If you want 2021 to be your most successful year ever, then you should get serious about planning. Playing things by ear might be great for artistic projects and romantic relationships, but it’s certainly no way to grow a business. Here’s how you can plan your way to success in 2021.
Consider Your Long Term Goals
Whenever you’re planning a trip, you have to start by choosing a destination. The same is true when it comes to planning your year in business. Before you can even start to consider specifics, you need to determine what it is that you’re looking to achieve.
Create Measurable Benchmarks
Once you know where you’re trying to go, you need to figure out how you’ll measure whether or not you’re making progress. In order to assess whether your methods are working, you need to quantify and calculate your efforts. Simply feeling that “things are going well” is never enough.
Develop A Long Term Plan
After you’ve decided how you’ll measure success, it’s time to develop an overarching strategy for achieving your goals. Try making a step-by-step plan that culminates with the successful attainment of your objectives. This general plan doesn’t need to be overly specific, but it should include concrete activities and outcomes.
Make Daily Plans That Bring You Closer To Your Goals
While your general plan will serve as the chronological blueprint for the year, you’ll also need daily to-do lists to keep you on track. Think of your complete strategy as a series of Russian dolls. Every plan is inside of a bigger plan, all of which is inside of your overall annual goals.
Enhance Productivity
Making the plans themselves only represents half the battle. You also have to plan ways to become more productive so that you’ll actually manage to achieve your goals in the time frames you’ve allotted. From minimizing distractions to taking rejuvenating breaks, there’s plenty you can do to boost efficiency and total output.
Stay Flexible
Plans are certainly necessary, but they don’t have to be rigid. Treat your general plan as a proposed route that can be adjusted if the circumstances call for it. Stubbornly adhering to an obsolete plan can be even worse than having no plan at all.