Why should you have an action plan? Because you can achieve your goals through sound planning and consistent implementation. What are your goals? You may be seeking a full-time job, contract work or temporary work. You may want to explore a new career or win new clients. An action plan gives you the framework to manage your time and optimize your effort. You’ll have more focus and motivation—and you’ll get better results.

How do you get started? Assess where you are now and be very clear on where you want to go. The key question—is your goal is meaningful to you? If it has your wholehearted commitment, it’s time to map out your strategy.

Planning - what’s in it for me?

You get to chart the course and the essential steps to move you along. You set the expectations. Action planning is a great antidote for procrastination—or when you’re feeling scattered and distracted.

Planning will enable you to:

1. Identify and clearly define your goals
2. Maximize your efforts
3. Manage your time and resources better
4. Organize, prioritize and schedule your tasks and activities
5. Stay on course and persevere
6. Make better decisions
7. Measure and track your progress.

How do I start?

You may want to start with the end goal and work backwards, filling in the action steps needed to achieve that goal. There are many planning tools out there. If you’re a visual thinker, sketching out your plan may be helpful. Others use an Excel spreadsheet, chart, calendar or written document. Use what suits.

Your choice of tool is far less important than just getting started.

Once you’ve identified your objectives, here’s a good reality check. To evaluate them, ask - is it SMART—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound? First coined by George Doran and others back in 1981, this approach remains useful today.

Planning - here’s a fish story

My grandfather was quite the fisherman. He had a knack for finding just the right fishing spots. I fondly remember night fishing on the river with him, returning home with the catch. As resourceful grandfathers do, he cured the shad in his homemade smoker, fashioned from an old appliance.

He did a bit of research before his fishing trips. My grandfather knew where and when the fish ran—the best bait, gear, lures, technique and the optimum time of day to fish. His wise planning certainly paid off!

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. -Thomas A. Edison, US inventor (1847-1931)

For more on planning, please see our recent post, How Action Planning Makes Perfect.

Today’s question
As you angle for the right work opportunities, do you have a plan—or are you casting about?