Celebrating New Year - The Plan

It is about time for twenty-ten to begin for me.  While most folks enjoyed January 1st as their New Year's Day, mine is set on May 1st. 

For most of my adult life, I've spent the first four months of the year in tax season leaving me with eight months of what I call My Year.  I've enjoyed every moment of it, all though, occassionally it makes for tough scheduling.

So I find myself over the last couple of days making my Plan.  My Plan also includes writting out reflections of what was the good, the bad, and the ugly has been for the last four months.  It is a chance to unload all the to-do's and like to-do's out of my head.  It is a chance to critique my personal performance so I can make my performance better.  It is a chance to see where I can improve, deligate, and see that the Plan is taking form.

I use a spiral bound notebook, make a page for each area, like errands, house stuff, volunteer activities I'm involved in, and business items.  Easy to use, easy to carry along with me.  Mind you, this is a living notebook.  It gets added to it and subtracted from it and becomes a best friend as I make each day count.  This is where I find my bonus to-do's.  I find that I have a bit more time than I thought, and wow here's an item I can take care of and voila it's done.  One hour of planning will actually save you three hours of busy non-productive time.  To me, that's like getting an afternoon off!

When is the last time you sat down with yourself with pencil and paper and your yearly calendar in hand and written out your Plan?  It could be a just a list or could be more formal.  Why don't you take a moment or two - treat yourself to a planning session.  You will be pleasantly surprised at the amount of momentum that you will gain in this small exercise.