Often when I am coaching - people ask for help to make a plan. Making a plan or breaking a plan down can be a really tricky thing. When you look at a project or a task as one great big chunk it can seem really daunting.
Here's what I did with a client this week. There was a long list of things to do, some big and some small. So we drew out a month by month time line.
Then we got some post it notes and started to write down some of the tasks, and plotted them against the dates. With each one, we looked to see if that was just the end of the task - for example 'launch new service' or 'implement new IT system' is the end goal, but there are many more steps to go before that.
We took each one in turn and identified the steps needed to complete each stage. And then worked backwards to see when things needed to start. Or we moved the end date when we realised that we simply couldn't do all the steps required in the current planned date.
Regularly taking time to look ahead to the long term, listing all the essential items, plus all the strategic items can be really helpful to help you see the bigger picture. It can also help you to see what steps are missing and what help you need. What on the list can you delegate?
By the way - this is my mock up to show you what it might look like, my clients real example was very very busy - so much so you couldn't see the paper beneath!!