I’m a planner. Not just the kind of person that likes to have a plan for whatever I’m tackling, but a crazy, fanatical planner. 🤓
I journal every morning and part of that routine is looking at my day ahead to know every meeting, call, workout, school pick-up and drop-off, soccer practice… I even add buffers to my calendar and plan when I’m going to eat.
I plan every vacation and road trip, down to the exits where we’ll stop for gas and snacks and rest stops along the way for bio breaks.
Sometimes it’s a little over the top and fortunately my wife reminds me every once in a while that I need to chill out. Alas, one of my greatest strengths can be one of my most annoying traits. 🙂
ATEOTD, planning, preparing and visualizing has done me well – from imagining myself running parts of a trail in the next ultra-marathon or rehearsing take-downs and guard escapes in the bullpen before a jiu-jitsu tournament match. 🤼♂️
Mapping out work sprints with the team and requiring sales reps to block time in their calendar for prospecting, then adding the list of accounts they’ll work on in each time block.
In preparing for the Western States 100, I made a laminated card with every aid station and when I would hit each one along the way as part of my race goal of a sub-24 hour race time.
📖 I wrote out a 10-page manual for my crew on what to do when, and how to pace me including how to make sure I never spent more than 90-seconds in an aid station by calling out every 30-second interval.
Here are five strategies I shared in this week’s Go Farther Podcast Series – “Plan, Prepare, Visualize.” Listen to the episide here: https://lnkd.in/g9_nf_-G
1/ Make time to plan – Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually.
2/ Write down your plan – Writing takes longer than just thinking, and it helps me find inconsistencies and efficiency gains in the plan.
3/ Communicate with your team, partners and family – Make sure everyone around you knows the plan, their role, most important, has the opportunity to opine on it.
4/ “If you can buy your way out of a problem, you don’t have a problem.” From Harvey Mackay from his book *Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.* Useful advice when the plan is going astray.
5/ Accept, Acknowledge, Act. A plan is only as good as its ability to be changed or adapted.
