Your time is valuable, and it’s finite. There is only so much you can do and achieve in this life so why not try and do as much as you can? See as much as you can? Feel, touch, taste and love as much as you can, and truly, enjoy everything this world has to offer?

This is where planning comes in. Most of us are dreamers. We have big plans and ideas in our heads that one day, one day we will get to… if we have time.

Time is the only thing you truly have of any value in this world, and the way you spend it is important and shouldn’t just be overlooked.

Looking ahead.

Something as simple as planning next weeks dinners can save you hours of time and stress over the coming week. I get it can seem like from the outside that spending an hour on a Sunday to plan out the weeks meals might be a bit of a waste of time because who knows whether the kids will want pasta or pizza on Wednesday, or are you just going to have toast because you’ve got in late and just can’t be arsed. Fine. Thats true. But of the 6 out of 7 other days, you’ve had an idea of what dinner will be. The family knows what to expect, you’ve got the meal plan and a by product of that is a half decent shopping list already. You remove the wasted time and stress yelling “what do you want for tea?” 15 times down the hallway to indecisive grunts. You remove the stress of having to decide and scramble something together last minute and avoid silly arguments when everyone’s tired and hungry at the end of the day.

Obviously a pretty specific example and probably not relevant to everyone but it gives an idea of how a little plan early on, makes large gains in the long run.

Before you leave the house, you check for phone, keys and wallet/purse. Every time. Because you’re planning on needing to contact people, get in the car and back in the house and most likely buy something you don’t need or really want. That’s planning. You do all that out of habit every time you leave the house. The reasons may seem mundane and trivial and you probably don’t even notice you do it, but the two minutes of thinking ahead save you potentially hours of pain and your brain knows that already.

Labour Costs.

Your time is valuable, it does genuinely have a dollar value, and that value is determined by you. A business sees that and they determine that your X hours of labour is worth X dollar amount. After forty hours a week you end up with a pay check representing your times value… as determined by them.

Unfortunately thanks to the wonders of the industrial revolution, we’ve become accustom to not only (and thankfully) a far better standard of living, but a “clock in, clock off” work life that gives us that dollar value on our time. I don’t know about you, but my time is worth far more than what some company says it’s worth.

All successful companies plan ahead. They have a Business plan to draw the roadmap of their future prosperity. They have targets, KPI’s and deadlines and generally they achieve them BECAUSE they planned ahead. They found the shortest route to their destination and worked out the obstacles well in advance. Those plans did take time, energy and money to put together but the labour cost of building a plan far outweighed by the profits.

Business Life Plan.

Why not plan your life? Why not set some goals and actually hit them instead of just saying “I’d love to do…”. Imagine the sense of pride and achievement you’d feel if everything you’ve ever wanted to do, you did? You can have that feeling.

It will take time, like anything worthwhile. You will only make progress with small, deliberate steps.

To simplify. Pick a time frame. Say this year and we’ll divide the year in to neat three month quarters. For each quarter we’ll set a goal. That gives us twelve weeks to achieve some pretty big medium/long term goals. These goals can lead on to each other, or be completely independent, the choice is yours. For example:

Q1 – Pay off $3200 credit card debt

Q2 – Lose 10kg

Q3 – Learn a skill

Q4 – Save for holiday

Pretty broad stroke goals to achieve over a year, but each of them are MASSIVE things to accomplish in anyone’s lifetime, and you’re about to knock them out in 12 months. That’s a scary prospect and most of our monkey brains will shut off and put it in the too hard basket, so, we break it down further in to manageable chunks.

Q1.

January – Pay off $800 and don’t use card for unnecessary things

February – Pay off $800 and don’t use card for unnecessary things

March – Pay off $800 and don’t use card for unnecessary things

April – Pay off $800 and don’t use card for unnecessary things

Seeing $3,200 to pay off is terrifying, we’ve all been there and it seems like an immovable mountain. However, seeing smaller numbers helps us see things as tangible and possible. Try and imagine one million dollars … Could you? Now imagine a thousand. Done? you might not of ever physically held a juicy grand in your hands before, but you’ve seen it before and your unconscious can do the rest.

To make things even easier, and really give those baby step efforts to achievement. We’re going to break it down further to weekly targets for each month.

Jan Week 1 – Pay off $200 and don’t use card for unnecessary things

Jan Week 2 – Pay off $200 and don’t use card for unnecessary things

Jan Week 3 – Pay off $200 and don’t use card for unnecessary things

Jan Week 4 – Pay off $200 and don’t use card for unnecessary things

It looks redundant and tedious, and repetitive and boring. But success is boring repetitive steps. There’s nothing sexy about a little forethought, self control and repetition, but that’s literally all it takes to hit your goals every single time. That feeling of accomplishment and empowerment when you finally summit the mountain. That’s the sexy part!

It doesn’t have to be big.

Goals don’t have to be world changing, shoot for the moon style every time. Goals should make you feel fulfilled and happy and they can be anything you want them to be, as long as every day you take steps to achieve them.