Sunday, January 03, 2016

2016: Make this a Year of Planning

I posted a new video Friday on my YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/smallbizthoughts.

The focus is on planning all year round. So many of us get caught up with the first-of-the-year frenzy of over promising to ourselves. Whether it's losing weight, saving money, or cutting down on beers, we have a tendency to make grand pronouncements on January 1 that are long forgotten by the 31st.

This year, I encourage you to try something different: Plan and execute all year long.

In fact, you don't have to plan much at all for the next two weeks. Let the new year buzz fade away. Then start regular, monthly planning sessions.


One of the most important elements of success is repetition. You can't budget once a year, look at it once a year, and have any hope of reaching your budget goals. The same is true with personal growth, business strategies, and all other planning.

I always think back to the days when my daughter was just about to crawl. It was faster for her to roll on the floor. So she'd roll a few times, then look around and make a course correction. Then roll a bit and make another course correction. This is infinitely better than heading off in one direction and never making those minor corrections.

Set aside a special time each month of 2016 to spend an hour on your business planning. Review your numbers. Review your personal goals.

Write down your notes but don't worry about getting it right. You can make changes as often as you want. That's called working ON your business.

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Special Announcement: Year Y$10K


Please check out this blog tomorrow for the first installment of a new series called Y$10K. I want to walk through a plan to help you put an extra $10,000 in the bank by the end of the year. For some of you this will seem easy. For others it seems impossible. Most are in the middle.

But who can't use an extra $10K, right? So join me and we'll go through this together.



2 comments:

  1. For those frequent flyers out there, nothing beats some noise cancelling headphones on your head (to ward off seatmate discussions) while you listen to nothing and plan your next quarter, year or article to write. Last year I managed to write 25 articles while flying between January and November. In December, over three round trips, I was able to review our four primary vendors and consider four new areas of business, and sketch out a 2016 marketing plan. Cannot beat airtime for planning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good idea Josh. Just make sure it's on the airplane and not in the car.

    ReplyDelete

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