Five Ways to Turn Plans into Action

" Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."

- Peter Drucker

(1909-2005) Author

Success-minded people are dreamers, people of ideas and visions.  With all that thinking of new and better things and ways of doing more, comes lots of planning.  You plan what you will do and how you will do it.  You plan on what it will be like when the goal is achieved.  You plan and you plan until all you seem to be doing is planning.  At some point you have got to say "enough, time for action."  Here are five things you can do to move planning into action.

1)  Write the idea down

                We have talked many times of the importance of writing down your goals.  Writing them down moves them from thought into something of substance.  But there is another reason for writing down your goals and ideas, it gets them out of you head.  In his book, Getting Things Done, author David Allen tells us that when you write things down you can get them out of your mind.  You do not have to keep thinking about the same things because you captured them on paper.  Writing down exactly what you want to achieve allows you to work with consistent ideas rather than something you change each time you work on it.

2)  Break it down into workable pieces

                Many goals are big (as they should be) and when you look at the whole, it becomes overwhelming.  Take the large goal and break it into small workable pieces.  Make it into tasks that you can list and do one at a time.  This way you can stay focused and are not taken back by the amount of work in achieving your goals.

3)  Give each task a timeline

                As you break down the bigger goal into workable tasks, give each task a timeline to follow.  How long will this take you?  When do you need to have this done so you can move on to the next?  Timelines help motivate us and gives us something to measure our progress with.  Some do not use timelines thinking that they add pressure and stress.  The truth is just the opposite, timelines gives us the structure and guidance to take on a task and focus on it alone.

4)  Pick a starting point for each task

                This is a bit more than a timeline.  A timeline tells you how long the task will take, a starting point tells you when to start.  Do not look at your list of tasks and say, "I will start this tomorrow, and this on Tuesday..."  That has no power and is very uncommented.  Put the task on your calendar, like an appointment, and be sure you keep it.  "I will start this task on Tuesday at 8:00 am."  The only way you will see real action happen is if you see it as important.  Keeping that starting appointment is as important as any meeting or visit you have.

5)  Now do it!

                The most important step is to just do it.  Nothing happens without action.  You know what you need to do, you have a workable task before you that will take a decided amount of time, and you have a start date, you need nothing more but to do it.  Once this part of the process starts you will be amazed on just how quickly you have achieved the bigger goal you set out to do.

To read more from John Patrick Hickey or to get his books, training and book him to speak to your church, business or group, visit our website at http://www.growthcenter.net or www.johnpatrickhickey.com.   © 2014 John Patrick Hickey