If you want to grow a highly successful business, you should never leave things until the last minute. You must plan your year in advance and manage your time wisely. It may sound extreme but if you know each week what you have coming up, you won’t find yourself double-booked and doubly stressed.
With the end of year approaching, there are no more excuses. It’s time to get down to business and start planning for 2021.
I’m going to reveal to you the exact system I use to plan my year – both personally and professionally. If you have a life or business partner, for maximum benefit, I highly recommended that you share this blog with them.
Step 1: Plan your personal life
After being in business for more than 10 years, I’ve worked out that if your personal life isn’t working, your business productivity is probably running at less than 30 per cent. So your first step to planning your year is making a list of the important dates in your personal life. This way you can balance growing your business with enjoying time with your family and friends.
Here’s what you can add in your calendar:
- Add in your birthday and family members’ birthdays
- Pick 1 day of the week with no work (min)
- Add in 4 x 2-day breaks per year (min)
- Add in date nights with your partner
- Add in time for personal hobbies or charity
- Add in time for personal care (hair, massage, nails, etc)
Step 2: Plan your business life
There are three things you need to consider when planning your business life. These are the big rocks, pebbles, and sand in your business.
Big rocks
The big rocks are activities that contribute to business growth. By doing these activities, you can attract more customers and generate more sales. Depending on your industry your big rocks could include conferences, expos, workshops and promotions.
Pebbles
The next one is identifying your pebbles. These are activities you need to do to deliver the promise of your product or service. This could include webinars, podcasts, Facebook live streams, and so much more.
Sand
Finally, sand is everything else you need to do to run your business. From team training, content planning to performance reviews, you can add these activities in your calendar. Other activities you can add as your sand are:
- 90-day action plan sessions (quarter)
- Team reward days (month/quarter)
- Content creation days (quarter)
- Stocktake, cleaning days, etc (quarter)
Once you’ve identified your big rocks, pebbles and sand, start adding them in your calendar.
Step 3: Share with your team
Set a time with your team managers to review your growth (rocks), delivery (pebbles) and support (sand) plans for your business. This step is vital so your team knows what the company is aiming to achieve next year and everyone can work together to make that happen.
Step 4: Add everything in your diary
If you’re using an online calendar app, make sure to take time and put everything into your diary. By blocking those important dates in your diary, you’ll have a constant reminder of where you need to be and what you need to be doing.
Step 5: Print copies and post on your wall
Once everything has been finalised, print copies of your calendar and give to all the people that need it.
Need more help?
Should you want more help and inspiration to achieve your goals, we’d like to invite you to attend 52 Ways. Described as the ‘best ever’ one day workshop for businesses, this event will show you how to become a master of productivity so you enter the new year feeling relaxed and in control.
Visit 52ways.com now to learn more about the event and claim your free tickets.
