Is this mistake stopping you from getting things done?

What do you do when you have a brilliant strategy or idea that you’d love to bring to life?

Do you plan it all out, or jump right in?

This topic came up during a virtual cuppa recently – the coach I was chatting with realised she’d been getting in a pickle because she kept skipping what she referred to as the ‘middle bit’ of planning.

She said she’s great at strategizing and figuring out what she wants to do, she puts all the top level stuff – the ideas and things she wants to accomplish – on post-its on the wall, and then dives straight into trying to get it all done.

Her tendency is to think that now she has clarity around what she wants to do, the actual ‘doing’ of it won’t take long. And so that high level strategic stuff becomes her to-do list. And when she doesn’t get it all done by the end of the week, she feels like a failure.

Our conversation got me thinking about the role that effective planning has on our ability to get stuff done, and how we find the right balance between that, and actually taking action. 

We don’t want to spend all our time in planning mode, waiting for all our ducks to be in a perfect row before we take any action.

But we also don’t want to dive straight into the doing without giving things a little more thought first.

When we do that, it’s a bit like deciding to cook a delicious meal – let’s say a veggie lasagne - without first checking the fridge.

You grab a dish to cook it in, get the lasagne sheets out of the cupboard, put the oven on and start frying an onion. So far so good.

But then you pull out the salad crisper thingy and – oh, the horror – all you have are three browning mushrooms and a shrivelled-up green pepper. Not very appetising.

And then you realise you’re almost out of milk. If you use the last of it to make a cheese sauce, you’ll have none left for your coffee and crunchy nut cornflakes in the morning.

You could turn the oven off and head to the shops. But it’s dark and rainy outside so you abandon the operation entirely and stick with beans on toast.

If only you’d checked what was in the fridge before heating up the oven and frying the onion.

If only you’d thought about whether today’s lasagne would mess up tomorrow’s breakfast.

If only you’d thought about what to have for dinner before you walked straight past the Co-op on your lunchtime walk.

You’d be tucking into a big plate of cheesy, vegetably goodness right now.

But because you skipped the bit between idea and execution, you didn’t get the dinner you wanted.

Here’s the thing:

The middle bit of planning – the bit where you look at those post-its that outline what you’d love to accomplish, get clear about what actually needs to happen, consider the best order in which to do things, and figure out how to do those things whilst still delivering the things you’ve already committed to - is key to actually bringing your projects and ideas to life.

And yet it’s the bit that so many folks miss, because it feels like a waste of time.

You’re excited about something. You just want to get on with it!

But trust me – taking that pause for the middle bit of planning will give you the clarity and focus you need to move forward with so much more ease.

I promise you it’s time well spent.

Is following through on your big ideas something you struggle to do on your own?

If so, maybe I can help. Click here to find out more about working with me.