Some people like planning out full years, but the most effective people plan out in quarters. Let’s go over how the plan your next quarter.
Why is planning important?
- Planning lets you work out mistakes on paper ahead of time instead of in real-time
- Planning helps by saving time
- Planning also helps keep you focused and set in the direction of your biggest goals instead of being distracted by things that keep you busy or things that come up that are urgent yet not important
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Plan for a quarter, not for an entire year
Since plans typically build on top of each other, planning for an entire year can be a waste of time. This is because so much can change over the year. So, the things you planned at the beginning of the year to complete at the end of the year may not be feasible or even what you want to do because of so many changes.
This is why it is better to plan quarterly than to plan yearly.
A quarter is also a small amount of time, so it is easy to stay focused and committed and then review and renew your plan with each new quarter. Ninety days is a lot less daunting than three hundred sixty days.
It is also an amount of time that is easier to grasp, making it easier to plan. A quarter can be broken into monthly and weekly chunks and is a more manageable amount of time to progress than an entire year.
How To Plan Your Next Quarter
There are vital steps to planning your next quarter. The steps are:
- Know where you want to go (long-term vision)
- Know where you are
- Decide what you want to accomplish in this quarter
- Write down your key results (how you will reach your primary objective of the quarter)
- Make a massive action list
- Put the actions on your calendar
- Determine lead and lag indicators
- Review and analyze
Know Where You Want To Go
Before you decide on goals you want to accomplish this quarter, you must determine your big, overall vision. The best way to do this is to think about where you want to be three years into the future.
Think about what you must do to accomplish your three-year vision. Now, think about something you can do now that you can achieve in a quarter that will help you get closer to your three-year vision.
You want to spend time on a goal only if it is aligned with where you want to be in your future. That is why this step is essential.
Know Where You Are
The next step is to figure out where you are right now. It will be hard to get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you are starting from.
The best way to know where you are right now is to get as close to the facts as possible. If your goal is to lose weight, you want to know exactly how much you weigh now. If your goal is to close $10,000 in sales, you need to know precisely how many dollars you are at now.
Try to keep all emotions and descript words out when determining where you are. Be as specific as possible.
Decide your primary objective for the quarter.
This is the big, over-arching goal of the quarter. Try only to pick one.
That way you can really put all your focus, attention and energy into it. If you are struggling to pick one ask yourself, which one, if I accomplish it, will help me achieve the other goals that I have?
Set Key Results
Then, figure out what are the key results. This is the how of accomplishing your primary objective for the quarter. If you achieve these results, you will have accomplished your main objective. Make sure that your list of key results are things that will make the most significant difference and not just things that will keep you busy.
Massive Action List
Now you are going to create a massive action list. This is where you want to think of absolutely everything that you need to do.
Under each key result, write down a massive action list of everything you need to do to achieve each key result. Try to add even more when you think you are done with your list. You want this list to be all-encompassing. So remember to put things on it like any research you will need to do to move forward or decisions that you will have to make.
The purpose of this list is that if you did absolutely everything on it, you would be guaranteed to reach your key results.
Put the actions on your calendar
Now, take some time and organize your massive action list. Cut out anything that is not essential or that you just don’t want to do.
Then, prioritize your massive action list into what is most important and what steps need to come first. Once you’ve done that, put the results you are planning to produce onto your calendar.
Set your lead and lag indicators
This is something I learned from the book, The 12 Week Year. In the book, the author talks about lead and lag indicators.
It is beneficial to measure your success of how well you are following your plan with lead indicators those are things you can directly control.
Lag indicators on the other hand only happen later.
An example of this is weight lost. The number of pounds of weight lost is a lag indicator since it doesn’t happen immediately. But, something like exercising four times a week for thirty minutes is a lead indicator since you can directly control that.
This is also true of sales. A lag indicator for sales would be how many dollars closed, while a lead indicator would be the number of outgoing sales call someone makes in a day. A lead indicator is you going first.
Set lead and lag indicators for your goals so you can measure the progress that you are making each week.
Review and Analyze
Each week, reflect back on the past week and review how well you did sticking to your plan. Check your calendar to see if you produced the results you had calendared on it and how well you did meeting your lead indicator goals.
Then, analyze what went well, what didn’t, what could be improved and what you want to try next.