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Effective Planning Summary

It’s said that most people spend more time planning a vacation than they do planning their lives.

Building a life, building anything, is like building a house; you need to have a plan. What if you just started laying bricks and somebody asks, “What are you building?” You put down the brick you’re holding and say, “I have no idea.”

So, when should you start building the house? Answer: As soon as you have it finished.

Don’t start the day until it is pretty well finished—at least the outline of it. Leave some room to improvise, leave some room for extra strategies, but finish it before you start it. Don’t start the week until you have it finished. Lay it out, structure it, put it to work. The same goes for the month ahead—don’t start it until you have a plan in place.

And, the big one, don’t start the year until it is finished on paper. It’s not a bad idea, toward the end of the year, to sit down with your family for the personal plans, to sit down in your business for the professional plans, to sit down with your financial advisor to map out money plans. Plan out your calendar, your game plan, for all of life’s moving parts.

The reason why most people face the future with apprehension instead of anticipation is because they don’t have it well designed.

Why do you need a plan?

1. Give you clear direction
2. Eliminates distractions
3. Prevents Scatterbrain
4. Allows you to keep yourself accountable so you are moving in the direction of your goals

Benefits of Planning

• Helps prepare a guideline for maintaining and reaching goals we have self imposed
• experiencing an increase in productivity and efficiency
• allows for flexibility

Wrap Up

When you look at successful people, you will almost always discover a plan behind their success. They know what they want, they work out a plan that will get them where they want to go, and they work their plan. It is the foundation for success.

What are some good ideas on developing a plan that will work well and take you to the finish line powerfully?

1. Develop the right plan for you.
2. Establish times to spend on it.
3. Keep a journal.
4. Set goals.
5. Act on your plan.

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

[ The following is the full transcript from this week's post. This is a health blog with a focus on weight loss. Please consider that all episodes are unscripted, direct to camera, with focused talking points. ]

Hello,

You know it is said that people spend more time planning a vacation than they spend planning their life.

To me, this is a really important topic to discuss.

Today's topic is effective planning.

By not having a plan, is basically planning to fail.

What I mean by that is, if you're going to live without a clear plan, you are probably going to let life kind of take control of the situation and run you, versus you running your life.

If you look at things, let's say, you want to build a house.

So when do you start to build a house?

Well, the adage is you build a house when you are finished.

And what is meant by that is, when you are finished with the planning. So, great accomplishments, great things, are done because of effective planning.

Now, one thing that I do want to note is Dwight D Eisenhower, who said that plans are worthless.

But planning is everything.

What he meant by that is that once you have a plan, to hold rigid to that plan probably can cause you to have friction points or differently, or even fail by your rigid belief in staying to that plan.

What that means is that you make a plan with the information you have, but as you execute that plan, you often will gain other knowledge or other information. That is going to help you to adapt and change that plan out a little bit.

That does not mean you are not moving forward. It means that you are adaptive to the environment, so you are not letting the environment control you, but you are letting the influence of the environment impact your planning.

Planning really is an ongoing process.

When we talk about you have a plan. That is really just a kind of a foundation, but that plan is an ever-changing plan.

So, you are constantly planning. It is important to kind of have that approach that when you plan something. That is the plan, there is going to be reflection points. That is going to cause you to stop and pause and say, does the plan really need to be adjusted. So that we are still moving forward. Are these things we are encountering things we didn't expect? And do we need to make adjustments or corrections before that?

So, when you think of the context of building a house. It would be a very unwise person to start building a house without a good, structured plan in place.

Why do you need a plan?

First of all, it is going to give you a clear direction. This is very important because it is about resource management. And without a plan, you may be wasting resources, such as your time, money, things like that.

A plan gives you a very clear direction. It helps you eliminate distractions. It helps you to make sure that you're working on what you should be working on.

If something doesn't fit in the plan, it's really being a distraction. And you should not be letting that take any of your resources.

Also, it helps you kind of stay focused.

It is really easy in today's world, where we are constantly bombarded with different information, between, message alerts, phone calls, things like that.

It has become easy to get distracted, but if you are constantly working on a plan. Then you are going to be able to keep your focus on what matters.

It also allows you to create accountability. As you are working on the plan and developing your plan. You can see how you are progressing through the plan.

You are obviously going to have goals, and that goal setting is very important.

But that is not the purpose of today's talk. You can visit another one of our podcasts, where we talk about goal setting.

The important thing is, as you execute the plan, that it is going to give you the checkpoints of “Am I moving forward with how I need to be in moving my plan?

The first thing is, is you got to have a plan, and then you've got to work the plan.

And that's kind of what, I think Dwight D Eisenhower Howard was saying was, the plan is worthless, but planning is everything.

That is where you constantly are working on the plan.

So, the first thing you need to do is sit down and develop a plan. It does not have to be perfect. In fact, anticipate that the plan will change.

But, the first thing you have got to do is write down your plan.

You must spend time on this.

This is not something you just quickly do in one sitting.

If these things are important to you, where do you want to get in life?

You really gotta think this through and spend some time on it.

Another helpful thing is if you can keep a journal related to the plan that helps you see kind of where you are experiencing success, and where you maybe have some friction points, and what you did to overcome those.

And it gives you, a reference point. Allowing you to go back and look at to further your knowledge and learn and continue that planning aspect.

That obviously means that reflection is very important in the plan. So, you have got to take time to reflect, and say, “Is this plan producing the results I want?” What kind of modifications need to happen with the plan?

Built-in there, you got to be very specific on your goal setting and apply a method of goal setting. That shows you in a way that you are moving forward. That allows you to enjoy the success, celebrate the wins. But it also allows you to quickly course correct any type of off direction or an outcome we did not want. And not wait until we are at the end of our life and proclaiming “Well, I wish I would have done this or that.”

Finally, you have got to execute.

You have got to act on your plan, that's really important.

So, you gotta develop the plan, work, plan, and execute the plan.

It is crucial to understand your plan is not going to be perfect. If you have that understanding, you are always going to be planning.

That means you are always going to be adapting your plan, but you are always going to be moving forward into wherever it is you want to go.

To really get that success, whatever that success is to you. You have got to have a plan.

And I encourage you to take time, develop a good plan that you can work on, and then move forward in life, or whatever success you want to be.

If there is anything we can do to help just let us know.

Thanks.

Kelly Cox MD, FACEP

Member, American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine

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