Planning to succeed in work life

Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true – Lester R. Bittel, ‘The Nine Master Keys of Management’.

Everything we do and intend to do in life follows a plan of some kind, with or without our knowledge. If you have ever remoulded a room in your home, I’m pretty sure you didn’t just go out and purchase materials and supplies without first identifying your budget, resources, time, etc. A contractor would not build a house without first having a blueprint and design plan from an architect.

Similarly, most of the things we do at work must be well planned and organised if we are to make the most of it and be within the scheduled deadlines. Work planning isn’t a future activity in our lives: Something we will vow to do when it’s time to make our New Year’s resolutions. Work planning is something we already have begun doing, in at least some areas of our life, without ever using that title.

In other words, the title may be new to some of us, but the activity is something that almost all of us – including the most dedicated dreamer among us – have already experienced. So, the discipline called life or work planning is only a more systematic, thoughtful and thorough way of doing something you already do occasionally, intuitively and without much agonising thought.

Thus, to decide you want to really do work, planning in a formal way is like deciding to take up walking as a discipline. It’s not a totally new activity. You already do it. But to choose walking as a discipline is to stop just ambling around the house, or taking short walks to the store and determining to walk for a longer time, at a brisker pace and with some sort of schedule. In any case, you are just expanding something you already do.

Life/work discipline

If you decide you want to do life/work planning as a discipline, it is the same kind of decision: You are merely deciding to do, in a more disciplined way, more regularly and for a larger block of time that which you already do.

For most of us, working is being at office from eight to five, Monday to Friday, which is an ordinary phenomenon; our jobs have become so much of a routine that we hardly stop and think what actually gets done within these five days.

Sometimes we spend long hours at work, take quick snacks to cut short lunch time and do every possible thing to save time, putting our own health at the stake, but in spite of all this, it is even more frustrating when bosses yell over a delayed report, or perhaps we are stuck with yet another untouched workload in hand.

What’s the solution to all these bad experiences, where bosses and managers get blamed for uncommitted crimes? The answer to all this would be to plan and organise your work and then the ‘bad and ugly’ situations at work would transform into ‘bold and beautiful’ experiences.

Planning as a process

Planning is a process which involves the determination of future course of action, i.e. why an action, how to take an action and when to take action are main subjects of planning. Planning may be broadly defined as a concept of executive action that embodies the skill of anticipating, influencing and controlling the nature and direction of change, according to McFarland.

Planning throws the searchlight of human wisdom, experience and ingenuity into the darkness of the future. Thus it is important to identify why you must ‘plan your work and work your plan’. The following are reasons which describe why planning is important:

1.    Planning increases the organisation’s ability to adapt to future eventualities: The future is generally uncertain and things are likely to change with the passage of time. The uncertainty is augmented with an increase in the time dimension. With such a rise in uncertainty there is generally a corresponding increase in the alternative courses of action from which a selection must be made. The planning activity provides a systematic approach to the consideration of such future uncertainties and eventualities and the planning of activities in terms of what is likely to happen.

2.    Planning ensures relatedness among decisions: A crystallisation of objectives as mentioned above would lead to relatedness among the decisions which would otherwise have been random. Decisions of the managers are related to each other and ultimately towards the goals or objectives of the enterprise. Creativity and innovation of individuals is thus harnessed towards a more effective management of the company.

3.    Adequate planning reduces unnecessary pressures of immediacy: If activities are not properly planned in anticipation of what is likely to happen, pressures will be exerted to achieve certain results immediately or in a hurry. Thus adequate planning supplies orderliness and avoids unnecessary pressures.

4.    Planning reduces mistakes and oversights: Although mistakes cannot be entirely obviated, they can certainly be reduces through proper planning.

5.    Planning ensures a more productive use of the organisation’s resources: By avoiding wasted effort in terms of men, money and machinery, adequate planning results in greater productivity through a better utilisation of the resources available to the organisation.

6.    Planning makes life simple: It helps to secure a better position and stability. Superiors, subordinates and peers enjoy working with those who are well planned and organised.

7.    Planning enables the identification of future problems and makes it possible to provide for such contingencies.

8.    Planning increases the effectiveness of an individual.

But speaking on a more realistic dimension, we must remember that things cannot transform overnight. Hence, we must start planning from day one and what is important is to make sure that we keep to our plan.

Everyone wants to be successful in their work and to achieve success; there should be a specific plan for work because without planning your dreams for the successful life will not be over. It’s always better to stick to keeping your plan simple. The work plan should not be a complicated one, but instead should have clear and specific answers to two questions: What is your final destination? How can you reach that destination?

I’m often asked, “How do I stay motivated toward making a change?” While there are a few things I recommend, it always starts with having a plan.

The best leaders have plans. The best sports coaches have a game plan. The most successful athletes rely on plans. You need a game plan if you want to be successful. A plan helps keep you focused. A plan can be grounding when life throws distractions at you. And a plan gives you feedback so you can chart your course correctly.

To create your plan, I recommend you break your goal down into mini-milestones. For one thing, it’s going to help you stay motivated. Working hard toward something that doesn’t have an end result for a year or more is not a very motivating thing to do. We need results, feedback and validation that we’re on track. And we need it constantly. Mini milestones create that for us.

Here is the best strategy I know for creating a clear and simple plan with mini-milestones:

•    Plan your day before you start reading emails or checking voicemails. Take 10 to 20 minutes at the start of your work day to figure out what you need to get done and by when. Set priorities and realistic goals. Make sure the things at the top of your to-do list for the day are things that absolutely need to get done today. Work your way down the list with things that can be done at a later date toward the bottom of the list.

•    Make sure the items you add to your list contribute to your overall project or business goals. Planning your day before you get inundated with emails and voicemails is a great way to establish some direction and lay a foundation for the day. Even better – if you can make the list the evening before, you’ll be ready to get right to work as soon as you arrive.

•    The other key to staying focused is to keep the plan in front of you visually. I like to create ‘one page’ plans that I can post on the bulletin board by my desk and refer to regularly. This gives me a line of sight to the bigger goal while also keeping me focused on the priorities at hand.

•    Idea into action: Set aside an hour this week and work through this exercise for just one of your most important goals for this year. Map out your plan and then, work the plan. Notice how much more energised and focused you feel once you’ve got a plan mapped out.

The following tips will help you in developing your own:

1.    Be honest about how much time you spend at work and why. Is it really necessary to work long, extra hours to accomplish your tasks and objectives, or are you regularly staying late for other reasons – to impress your boss and your peers or simply because you are not managing your time well during the day?

2.    Manage your energy, not your time. Check your energy levels throughout the day and week. Leave work early one evening a week — say Wednesday — so you can maintain momentum. What is your energy right now and how can you maintain and boost it?

3.    Identify and banish time-stealers. These can be in the form of demanding people, routine or unnecessary meetings or tasks, or even your own bad habits. Seek out the critical time-stealers, develop a plan to deal with them and consign them to the past. This should help you feel more in charge of your agenda. What are your time-stealers?

4.    Find a buddy or mentor at work. Rather than burdening your partner with work-related issues, find a colleague for a regular downloading session. One friend of mine meets a colleague weekly and they are each allowed a half an hour to rant and rave about issues and seek advice. They find this acts as a great pressure valve for them. Who could be your buddy or partner?

5.    Treat time outside work as sacrosanct and refresh yourself. Protect your time outside work as much as you can. You need to be able to switch off from work for your own health and sanity and that of your friends and family. Find a way to refresh and replenish yourself after a week’s work. What do you do to support yourself each week? The gym, long walks, visits with friends, a favourite art gallery or restaurant? What is your weekly source of replenishment?

6.    Remind yourself that you are much more than your job. However much you love your job, it is a mistake to define yourself too closely to your work. Take time to reflect on what you want to achieve in life and think about your definition of personal success. This should help you during those times when work gets difficult and the pressure becomes unbearable. What is your definition of life success?

Planning in organisations is the process of creating and maintaining a plan. It is processes of thinking about the activities require accomplishing a desired task or reaching the organisational goal. Choosing a destination, evaluating alternative routes and deciding the specific course of the plan in short are the major steps in organisational planning.

Businesses usually set big goals for their business, but these have to be broken down in to small manageable pieces that they can manage. These goals have to be cascaded down to an annual plan and a monthly plan and work with them so that they can actually meet their business goals.

Convert plans to action

The basic planning for an organisation roots from the corporate vision and mission of an organisation. The vision and mission gets converted in to what is commonly known as KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, which all employees must perform in an effort to fulfil their performance goals annually. As we know, most employees get feedback showing where they stand in terms of performance, usually during the mid year or annual performance review.

Achieving business excellence is an essential drive for any business and the balanced score card helps to stay in this focus. The balanced score card must be implemented for strategic planning needs and benefits, strategic planning model and for SWOT analysis.

It translates the vision in to a work tool and leads to the development of performance measures and control systems and sets goals, objectives and targets, linking them to key performance indicators. It also defines how the KPIs are aligned to company strategy.

A situational analysis may be broad-based or highly specific, depending on the programme in focus. In either case, the scope of the analysis should have a clear focus and purpose directed toward a specific subject, clientele, time, location, or other pertinent factors.

Success is sure to come if you make an effort to stay focused and enthusiastic about the way you make your plans. Make the best of your time at work and stay and refrain from anything that is likely to distract you from your plans. We have all heard the popular cliché, ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,’ and I think it’s a statement with which we can all agree. Therefore, remember to plan your work and work your plan.

(The writer is the Managing Director and CEO, McQuire Rens Group of Companies. He has held regional responsibilities of two multinational companies of which one was a Fortune 500 company. He carries out consultancy assignments and management training in Dubai, India, Maldives, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. He is a much sought-after business consultant and corporate management trainer in Sri Lanka.)