“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.” - Earl Nightingale

We all “know” this, we need a “plan”, but how to even get started? and if we are on the subject:

• Maybe nobody ever taught you how to make a plan.

• Maybe like most people, it’s hard to even think about what you want let alone plan years ahead.

• Maybe you are the type of person who likes to row with waves and plans are just a tedious task for you

• Or maybe you simply “don’t have the time to sit down and plan” - you are too busy doing….

I can go on but I think you get the point; I will not try to convince you that a plan is needed (you already knew that), instead I will go about my usual “Engineering solutions”: I will provide a blueprint and a set of best practices for creating a life long plan with the hopes that it will be enough to overcome all the excuses we all tell ourselves when we fail to plan; let’s dive in!

The algorithm (AKA: simple set of instructions):

Set aside time (at least an hour) in a quiet place, torn off your phone, and make sure you are not distracted in any way

1. Pick one of the pillars

2. Pick an Area (subcategory) in that pillar (more details later)

3. Let your feelings flow - what do you want, where do you want to be, how do you want to feel….

4. At this point just pick anything that you feel strongly about - you will need that strong feelings to help you follow through

5. Choose one thing that you desire

6. Bring in some details - write them down

7. And now - we need to PLAN:

8. Set dates to act as milestones into the future of what is required to achieve till that date;I recommended using the following but you are free to pick any time scale as long as you make sure that first ones are close and they spread out the further you go:

• Today

• By end of this week

• By end of this month

• Six months from now

• One year from now

• Three years from now

• Five years from not

• Ten years from now

• Twenty years from now

• Destination (with the final date if there is one)

9. Analyze (fancy word for guess) how probable your dream is?, how certain you are of the details?

10. Use the Details = Certainty / Time Span to calculate (another fancy word for guess) how many details required in your plan

11. Add those details into the milestones - remember: the further the milestones, the less details

12. Write down what is required to achieve in every milestone - be specific and try to use a metric (indicator) that can be quantified into a number or if not possible than to {yes, no, partially} for achievement

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Now that we have a goal and milestones: we’ve come a long way!

You have finished all the executive work and have a detailed road map - congratulations!!!

Let your inner CEO rest and bring in the COO to work along with all the operations and engineering teams:

Open projects, tasks, reminders, checklists and every other tool you are currently using for your tasks and project management

If you are now asking yourself “What??? what tasks and project management tools?”

I’ve got you all covered in the Fulfillment Pillar section of this site but I will provide here a short explanation of how to proceed (also at least for this moment those articles are not published yet so if you are reading this before they are published and you wish to dive deeper just come back later or sign up to the news letter to get updates on article releases and more (add link))

The plan:

Tasks:

A task is short “to do” item with a deadline.

It’s highly recommended that it can be completed in one day and completion not heavily dependent on outside circumstances (things outside of your direct control)

Projects:

“It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.” - Napoleon Hill

A project is a collection of tasks and desired outcomes that have a common thread (resource, theme, working group ext.) a project must have a completion date, it is also advisable (but not mandatory) to have its own budget and quality matrix (how “good” or close to the specification the deliverable is).

Projects need to be monitored continuously to make sure we are on track on all 3 vectors (meeting the delivery deadline, quality, and cost).

Reminders:

Reminders or calendar events are the building blocks of your daily and weekly tasks planning system to make sure you complete your tasks (and subsequently your projects) on time

Checklists:

Checklists have many uses in meeting a goal, just to name a few examples: daily checklists of your routine (aka work day), checklists for specific tasks, procedures or entires projects, quality assurance checklists, budget management and so much more.

“Others:

Each one has its own productivity system, I use a mix of David’s Allen masterpiece “Getting Things Done” mixed with the Brilliance of Tiago’s Forte “PARA Method” and the life-changing advice in “Atomic Habits” by James Clear (all of which I highly recommend you to read in full), also I’ve integrated touches by some extraordinary productivity gurus like Tim Ferris, Thomas Frank, Ali Abdaal and many more for as Seneca so wisely said 2,000 years ago: “We can also set our minds at ease by borrowing some help from others; let us use their thoughts, their wisdom, their lives.”

Now we arrive at my debt from the beginning of the article: “Areas” - I will soon expand more on this but for now (since this article is already way too long) a brief introduction:

All the pillars are divided into Areas for managing our life, for example, my Health Pillar has currently 4 Areas: cardio, gym, mindfulness, and health literacy (I realy need to add more and like all of us focus more on that Pillar)

You are well equipped to set your goals, once you are done come back here and read the next article: let’s plan the coming year together, see you soon.