Don’t worry about me. This happens every year.
Every November 1, I stop all active work product and do a month long clean-up and planning session. I wanted to mention this to you, because, aside from my speaking events or maybe a new book that’s coming out, it’s one of the topics people ask me the most about.
Here’s a quick rundown on how I do this.
I have specific terminology for a lot of these items that I use in my classes, so if anything is unclear, reach out to me.
- I stop doing any new creative work or starting new projects. Aside from time critical items, such as interviews or speaking engagements, everything goes on hold.
- I pull out my Master Projects list so that I can modify it as needed. This is where I draw my 80-20-1 percent goals from through the year.
- I pull out my Goals for the Coming Year list and modify it as needed. This is the document that drives everything I do. It covers all aspects of my life from spirituality to business.
- I do a ‘spring cleaning’ of my hard drive and filing cabinets. A lot of crap accumulates, gets duplicated, or gets misfiled through the year. This is the time I get all medieval on my computer and hard copy files. It’s a time of both organization and purging. What I find in the files is what drives my Master Projects list.
- I re-evaluate my daily life in all aspects. How is my morning routine? Does our homeschool need any revamping? etc, etc.
During this time, my office becomes an active hands-on mindmap, like something you’d see on…
I take most of the month to do all this and plan to be finished by Thanksgiving. This is so I can completely take Wednesday before Thanksgiving all the way to December 1 off work and just meditate on my plans for the coming year that I made earlier in the month. It’s a time of clarity for me.
Here’s what this does for me…
- It sets my goals for the coming year BEFORE the year begins.
- It alleviates a lot of pressure on me for wondering where my priorities are. I’m apt to start running in all directions trying to do everything at once if I don’t do this. Am I the only person that gets frazzled when there’s too many good ideas?
- It allows me to get so much more done in the year.
- Most of all, it helps me analyze which projects to trash or delay and which ones need to be top of the list.
If I can do anything to encourage you to take some time and plan, please let me know. You may not be able to take off an entire month. I mean, I worked years before I made this a routine. But if you can find some evening or weekend time, I promise it will be worth it.
Through this time I’ll update you a couple of times on what’s going on with the planning, so stay tuned for those e-mails.
Before I close, I have to give credit to two special friends for inspiring how I do my planning.
Kent Julian is the mastermind behind my goal-setting system. He teaches it in his speaker boot camp seminars, so check him out.
Dan Miller is the guru who inspired me to step back and plan the way I do. As a matter of fact, every year he publishes a free Goals Worksheet to help in the process. Click HERE to access that.
Thanks,
Dr. Redbeard
PS…I’ll have something special in store for a Cyber Monday e-mail, so make sure you check for it on Monday, November 26. Feel free to forward this to anyone you think would benefit from it.
This message was written by a team of geeks, nerds, gamers, and Dr. David Powers. You can always find us at www.callsignredbeard.com. Thanks for reading!
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