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Support your plan with preparation

Posted: August 31, 2013 | Categories: Self-Improvement, Time management

In my blog on August 22, I talked about some things we could do when we feel overwhelmed and torn between many tasks.  We were talking about planning.  Now let’s do what we can to support our plan…PREPARE!

A couple years ago, I attended one of those self-improvement marathons where there were 15-20 different well-known speakers doing short segments on what they believe is important.  I remember one speaker in particular who talked about the importance of embracing and leveraging technology to gain influence, control, and power.  He ended his short speech with a resounding message contained in two words…  PREPARE RELENTLESSLY!

Referring back to the 8/22 blog, we have determined our “A’s” and have broken them down to A-1, A-2, etc.  “A’s” are important and urgent, and we do our “A’s” first.  Let’s say one of our “A’s” was to block out time to make prospecting calls.  In preparing, we would probably want a quality list with clear information on it regarding names and contact information.  If instead we just started dialing numbers from the phone book, things might become pretty cumbersome.  But if we carefully researched and prepared our list of target customers, we can get off to a running start when we begin our blocked time.

This week one of my clients was facing this type of situation.  She had time blocked off for prospecting, but she hadn’t made her list yet.  She decided her best choice was to use that dedicated, blocked time to work on making her list.  She used a library reference database and then drew from other sources until she had a healthy list.  In all her planning and preparation, she has led herself from procrastination to the famous Nike phrase, “Just do it”.  In the next segment of prospecting time she has blocked off, she will be off and running from the start.

When we have planned our block time for our “A’s”, our next step is to remember the mantra:

PREPARE RELENTLESSLY!

We will have a jump on our competition.