When you think about the least unsuccessful people in society, who comes to mind? I think of the homeless drunk or heroin addict. And what do they think about? How far into the future do they plan?
All they think about is their next drink, meal, or fix. This is called short-term planning, or more accurately, NO planning.
At the other extreme would include conscientious parents in England who register their children for college as soon as they’re born. This is what I call long-term planning.
It’s interesting to me that the higher up you go on the corporate ladder, the more planning is done. CEO’s spend the majority of their time planning how others will spend their time to meet the company goals and objectives.
So, does more planning equal more success? Planning doesn’t guarantee success, but it improves your odds significantly.
Planning helps you to keep focused, maximize your time, increase your productivity, and lower your vulnerability to stress.
“Every moment spent planning saves four or five in execution.”
—Crawford Greenwalt, President, DuPont
That’s a 400%-500% return on investment! Time is money.
In addition to formally planning your short-term, mid-term, and long-term life goals, there are lots of little opportunities to incorporate planning into your life to improve your productivity, success, and happiness.
1) For example, you may do better to plan what they’re going to wear for the upcoming week ahead of time, rather than waiting until each morning to decide. Because you will have done your thinking/planning ahead of time, you will reduce the anxiety and stress associated with the pressure to be early or on-time to your job and/or appointments.
If you can’t plan the entire week ahead of time, at least do it the night before. You’ll have a better night sleep and it will be one less thing to have to worry about at crunch time.
2) When you have to run multiple errands, like go to the bank, Post Office, grocery store, drop of dry cleaning, etc., plan the best route ahead of time, so you won’t have to back-track. This will save lots of time.
3) How many times have you returned from the store only to discover you’ve forgotten something, so you have to go back? I hate when that happens! Always have a list when you go to the store to buy things.
4) When/if possible, plan on running your errands before or after the commute hours for your area.