“Fail to plan, plan to fail…”
We’ve all heard this before, and how true it is!
Have you ever gone food shopping and thought, if only I’d drawn up a shopping list, I wouldn’t miss a thing; I’d be done in half the time, and best of all without having to wrestle my way through the shop feeling exhausted and confused at the end like I’ve achieved nothing.
Whether planning your shopping trip, starting a business, or creating your marketing campaigns things always go smoother with a plan.
Benefits of planning:
- Saves time
- limits distractions
- Increases productivity
- Massively reduces stress
And you’ll feel good too!
Where do I start?
First off, take a breath, it’s not as complicated as you might think and you don’t exactly need to plan the whole of 2012 in your first sitting, perhaps consider the first quarter or even a single campaign at hand and then spider out from there.
As with anything, you need to know where you are going in order to get there, write down what you are trying to achieve and think of your aims and objectives for that achievement – keep things simple you can always come back to it later and expand on your points.
Definition of a business Aim:
Aims are long-term plans from which company objectives are derived.
Definition of a business Objective:
Business objectives are medium to long-term goals established to coordinate the business.
Once you have your aims and objectives written down set out short term goals, once those are listed move onto listing the tasks that when complete will achieve those goals. This list will guide you in small steps towards your eventual aims and objectives.
Work with a date calendar
A date calendar is a key tool to organise projects and meet future objectives. By setting out tasks and goals across a calendar you can organise your work load monthly, weekly or even day to day! This simple yet fantastic tool will help you organise and increase productivity; bringing structure to what can otherwise be chaos.
Top Tip: Setup a date calendar to maximise planning efficiency.
Consider using:
Microsoft Excel – Perfect for creating a custom simple calendar with massive scalability
Google Calendar – Prebuilt and available online at any time, this FREE online calendar comes with many powerful features including shared calendars, providing other online users exclusive access to your calendar.
Check back next week for part 2 ‘Running your plan’
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