An oft-overlooked element of successful planning is building in time for more planning.
And time to review how your plan is going.
Whenever I get overwhelmed with my schedule, it’s because I’ve let it build up over time into something unwieldy. If I’m always “in” my schedule, I can’t look at it objectively, from without. It can make change seem impossible.
I often use a driving analogy when talking about this conundrum:
You’re bombing it down a busy road, there’s nowhere to pull over, the speed limit’s high, and you’re not really sure where you have to turn off.
It feels wrong, anti-social, and unproductive to pull over, stop, or even slow down. And you can’t check your map while you’re driving.
But if you don’t, you’ll never get where you’re going.
Your life/mission/strategy will become optimized for doing what it takes to keep driving. It will be as if the driving is an end in itself and not just a means of getting somewhere.
Greg McKeown shares a way of handling this in his fantastic book Essentialism. It’s called a personal quarterly off-site.
Greg proposes taking 3 hours every 3 months to review the past 3 months and identify 3 things you want to achieve in the next 3 months. It’s important you do this somewhere other than your office, so you can literally take yourself out of your schedule.
In addition to business planning, Kayte and I have used the concept to strategize our direction and goals as a family. Highly recommended!
Simply put, scheduling time to plan is an absolute must-do.
And there’s no time like the present to do it.
Happy planning planning,
James
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