When writing an action plan to achieve a particular goal or outcome, you can get much help from the following steps.
- Clarify your goal. Can you get a visual picture of the expected outcome? How can you see if you have reached your destination? What does make your goal measurable? What constraints do you have, like the limits on time, money, or other resources.
- Write a list of actions. Write down all actions you may need to take to achieve your goal. At this step focus on generating and writing as many different options and ideas as possible. Take a sheet of paper and write more and more ideas, just as they come to your mind. While you are doing this, try not to judge or analyze.
- Analyze, prioritize, and prune. Look at your list of actions. What are the absolutely necessary and effective steps to achieve your goal? Mark them somehow. After that, what action items can be dropped from in the plan without significant consequences for the outcome. Cross them out.
- Organize your list into a plan. Decide on the order of your action steps. Start from looking at your marked key actions. For each action, what other steps should be completed before that action? Rearrange your actions and ideas into a sequence of ordered action steps. Finally, look at your plan once again. Are there any ways to simplify it even more?
- Monitor the execution of your plan and review the plan regularly. How much have you progressed towards your goal by now? What new information you have got? Use this information to further adjust and optimize your plan.
The process of creating an action plan is very simple. Write down all of the tasks that you need to complete over the course of the day. Be sure that you include major and minor duties. Break the major project down into small assignments to make it more manageable. Break down anything that takes longer than two hours to finish into smaller tasks for easier management.
You want to have everything listed on paper. Make sure to itemtimize your list reread your list and prioritize it. Use the number 1 for all items that are very important. Then, go back and mark those that are less important on a sliding scale from the number 1 to the number 10.
If you would like to, you can rewrite your plan at that time to make all of the number 1′s at the top of your list. Do take the time to be sure that those things that you have placed at the top of your priority list are that important to you. Otherwise, you could be simply procrastinating and pushing yourself further and further behind. That will not accomplish the goals that you have!
You want to have everything listed on paper. Make sure to itemtimize your list reread your list and prioritize it. Use the number 1 for all items that are very important. Then, go back and mark those that are less important on a sliding scale from the number 1 to the number 10.
If you would like to, you can rewrite your plan at that time to make all of the number 1′s at the top of your list. Do take the time to be sure that those things that you have placed at the top of your priority list are that important to you. Otherwise, you could be simply procrastinating and pushing yourself further and further behind. That will not accomplish the goals that you have!
How To Use Your Action Plan Correctly:
- Your action plan needs to be used as you see fit. For some, shorter term action plans that are completed each day works well for motivation. For others, a running list of all that needs to be completed helps them to organize all thoughts and needs on an ongoing basis, helping to keep everything organized and on schedule.
- Choose the method that is right for you and the type of business or personal schedule you are keeping. But, do come back to your plan often and look at, cross off and accomplish things from it. The feeling that you will get when you do this will help you to stay on track and even can serve as motivation for the next task to be completed that much sooner.
- What happens when you can not complete a task in a given amount of time and you are fast approaching the deadline? That’s when a task can change priority, which is another aspect that you need to take into consideration for time management. Plan so that you have the ability to move priorities up for items that fast become important tasks to complete.
Develop Your Action Plan:
- As I mentioned, the action plan is the method that you will use to track all of the individual actions that need to be completed in order to be able to go over to your To-Do List and scratch it off the list.
- Your action plan should be written because this helps you to accomplish your goals faster and without forgetting anything along the way. It also helps you to accomplish each of the goals that you have without putting yourself at risk of another problem later (such as forgetting an important task!)
- Now, you do not have to use an action plan for simple things, such as checking your email. You should develop a clear action plan for any and all activities that become important tasks.
- Action plans will help you to achieve the things that need to be done in a clear manner. You can also see where you are at, make changes as necessary and know what happens next.
- Make your action plan as organized as possible. Someone should be able to come in and fill in for you if you are unable to do so yourself because you have clear instructions left for them to accomplish.
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