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 How to create an action plan and get more done

By Sarah Leave a Comment

Do you know how to create an action plan? Do you need to? Have you ever found yourself saying any of these things?

  • “It’s all in my head.”
  • “I forgot about that.”
  • “No one can do it except me.”
  • “I don’t know what to do next.”

How to get more done with an action plan | strategysarah.com

Most of us have.

The most common conversation I have with colleagues, clients and friends about work revolves around figuring out exactly what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how it ranks relative to other priorities.

That’s why you need an Action Plan.

What is an Action Plan?

Thirty days is long enough to see results, and short enough to get the immediate gratification of checking boxes off a list. After you create an action plan and execute it, you can make time to reassess and create a new Action Plan. For many people, one of the items on the first 30-Day Action Plan includes creating a longer term Action Plan or more detailed project plans around specific products or services.

An Action Plan is a framework to achieve short-term goals with a view to long-term goals.

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How to create an action plan and get more done | strategysarah.com

How does an Action Plan help?

  • An Action Plan is more detailed than a list of goals, and broader than a project-specific plan.
  • Create an Action Plan and you’ll have a working document that can be edited and updated as needed. A plan should be a guideline, as business needs and priorities do change.
  • Create an Action Plan and provide shared accountability on progress for all members of the team.
  • Action Plans contain set due dates that are listed by item or section. Since all deadlines are in one place, it is easy to see at a glance if dates are realistic, too aggressive or overlap more than they should.
  • Create an Action Plan and see where you may need to put more (or less!) focus and time around a particular process, project or product.
  • An Action Plan is a framework that sets up success regardless of the type of work to be done.
  • Last, but certainly not least, a well-crafted Action Plan highlights tasks and projects that can be handed off to others, freeing you up to do what only you can do.
An Action Plan is a framework that sets up success regardless of the type of work to be done.

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It isn’t hard to create an action plan, but it can be a lot of work. Following the eight steps below to move from overwhelmed to action.

  • Pick your tool(s)
  • Big picture goals
  • Do a brain dump
  • Organize
  • Prioritize
  • Delegate, Delete – Or Shiny Object
  • Timeline
  • Work the plan

Let’s get started.

8 Steps to Create an Action Plan and Get More Done

Too much info all at once? Email me and request the steps as a a seven-day ecourse or a downloadable ebook.

1 – Pick Your Tools

The first task is to pick the tool you want to use to create your action plan. Don’t over think this, and definitely don’t feel like you have to use anything fancy. What are you most likely to actually use and follow through with?

Some common tools:

  • Pen and paper
  • Paper planner of some sort
  • Word document
  • Google doc
  • Evernote
  • A project management tool like Asana or Trello

Personally, I like something digital and have found the most success using either Evernote or a Google doc. The accessibility from anywhere (including my phone), is key to my success. But as my husband says, “I’ve never found a [tool] that works as well as a pen and paper.”

Find what works for you and use it. This probably isn’t the time for the learning curve of a new tools, so go with something familiar and comfortable.

A familiar and comfortable tool or system you’ll use is best.

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Whatever you’re going to use, get an account or blank document set up and ready to go. (See, it’s easy one step at a time. You can do this!)

2 – Identify Big Picture Goals

Before we dive into the details, take a step back and look at the big picture. It’s all to easy to lose the forest for the trees, and that’s precisely what we don’t want to happen.

What’s the biggest thing that’s weighing you down? What is the big goal that you’re working to accomplish?

  • What’s your primary goal for this action plan?
  • A new product launch?
  • A marketing plan?
  • General clarity to figure out what your goal is?

Take a few minutes and write down your big picture goal(s).

This isn’t a goal-setting course, and you can certainly continue even if you’re not clear on the big picture. If that’s you though, I would strongly advise including reviewing your business and setting an overall strategy and goals as part of your Action Plan.

Once you’ve got your goals written down, print them out and hang it up somewhere you will see and review daily. Mine can usually either be found my closet or the bulletin board at my desk. Keeping your goals top of mind will help keep you focused on the big picture and taking action in the right places.

Keep your goals top of mind to stay focused on the big picture and the right action.

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3 -The Great Brain Dump

Next we’re getting gritty. It’s time to do a brain dump.

A brain dump is as simple as it sounds. Pull up your chosen tool for capturing information. Take 10-15 (or longer) min and write down everything that’s on your mind.

Don’t worry about organizing, or even if it’s about your business. In fact, if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably have plenty of non-business-related things on your list as well.

It doesn’t matter if it’s big, small, overdue or a year out – get it all down on paper.

Don’t filter, don’t edit (that comes later!), just put it on paper (or screen).

Getting info out of your brain and captured somewhere safe is the best way to clear your mind clutter and start moving forward.

Get info out of your brain and actionable by doing a regular brain dump.

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Keep this document handy, and continue to add to it throughout the day (and the next few days) as you think of additional things. (And you will. It’s next to impossible to get it all down at once.)

You’ll also want to set a place to do a regular brain dump and incorporate it into your plan.

Having trouble getting started? Here are some common topics and triggers to get you going:

  • General business or job related
  • Email – review emails to see what you have outstanding or have been asked about
  • Project specific tasks
  • Deadlines
  • Deliverables
  • Goals
  • Events
  • Things that you’ve started but not finished
  • Financial tasks
  • Marketing tasks
  • Expectations from colleagues, clients, family and friends

4 –  Organize & Categorize

Let’s get organized.

Review your list and group together common themes or types of actions. You’ll likely end up with an Action Plan that has three to five sub-sections or projects within the plan. Don’t worry if you’ve got more than that – we’ll talk about what to do with that next.

How should you organize? However makes the most sense to your brain. Typically, it’s by areas of business, it could be by timeline, or location it need to be done, etc.

How should you organize? However makes the most sense to your brain.

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A general small business Action Plan could include categories of Blogging, Social Media, Products, Services, Continuing Education.

Similarly, a plan could include: Marketing, Sales, Product Development, Operations, etc.

If it’s a product launch, you’ll have more overlap, but could look something like In-Person Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Other Marketing, Technical Setup.

Within each of those areas, start to organize further. You can organize by order things need to be done, amount of time a particular task will take, who should be doing it, or any other way that will make sense to you as you work your plan.

5 – Delegate, Delete – Or Shiny Object

Go back over your list. What shouldn’t YOU be doing? What can you delegate to someone else?
What could you delegate if you had a process mapped out for someone could take over? (If you’ve got anything here, add an action item to create a process so that you can delegate. The time spent upfront will save you an exponential amount of time in the future.)

What shouldn’t be on the list at all? Delete it. (Please. Liberally. Give yourself permission to NOT do things.)

If you’re having trouble deleting things off your list, create a Don’t Do List. This is as simple as it sounds – a list of things you WON’T do. You’re making a conscious decision that these are not priorities and won’t be worked on.

Create a Don’t Do List – A simple list of things you WON’T do.

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Create a Shiny Object List. Similar to the Don’t Do list, the Shiny Object List is a list of really cool things that you want to do someday, but right now are only distractions from the main goal. When in doubt, add something here. And then put it out of your mind. If the time ever comes where you are sitting twiddling your thumbs and looking for something to do, because you’ve accomplished everything on your Action Plan and have no pressing needs, this is a great place to look. And in your annual strategy review. Until then, stay away from anything and everything on this list.

6 – Prioritize

You’ve got a list. It’s organized. Now it’s time to prioritize.

  • What is essential to getting business done? If it doesn’t happen, your business will close up shop and you’ll be out of work. This is clearly the most important.
  • What’s going to move your business forward the most in the long run?
  • What’s immediate, but not necessarily going to make a big impact long term (hint: this is often a great area to delegate)
  • What’s not important at all? (Hopefully nothing – anything unimportant should already be on your Don’t Do List or your Shiny Object List)

7 – Timeline

Now that we’ve set goals, brain dumped our tasks, categorized and organized, delegated, deleted and prioritized, all that’s left is to set a timeline to your plan.

  • What needs to be done immediately?
  • Within the week?
  • Month?
  • Three months?
  • Longer?

If it’s three months or longer, consider separating this out into another list. While it’s important and essential to keep on the radar, this isn’t part of your immediate Action Plan. Save it in a safe place (using the same tools and systems you’ve already implemented). You don’t want to get distracted from the task at hand. Let’s keep our momentum focused on your immediate Action Plan and results.

8 – Work the plan

Set aside a specific time block to create an action plan within the next week. I recommend picking one of two approaches:

  • Do one step each day and have a completed plan in a week. Request the ecourse and you’ll get each step as a daily prompt.
  • Plan in a single day time block. You’ll probably need a 2-4 hour time block, depending on how much pre-work you have already done. This article or the PDF Action Plan Guide are great resources.

Create your plan.

Success formula: Create an action plan. Work the plan. Rinse and repeat.

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Congratulations, you took the time to create an action plan! Doesn’t it feel great?!

You’ve planned the work, now go work the plan. And then let me know how it goes!

One way to effectively organize digital information

By Sarah 11 Comments

Does your computer often feel like the digital equivalent to endless piles all over a desk? You know what you’re looking for is there, but you just can’t find it. 

We’ve all been there at some point. The good news is that you don’t have to stay there. Just like a good physical organization and purge, there is one effective way to organize digital information.

All good things come in threes, right? I sure hope so, because there are three pillars in my system to organize digital information: Evernote, Dropbox and Google.

The system to organize digital information that's currently working fantastic for me

How to organize digital information effectively:

Each pillar in my organization system has a distinct purpose. Each content piece and information type is only stored one place. Evernote, Dropbox and Google all have unique strengths and weaknesses. For the most effective organization system, we are going to use the strengths of each system and layer them together to avoid weaknesses.

Evernote:

All notes, correspondence and key information to remember. This includes both personal and business information for my own business. I do have a separate Evernote account for my corporate job for security and separation.

A few of the information types that I store in Evernote: 

  • Medical records. Fantastic for growth charts and immunization records for the kids, along with your health insurance cards and key numbers! With Evernote, that information is right at my smartphone fingertips. It’s glorious.
  • Auto information. How many times are you asked for your license plate number and can’t remember it? I’ve also had more times than I would have expected that I was asked for my VIN number. See above. Glorious information when you need it.
  • Journal. I can type so.much.faster than I can write by hand. I know purists cringe, but better to have ideas recorded somewhere than not at all, right?
  • Food. I’ve got both recipes and restaurants listed with a boatload of tags to easily find what I’m looking for at the drop of a hat – or when “What should we do for dinner tonight?” strikes all too often.

RELATED: How to save hours each month with Evernote Web Clipper

Dropbox:

Any document that’s already formatted in a specific file type (basically anything that’s not a text note). This includes PDFs, Word docs, Excel docs, images, etc.

Evernote has the capability to add attachments to notes, and Evernote Premium includes the ability to search within those documents, but I haven’t managed to give up the folder structure and ease of Dropbox, along with the sharing capabilities.

How I make this work seamlessly with Evernote: I include a link to any Dropbox files or folders in an Evernote note, making a Dropbox file just as easy to access as an attachment in Evernote. Why, yes, yes, that is a good idea, thank you.

Google:

Specifically, Gmail and Google Drive.
I heart Gmail. Email is a fantastic communication tool, but should not be used to store information for reference. Any emails or emailed information that needs to be referenced get saved to Evernote (the email to Evernote feature of Evernote Premium is a fantastic easy way to do this).

I love Google Drive for the ease of collaboration. Evernote and Dropbox can’t come anywhere near the ease of Google Drive for collaboratively building work and quick and easy updates. Google Drive has far fewer documents than either Evernote or Dropbox, but I’m not willing to give up the functionality to cut out one more system.

How I make Google Drive work seamlessly with Evernote: Same as Dropbox, I include a link to any Google Drive files or folders in an Evernote note.

The two keys to making it all work together:

  • Link documents where relevant.
  • Use the same folder structure in each system. This makes it super easy to see at a glance what you have where, and easy to find what you’re looking for.

RELATED: What is the best (digital) organization system?

 

Your Next Step: 

  • Get the Digital Organization Audit Worksheet using the form below and start eliminating chaos from your computer today!

 

Start how you plan to continue

By Sarah Leave a Comment

I started a new job last Wednesday, which means that I’ve spent the last week inundated with new information. Much of that is job-specific, but there’s also a whole lot of general information – where the printer is and how to print, how to book conference rooms, conference call phone numbers, email distro lists, etc.

Start how you plan to continue | strategysarah.com #31timesaversIt can quickly become overwhelming.

Since I got my computer as I was meeting with the person I was training with, I quickly opened up a Microsoft Word document and started taking copious notes. It didn’t slow down from there. By the end of the day, I had a solid 6 pages written, along with links to at least two dozen other documents and websites. And it was all jumbled together.

In a fast-paced environment, it’s tempting to think that you don’t have time to step back and get organized – the email keeps piling up and the information is coming in faster than it can be organized!

The single best thing I did was to take a few hours and set up all my systems and tools properly.

Start how you plan to continue.

If you don’t take the time to get set up right, your chances of going back and doing so quickly diminish. (Although, it’s never too late – now is better than tomorrow!)

I created a new Evernote account specific to the job. Why this never occurred to be before, I don’t know, but it’s brilliant. I don’t need to have all my personal info combined with my corporate work info – I can have two accounts!

I got shared file folders setup (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc). (I wrote more about that in this post -> One way to effectively organize digital information.)

I created folders in my email. (More on email organization in this post -> Why I don’t strive for Inbox Zero: super simple email organization.)

Hot Tip: Create the same folder structure across all your tools – Evernote, shared file drives, email, etc. Don’t waste your time trying to figure out how and where you filed something!

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Suddenly, the information was still flowing in at the pace of a fire hose, but was so.much.more.manageable with a system in place. I could quickly find information that I knew I’d heard, but didn’t remember (what’s the printer again?!).

Having a framework in place makes anything and everything you do easier, more efficient and allows you (and me!) to do a better job in a shorter timeframe.

I may still be looking up information that I’ll know in my sleep next month, but I can find it quickly when I need it!

Now, time to go tackle that email again!

Start how you plan to continue. 

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Do you need to step back and put an overall information structure in place? If you’ve already got a great one, what’s one tip you have for the rest of us to improve our organization?


This post is part of 31 Timesaving Tools, Tips & Templates, read the rest of the series here.  

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Welcome!

Sarah ParsonsHi, I'm Sarah and thanks for joining me! I believe that as working moms, we don't have to be exhausted trying to have it all. Sure, we juggle a lot. That just makes us expert project managers, problem solvers and simplifiers. And if you feel like you're not an expert at any of that, well, you're in the right place. It is possible to manage our time well and thrive - at work, home and play. Let's do this!

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The views expressed on this site are those of Sarah Parsons only, and do not represent those of any employer or client past or present with whom I have worked.

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