Okay I am going to say the C word – Christmas is coming and if you are like me then you are hanging out for a break. The last quarter of our year is a very busy one for us – not just in terms of our day to day work but also we use October to November to finalise any outstanding projects that we are yet to complete in 2015 – and to put our plans for 2016 and beyond in place.
This year we have been creating our plans for Diamond 2020 – it’s nearly 5 years since Dan and I first started working together so we are nearing the end of our first five year plan – so it’s time to launch our vision for the next 5 years.
We took two days away in the New Forest with the rest of our board and outlined where we expect to be in 2020 and this has given us the outline of not just our aims – but working back from them what we need to achieve year to year (and indeed month to month) to achieve that 2020 vision.
You can check out my JFDI guide to planning either via my Kindle book – or the summary docs here and use them for your business. They are NOT complicated – the financial bits are more so – but it is a really clear document outlining what we need to do, when we need to do it by and it plans the whole year so everyone knows what we need to be achieving and by when.
No planning means no progress, so I encourage you to think about your business. What do you want out of your business next year? How far is that away from where you are now? What do you need to do to achieve these goals? Create a workable plan and then you can happily RELAX over Xmas and come back in 2016 FULL of the energy to implement.
BUT YOU MUST PLAN. No plan and every day will get caught up in the minutiae of operations. No plan and you’ll find yourself browsing Facebook rather than actually doing stuff that will make your business grow.
I’ll make it super clear – you don’t just go out for a drive for example – you always go with a destination in mind. And when you have the destination the route becomes clear. Once the route becomes clear – there may be diversions – that is life and indeed motorways – but you will find a way around them because – with determination – your destination will be very important and you will get there. But it all starts by really really clarifying what that DESTINATION is. Keep it simple. And then work back from there in steps back to today. Back from the future I guess!
I urge you take a day or two days and plan 2016 NOW. It means when we all get back to work on January 4th next year we can be SUPER productive as our year is already planned. If you want to share your plans with me – or if you have any question that I can answer that might be helpful then feel free to submit at katelester.com. Happy planning!