Planning to get things done is super great! It makes you feel productive. It helps fine tune your goal and the things you need to do in order to really reach that goal… BUT… it doesn’t actually do the doing!

You need a certain amount of planning, but what you really need to do is to actually do the work! When you are in the thick of planning, you can forget to do the real work because it feels so great to come up with the plan! It makes you feel like you’ve already been productive. But, if you don’t DO, then you just have a piece of paper with broken promises on it!

Divide your planning time between figuring out what will keep you committed to working hard every day and the planning required to keep you focused in that time that you are working hard. Often, you need some details, but you truly just need to do the work and put in the time.

Keep your planning focused

Make a regular plan but also plan for the pitfalls. Create a plan that you can put in place for those days where you don’t want to put in the work. Make a plan for when you are sick. Make a plan for when you are traveling. The plan under these conditions should be different and more forgiving than a normal day plan.

Keep your planning time limited

The best tip I can give for planning, though, is setting limits on your planning time. Have you ever sat down at your desk to plan for the week and suddenly it’s the end of the day or time to get the kids from school and you have no clue what just happened to the last number of hours? Planning can actually be a great procrastinating tool! Planning has the problem of making you feel extremely productive without any of the actual work being done. So next time you sit down to plan, limit your time to 30 minutes! You can get a lot of planning done in that time, and it gives you plenty of time to start enacting the plan for the rest of the day!

Don’t get me wrong, I am mostly a planner! I would not give up my planning because it does indeed help me stay on track. BUT, using a timer or giving yourself a limited amount of time to complete your planning is the best way to do it. When the timer goes off, make sure you stop. Don’t get sucked into planning more or looking things up for future planning.

Eventually, you just need to stop planning and start acting on your plan!

Thanks for coming home!