Why You Need A Weekly Plan
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Episode Show Notes: Why You Need A Plan
When was the last time you found yourself asking a question like this?
Where did all my time go?
Where did last week go?
How do I accomplish more this week? Because I certainly didn't get it done last week.
How on earth am I going to get control of my life?
Where does all my time go every single week?
How do I stop wasting time on trivial tasks and interruptions and social media? And why does it seem like all my minutes and hours and days seem to slip between my fingers and slip away?
Why do I feel all the time so overwhelmed?
If you answered any of the questions, I just asked you, you're at home, welcome to This Week's Plan, you're in the right place.
In today's episode, we're going to cover why you need a weekly plan.
Now, I think it's important to remember our goal of This Week's Plan is a seasonal show. The goal is to help you fit in all the right things into your week. We want to do this in a progressive way.
I learned 11 key words a long time ago that changed my life and has changed the life of a lot of my clients. And I want to share them with you. And if you've heard them before, it'll be a great reminder. If you haven't the formula, the phrase goes like this incremental progress done imperfectly over time will lead to monumental results. I was on a ski lift in Nakiska, near my hometown of Calgary, Alberta, and it was minus 20 on a November day.
And I've been thinking about all this stuff. And then finally it just hit me that, yeah, what we really need to do is dial down the complexity and increase the simplicity and those 11 words. It all came together.
I remember that I pulled off my gloves and I pulled out this paper and a little pen out of my pocket and I'm scribbling, and my fingers are freezing. It was that important because I knew that incremental progress is one key. We've got to then focus on the skill of doing things imperfectly and not needing to be perfect. It doesn't mean do things sloppily or haphazardly or without care. And then over time when we stack these things up, you get to see incremental results.
This whole season is designed to develop and deliver the fundamentals of weekly planning to you and a proven process that I use on myself and with my clients. And we're not going to just give it to you out of a fire hose all in one session and thud factor you and hit you over the head with a pile of stones and tablets and stuff and say, "this is the way it is." No, we're going to walk through episode by episode with you so that you can integrate these things into your current weekly planning habits.
OK, are you ready to go for today's show? I am too.
What is the common denominator between hoping, wishing and dreaming?
What is the common denominator between hoping, wishing and dreaming? The common denominator between those three things is that they're all a set of good intentions that are waiting to be birthed by a really good plan.
So again, hoping, wishing and dreaming is great to do in certain cases. But we got to birth those wishes and those hopes and get those dreams into action by birthing them with a plan. And once the plan is established and birthed, then you just got to go out and consistently work the plan until completion. And in the meantime, working the plan to completion means that you're going to go through some periods of navigating the challenges, the obstacles, the interruptions, the distractions, and diversions that inevitably will come your way.
If you are breathing and you are listening to me right now or watching me on our site or on YouTube, congratulations.
You're a human being and you will have challenges. I have challenges. You have challenges. They may be different, but they're going to be similar in nature and they're going to distract and divert our time our energy resources, our money and all sorts of other stuff.
But a solid weekly plan will help you accomplish your plan. A solid weekly plan will help you get into consistency so that you will actually get more done over time.
In this episode we're talking about, why do you need a weekly plan?
What type of planner are you?
If you're like my clients, when I first meet them, you'll probably identify with one of these three types of people.
Person number one or A is the person that's never really needed a weekly planning process and feels like it would help them, but they're not really sure where to start. Person B has attempted it over the years and you've started different systems and bought different journals or planners and you got into it for a while. But then something came along and interrupted your flow and you just weren't sure how to get going again. And maybe it wasn't for you and you just tossed it aside and said, I'll try again later. And then, you know, guess what?
Later came along and you restarted, but it hasn't stuck with you.
Person C is the person that's been a dedicated planner. And if you're like me, you've been planning since the days of the Palm Pilot or even before then, even earlier on was just paper and pencil. And that's OK. And you've been dedicated to the process and you know that a solid weekly plan does a lot of good for you. But you might be feeling now that there's more plan left over than week.
And you're asking yourself like, how on earth do I just get it all done?
These are all great reasons to start a weekly plan. And no matter where you are in here, you identify with whichever one fits you the most and know that you're in good company because we have a way that we're going to be able to help you.
The important thing of a weekly plan is that it anchors your direction.
Reasons anchor results all the time. If you meet a person that has poor results, they probably don't have a good enough set of reasons to go out and actually get better results. Think about that for a minute. Reasons anchor results.
A weekly plan helps you identify and establish your sense of direction because you'll say, I want to go in a specific direction. And whether that's north, east, west, south, it doesn't really matter. Left, right, when you know the direction you need to go or you want to go and you develop a strong set of reasons, guess what? You become really unstoppable because guess what?
You're going to be always moving toward the result. You're always going to be moving to the result, anchored by the reason that you've given it. A strong enough set of reasons will allow you to have a firm yes or a firm no. Those firm yeses and no’s are a really key starting point to getting more of the right things done. You can't get everything done. That's a myth, but you can get the right things done.
Having a solid weekly plan and you're why behind the plan reduces the unnecessary things in your life.
It's going to reduce unnecessary stress from misguided actions and steps and twists and turns that we sometimes take your waste less time because you'll have a solid effective plan and you will get farther ahead with a plan, even with the distractions and things that come your way than without one. And guess what?
You're going to chip away and break down all that need to be perfectionist. You'll chip away of those tendencies. You'll break down those walls of perfectionism. You will know the direction you're going, and you'll know what more of the right things are for you. And those right things will help you accomplish all those right things.
A strong, solid weekly plan will also help you grow the important things in your life.
Do you want to be luckier in life?
I believe it was Earl Nightingale long time ago that introduced me to the definition of luck when he said, "that luck is when preparedness meets opportunity."
I love that. Preparedness meets opportunity. I can't tell you the number of times a friend, a client or business associate, somebody in the dojo has said to me, oh, man, I just about missed the opportunity of a lifetime because I didn't go here.
I did I did go here. And I know a guy that sat down and told me how he just about missed entering into a billion dollar brand business because he was going to blow off a Thursday afternoon basketball game.
And then one of his friends phoned him up and said, hey, are you coming? He's I don't really feel like. And they said, well, you should come a couple of guys and bring in a new guy by. You should meet the new guy. And guess what? The new guy was the guy that kind of lit the match that got it all started. And he says, man, I just can't think about what my life would be like today if I had stayed home and, like, slept or watch TV and didn't go to that pickup basketball game.
When you have a solid weekly plan and you're out there, you're growing the important things and you're going to become luckier because you're going to introduce yourself and put yourself in opportunities way.
How many opportunities in the last two weeks did you engineer?
How many opportunities in the last two weeks did you say, I see an opportunity and I'm going to jump on it. I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to take a step forward toward it.
And I can tell you this year, pre all the events that happened, I had a client group and I had a I had an old set of clients and I went through and I was thinking, like, who haven't I not talked to? I made a point to just reconnect with people. And one of those reconnections turned into a conversation about a struggle in their business. And next thing you know, a few months later, they're picking the phone up and they're saying, Shane, we need you to get in here and help us solve this struggle.
It turned into a beautiful collaboration and contract for me and for them. And we got some problem solved and some opportunities identified. And they're going to be in great shape to finish this year stronger than they started the year.
You'll accomplish more than you leave undone.
You'll accomplish more than you leave undone. I want you to start getting into the mindset of getting ready to devise and realize more opportunities. And you'll feel great because you're going to put more points in the win column of life.
You'll have more meaningful memories in the personal column of your life.
When you get into this habit of This Week's Plan and thinking about, what's This Week's Plan and what do I need to do? Guess what happens?
You actually develop your thinking muscles in your brain. Yeah. You're actually thinking like you're exercising your brain because your brain is forced to problem, solve, create and identify and enhance and think about things. That's good for your brain and your creative abilities will soar to a new level.
I've seen my clients turn around a marriage because they got into a solid weekly planning process. No doubt he or she was able to come home on time, have dinner with the family, have more quality time. That turned a marriage around.
Also, I've seen a client turn around a challenging employee who was probably next to get fired and with a solid weekly plan and time to mentor the employee and help that employee grow, that employee earned their spot on the promotions list. There are great possibilities waiting for you when you get the understanding of why you need a solid weekly plan.
You're going to build major confidence and an ability to feel more in control of things.
Guess what? You actually will be in control. We can't control the things that happen to us, but we can be in control of our responses of how we're going to go back out into the world and deal with those situations and deal with those distractions and deal with the pandemic and all the other things that, you know, we plan for but then hoped would never happen. It helps you gain confidence and strength in all of those situations and you'll be more durable out in the real world.
The next thing that having a great plan will do for you is it will help you protect yourself, your key priorities from all those interruptions.
It's going to help you set stronger boundaries.
Yes, boundaries are a number one thing that a lot of people give up. It seems like a lot of people, because, again, boundaries are also like a reason.
If you don't have a reason to hold a boundary strong and say yes or say no to certain things, you will let your boundaries suffer. You will let somebody come through when they shouldn't. You will let something happen when it shouldn't happen. Your ability to set a stronger boundary will be better. When you set stronger boundaries, you actually honor other people in a more meaningful way.
There's nothing worse than somebody that half heartedly accepts to help you or commits to a project and then doesn't show up or they flake out at the last minute and now they're now they're not dependable. That hurts everybody on the team. It hurts you. We want to build boundaries so that we can honor other people to say, hey, when Shane says yes, he's going to show up for you, guess what? You can depend on it like the sun rising in the sun setting.
And so, we want that. You also get better at judging what those right things are for you and your key priorities.
By default, it helps you understand the things that are not right for you and the things that you need to delegate to somebody else or get some help with or just flat out say no. And that's interesting.
I had an individual who was asking me for some help and was referred from a CEO that I know. I agreed to talk to this individual and I said, "one thing, here's what I can commit to. I can commit to giving you some ideas and helping you get a start up and getting a few things going. But that's it. I can't commit to being on your team. I can't commit to the project long term, but I can give you a helping hand up." He said, "great, that's wonderful." I said, "OK, so the next step is we're going to touch base at this time interval, and we'll follow up on today's meeting and we're just going to go forward."
That was a really good example of me exercising my boundaries because I know what's in my plan over the next two to three months and I know what I have room for and what I do not have room for.
You only get one life, my friend. What's it going to be?
Are you going to invest into the right things and fitting in all the right things, or are you just going to let other people dictate your schedule?
Now that leads us to the things that are necessary.
A person with a solid plan will always pass a wandering person without a plan.
I have seen time and time again a person with a mediocre or even a weak plan just blows the doors off of a smart, educated person with no plan. And it's always incredible how some form of a plan will give you strength and confidence and power to go out and do remarkable things.
You'll start transforming possibility into reality.
That's what I really want for you. And that's why I'm glad you're here. When you look at things like the coronavirus in the pandemic that we've had to live through this year, this is not a luxury anymore. It's not for a chosen few that sit down on a Sunday morning or a Friday night or something and pull out their nice, fancy journal and their pens and they plan out their week. No, this is a necessity my friend.
You probably now have more complexity in terms of physicality. Are you working from home all the time and you have five or six other people in the house and it's driving everybody crazy and you've got to figure that out? Or are you working with a mix of at home and at the office or are you working at home, the office and maybe some remote locations, depending on the type of work you do?
Now more than ever, we need to be in command of our time and our places and our spaces.
That happens through a solid, strong weekly plan.
You need a plan. But to have a plan to keep those things in check is very, very important. I've had clients where we've spent a lot of time in the last few months fixing the structures and saying, hey, OK, guess what, even though.
There's a house full of people and everybody's working and doing different things, which night is family night and which night is going to be date night for mom and dad and which night is going to be like free time, night for, you know, like, no expectations. Everyone's just going to kind of do what they want and not be judged for it. These are the things that have now become necessary, but they're also solvable when you have a weekly plan.
I want to introduce to you a really awesome opportunity for you.
I've put together a course called No Fail Planning Methods. Now, it's, of course, that we would sell for $150. But today, I'm willing to buy that course for you. And all you have to do is go to NoFailPlans.com.
It will take you to a special page where you'll enter in your information and that will allow me to put in the discount automatically for you.
It's free. I'm buying the course for you. It's just under an hour of run time, so there's really no excuse. And if you're liking This Week's Plan, you'll love the no fail planning methods that we've assembled for you because they will give you a leg up and they will integrate really beautifully into what we're doing. And if you find it's a little beyond where you're at today, no problem. You'll have your access for as long as the course is available.
But if you're person C who says, "Shane, I've got a strong plan and I've been executing. I'm looking for the next level." This would be great for you. For everybody in between, you'll find one simple planning method that will really help you and you will benefit from it. I'm excited to give that to you today. We've now reached the section of today's session where it's called activation.
Activate Your Weekly Plan
I want to help you activate your weekly planning process. We want to activate This Week's Plan. Pretty easy right?
Pull out a piece of paper, pull out a pen or a pencil, or if you got your tablet or computer there, tap away if you want. But it has been proven that cursive writing with the hand has a better function on the brain and all that kind of stuff. Let me ask you a few questions that will assist you this week.
Number one: What is your biggest opportunity that you want to capitalize on this week?
What does that one opportunity that's maybe been sitting in the back of your mind and this is the week, my friend, you can take a step toward it now, I'm not saying capitalize and conquer the opportunity. I'm saying what is one step toward that opportunity that you can put into your plan this week?
Number two: What personal event most needs your attention this week?
Unfortunately for me, a neighbor and a friend passed away in the last week and a half and her funeral is coming up this week. That's a personal event that I must attend because I just there's no way about it. I need to go to her funeral. And in this covid times, it's always different and there's all these restrictions. But I feel that that is so important to honoring her life and honoring our friendship that we had. That's a must personal event for me.
For you, it might be date night. Maybe you haven't been on a date or gone out of your house for a while. Maybe this is the week to make that happen. Maybe this is the week to have a quality conversation with a personal family member or call a friend you haven't talked to in three months and have a great grand conversation.
How will attending this event make your life better?
Number three: What will you commit to doing this week as a result of joining me here today at This Week's Plan?
What have I sparked inside of you today that you're going to go out and commit putting something into action? Remember, it's just incremental progress done imperfectly over time to get those monumental results.
Now, if you go to our show episode page or you go to ThisWeeksPlan.com (that's our website where you'll find this podcast and you look for a black box on there, you'll be able to submit your question). Every episode I'm going to be looking for questions from my dojo members. And so, I'm looking for you to submit your questions that I can answer your questions and a future episode. Now, today, I'm going to be answering Elizabeth's question.
Elizabeth's Question:
Elizabeth lives over in the UK and she's been a wonderful dojo member for a long time. She writes, "so many things continually come up which require attention, and particularly they're from other people whose needs are greater than my own. Sometimes my own goals get squeezed out."
Shane's answer:
This is an important thing. This is why we all need a plan.
This is why we all need a plan to help us out in these times, because at some point in your plan, you've got to have some you time in there. You've got a plan in some time. I have I've lived through a bunch of different situations. I can tell you that the weeks that I've flourished, even in hard situations, whether you're working a 70 hour week or you're dealing with a sickness or an illness of a family member, or you're just dealing with some personal hardships and just, you know, it's tough to get out of bed in the morning.
You have those weeks. Those weeks that I had a plan and I said, "OK, I can deal with all that. But the non-negotiable this week is I must work out three times or the non-negotiable is, I got to get at least six, seven hours of sleep per night."
I built in a non-negotiable. I flourished those weeks.
The weeks where in terms of what Elizabeth is asking here, in those weeks where you're at the mercy of everybody else and you're trying to always fulfill the needs and the wants and the desires and commands and requests of others. If you don't have some time to renew yourself, re-energize yourself, reinvigorate yourself, reset and refocus and get centered, guess what?
Those are going to be some tough weeks.
I know from experience and I don't want that for you.
My advice to you Elizabeth is, where in this week can you identify at least a minimum of one thing?
What's your one thing this week that you say this is a must do? I must set out. And do you know my meditation, my prayer, my yoga, my exercise? I must for some weeks, I can tell you that for me it was just I must eat nutritionally, I must eat clean.
Even though I'm working hard, I'm making lunches and packing lunches to work or I'm going and ordering some really awesome food from the Italian deli where I know they're highly nutritious, great quality, homemade, organic foods or whatever. I've just identified that that's the one thing I'm going to do this week to take care of me.
What's the one thing that you are going to do this week to take care of you?
Thank you, Elizabeth, for sending in that question, I really appreciate it. It's really great to have your input.
Season one is all about foundational basic elements, core techniques that I'm going to be working with you in incrementally integrated way. Next time, I welcome you to join me in episode two. In episode two, we're going to be covering how do you plan your week efficiently?
I look forward to seeing you next episode. I want you to forge ahead this week with confidence to incrementally start or improve your personal planning process and your professional planning process this week. All right. I'm excited to have you here on this journey.
Domo Arigato.
