Fail to Plan; Plan to Fail

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail

Bosses love subordinates who have a plan.  Telling your boss a plan you’ve developed against a priority really makes you stand out.

That does not just happen.  You have to plan that.

Professional credentials- some title starting with “Certified”-getting those credentials typically requires some sort of plan.

A trampoline job promotion rarely happens through serendipity alone.  Generally, a plan buried in there somewhere.

Consider your planning for a moment.  If you conclude your day based on what is due, who needs an email response, or if it’s 5 o’clock yet…..if those elements determine when you are “done”, then you probably are good at getting other people’s priorities done.  That might be how you measure success- “I had a good day because I got back to everyone”.  Hooray for you.

Makes you perhaps a good soldier type, but not really a catalyst. Not an agent of change.  Not a superstar who makes others around them better.  No, you might be more like a widget.  A plug-and-play model.

Time Management is the act of controlling events. If you fail to plan, you miss basics, you spend energy on others’ priorities and you subjugate yours. You plan to fail.

The world of apathetic under-performers is enormous (disproportionally in the public sector IMO, i.e. DMV).  Those with a plan, a plan they alert others to and act upon, can excel.  It can just be a list everyday, and for those with lists, the nature of eating an elephant is important.

List-makers gravitate to small tasks but shy away from big projects unless they understand our elephant analogy.  One eats an elephant one bite at a time.  So the big goal gets broken into many bite size pieces and populates that list for the foreseeable future.  Elephant consumed.

List your goals, break them up into actionable steps, measure them.  Get going.  Remember that every goal has three characteristics:

• Measurable
• Aggressive
• Attainable

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail.