I grew up in a family of planners.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but what should have been the giveaway was every vacation was planned out to the point of some of them having an itinerary in place before leaving.
My sister stayed this way as she got older and started her family. Every trip we go on with them comes with a minute by minute itinerary that gets texted out days before we leave for the trip (sometimes even including planned times for bathroom breaks… no joke). It might sound crazy, but it is highly effective in getting the most out of every trip.
I however did not naturally catch this planning gene. My wife and I are both much more laid back, go with the flow, type people in most aspects of life. Especially vacations.
So naturally, that’s the mindset I took into business.
For the first several years, I just went with the flow. No intense planning ahead beyond the week we were in and definitely no thinking beyond the quarter we were in. As a small business with only 2 or 3 of us, it worked fine.
Over the past two years, the go with the flow had to go. As we grew, there were simply too many moving parts to leave it up to chance. As the team grew, inventory grew, and media output grew, my attention got spread way too thin.
Now I wouldn’t say that I have become an excellent forward thinker and planner, but I have made it a focus and priority in my day to day work life. The benefits have been pretty drastic on all fronts.
Being fluid within a plan is definitely a necessity but having a plan provides so many benefits.
First, it makes things way less stressful. Having a plan allows you to break a big goal or task down into manageable small tasks to accomplish overtime so that when the due date comes, you’re prepped. This was seen most recently in our Black Friday execution.
Second, it allows you to operate at a higher level. When I operated without a plan and just tackled things as they arose, it meant that nothing got my full attention and details were missed regularly. Events, sales, videos, etc. all would get done but none to the potential that we were capable of because the planning period was either rushed or meshed with the execution period. This leads to a lot of frustration and opportunity left on the table.
Third, it makes delegation easy. Once everyone is on the same page and knows the plan, breaking off tasks and responsibilities almost becomes second nature. When planning far enough in advance, everything seems way more manageable which means I don’t have the guilt of overloading employees or the fear of throwing something on them last minute. Before, this just lead to me doing things myself and taking on too much which lead into the last point of stuff not getting done to the standard they should.
Finally, it frees up headspace to be even more fluid with your current time. This is the one that didn’t make sense at first to me. I didn’t want to get all “corporate” and lose the ability to pivot on a dime or churn out a video overnight to capitalize on something happening in the scene right now. What I was missing was how a plan actually frees you up to be able to tackle more immediate things. When stuff is planned way in advance, then everything feels more manageable and I have found that I have more clear headspace and time in my day to day to be able to tackle things that do arise to be dealt with immediately.
So if you’re like I used to be and you like to just go with the flow and tackle life as it comes at you, I want to encourage you to give planning a try. You might discover that you were a planner all along and just had no idea the freedom a good plan can bring to your day and life!