As either Ben Franklin, or Robert Schuller or someone has said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” Over the weekend, I sat down for my weekly review and I realized that while 2017 is off to one of the best starts ever when it comes to what I’m accomplishing that matters as a leader, my biggest weakness is still planning. I have been through most of Michael Hyatt’s material, which I recommend fully, and yet the challenge for me is still to take the time each day to plan my work and work my plan. My morning routine has become established in nearly every area, but the area of planning the day. I start with prayer, Bible reading and exercise. Then when I ought to move to planning, something happens: my thought is what happens is I decide I “know” what I’m going to do today so I don’t need to plan.
The truth is I do know what I’m going to do most days, and yet knowing what I’m going to do and setting forth a plan to do it can be the difference between the knowing and the doing for me. When I have my planner in front of me and I set for the three things I’m going to do in a given day, the likelihood I will accomplish those three tasks is much higher, but there’s something even more important that I miss when I don’t get out the planner: I connect those three tasks to the goals on which they’re based. The reason you and I need to plan daily is to ensure what we do ties in to our over all goals for the day, week, month and year.
When Ben or Robert or whoever it was said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail,” the idea my have simply been to have a to do list for the day in order to accomplish more work, but it likely meant much more. Not only do we need a plan for the day, but a plan for the week, month, year and for our lives. That’s what moves us beyond time management to life management. That’s where failing to plan is truly planning to fail. I will certainly accomplish something today, whether I take the plan or not, but will I accomplish the few things that will leverage my leadership to the highest degree possible? That’s the question each of us as leaders need to ask ourselves before we plunge into a day without an effective plan. Yes, we are all “busy,” but busy with what?
As I’ve written so often here, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” We may live unexamined lives in many different ways. One of them is to go through a “full” day knocking items off our to do list, which may be a real or imagined list, and then discovering after weeks, or months of such activity, we have done a lot, but our leadership isn’t more effective and our organization isn’t farther along the path of becoming what it was created to be and do. Activity is no assurance of productivity. That’s why we need a plan for the day, week, month, year and for our lives. I’m writing this as much to remind myself as to remind you.
Here’s to leading better by taking the time to have a plan not only for today but for our lives–today!