, I realized the day was gone. 

That meant Sunday was crunch time.  All the things on my to-do list from Friday were still there, with nothing crossed off.  Nope, hadn’t gotten around to any of the fun things, and we certainly hadn’t made it to the gym or the grocery store. And we totally forgot about the neighborhood party we agreed to attend Sunday night which meant the day was a whirlwind as we tried to get at least a few things accomplished.  By 10 pm Sunday, we were both exhausted and realized that our lists would have to wait.

I know, I know.  It’s my own fault.  Yes, I could learn to say no to some or all of the activities that pop up.  Yes, it’s my choice to either stick to the list or jump on the last-minute opportunities. The responsible thing would be to decline the last-minute invitations in favor of the original plan, so I would have everything accomplished by the end of the weekend.

But that wouldn’t be much fun now, would it?   

© Tami Cannizzaro 2012 All Rights Reserved