I met with Susan Hand last week to convert my incredibly long list of goals for 2015 into an actionable plan. By the end of the hour, I had a spreadsheet categorizing my goals into 3 main areas:
- Consulting (currently my core business)
- Programs/Products (things that will replace my consulting income eventually)
- Personal (basically everything else)
Susan also had me rank each goal according to whether it would generate revenue immediately or later, and whether it was mandatory to get done this year or merely optional. It was a good exercise since it forced me to think deeply about each goal and consider what would need to be done to declare the goal “complete.”
We also did some preliminary scheduling of goals for each quarter of the year. It’s a great start to assembling a comprehensive business plan for the year. Susan helped me transition from my “brain dump” into something organized, prioritized, and understandable.
The next steps I’ll need to take to continue developing this plan are:
- Using the worksheet we started, spend some more time documenting my “ultimate” 2015 goals and activities for my core business, programs, and personal growth.
- Start a 12 month calendar and start blocking out holidays, vacation, travel plans and events. These are the days that I already know I’m not going to be working.
- Once I’ve completed the 12 month calendar it’s time to start laying in my quarterly, monthly and weekly plans. I’ll start with what goes in each quarter and then break it down by month. If I’m not sure what month I’m going to do something, I’ll leave it in the quarter list until the quarter gets closer and move it down to the month at that point.
I want to thank Susan for sharing her time with me. If you’re looking to develop a similar business plan for 2015, get in touch with her. I’ll be posting periodic updates as I continue building out my own plan and executing on it. In fact, I may dedicate a entire post to executing on goals in a few weeks. It’s something I struggle with. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but in my experience it’s much easier to come up with goals than it is to actually bear down and start doing the work necessary to achieve them. Procrastination springs eternal.