Steps to Success: Create a Plan & Manage Your Time
Last week I shared with you the first of five steps to successful planning, which was all about SMART goals, how to use them to your advantage and achieve your dreams!
When you combine the elements of SMART goals, you have a greater chance of success and now that you know how to create and use SMART goals, the next step is creating a plan and learning how to manage your time.
Creating a plan and managing your time go hand-in-hand. They are two critical steps in your steps to success. Having a plan allows you to have an idea of how you're going to fulfill your goals, and managing your time keeps you on track with the timeline in which you want to reach those set goals.
Create a Plan
It is critical to have a plan and know the numbers that you need to work to reach your goals. This means you need to go through the process of quantifying your plan. You need to know the number of leads you need, the number of loans, orders or sales you need in order to reach your annual income goal.
Know Your Numbers
You need to know the numbers you need in order to reach your goals. This means determining how many daily prequels, weekly applications and monthly closings you will need to reach your goal. Take the time to set these goals and then work on the daily activities you need to conduct in order to accomplish your numbers.
Sure, we are all busy, but if you don’t manage your time, you definitely will not achieve your goals! There's a process for everything, and in order to be successful you need to set goals, create a plan and manage your time.
Manage Your Time
In order to manage time, you need to determine the difference between urgent and important tasks. Urgent tasks are tasks that need to be done quickly, and important tasks are related to specific goals. Most tasks will be a combination of the two, such as urgent/important or urgent/unimportant.
You need to place priority on important tasks, completing tasks that are both urgent and important first.
Unfortunately, we are often trapped performing urgent tasks that are not important. They may be important to the people around you, but they are distractions and interruptions that don't help you meet your own goals. Important tasks should take priority because they are focused on specific goals.
Be sure to look out for my "Tip of the Week" newsletter every Wednesday! We share the best tips on how you can start creating educational content. Next week, I'll share with you step number four, which is about identifying your areas for improvement.
Want Help Creating an Educational Marketing Plan?
Need help honing your message or organizing your goals and educational marketing plan? Reach out to us today! We can help with any aspect of the planning process from creating a personalized plan for your brand to having your own personal production team at your fingertips. But if you never give it a try, none of this will help you. So, get out there and start achieving your goals today!
