I had a great chat with a friend and mentor in Seattle this weekend and she reminded me of the power of creating a three year plan. Here is what it accomplished for her:
- Focusing on the 3 year vision or the “Why” of her plan really helped provide focus to her actions at work
- She ended up accomplishing everything she set out to do. This was no small feat. She got a masters, got a documentary made and became a director of product development in these 3 years.
I’ve never created such a plan. This is because I have been getting reasonable success at what I’ve wanted to do and things have been going well at work and home. However things can be better at the factory. This said, I now desire to write a plan for 2013-2016 and track progress on it.
As I work on this, I think it might be better to create a list of 40 things I want to do before 40, inspired by the 30 things before 30 blog. But it is still important for me to elicit “Why”. What is the vision behind the to do list?
And.. I think it might help to break down the plan into 3-4 key areas of focus. For example:
- Job (Professional career plan for the next 3 years)
- Business (our manufacturing business)
- Personal (wife, kids, health, vacations)
- Upskilling (what to learn)
And then try to break it down by year and quarter so it looks something like this:
| Vision: | |||||
| Time | Job | Business | Personal | Upskilling | |
| 2013 | Oct-Dec | ||||
| 2014 | Jan-Mar | ||||
| Apr-Jun | |||||
| Jul-Sep | |||||
| Oct-Dec | |||||
| 2015 | Jan-Mar | ||||
| Apr-Jun | |||||
| Jul-Sep | |||||
| Oct-Dec | |||||
| 2016 | Jan-Mar | ||||
| Apr-Jun | |||||
| Jul-Sep | |||||
| Oct-Dec | |||||
More as I think more about this..
–Anubhav