We are back from Spring Break! We all had a great time, especially with the guys home from college, and got tons of stuff done. Aside from all the organizing and house cleaning that has been accomplished, I have been working on goal setting and planning.
I read the other day that, “unless a goal is written down and dated, the chances of reaching it are between 5% and 8%.” It seems to me that that is a pretty accurate assessment of what goes on when we fail to truly plan to reach our goals.
Many of us have worthy goals and desires, but it is difficult sometimes to put those goals into bite-sized pieces. It is even more difficult sometimes to tag a date on them.
I am practicing on my planning by working on my son Stephen’s graduation from homeschool, coming up next month. It all sounds so very nebulous: “plan Stephen’s graduation.” What do I plan? Where do I start? How do I make sure this is ready on time?
The first thing I did was to break the whole thing into smaller pieces.
- Create guest list
- Take graduation photo
- Make invitations
- List food and drink needed
- List decorations needed
- Secure location for graduation
- Create budget for graduation
- Mail invitations
Of course, I may need to add to this eventually, but for now that’s enough to work on! Also, some things are being done by Stephen himself, like the photo and creating the invitations. My job, since he’s at college again, is to get those invitations in the mail asap!
This in itself was creating a bit of high blood pressure for me, since I have a very full week and usually don’t have much spare time. So, last night I decided to take the task and break it down into small increments, guess at how much time each step would take, and assign a deadline for the task to be done. When I was done, my new list looked like this:
Stephen’s graduation announcements/invitations: time req’d date due:
- Get approximate idea of number of pics and invitations needed 10 min 04-15-08
- Take pics to Walmart and print them 30 min 04-15-08
- Print invitations (need hubby’s help) 1 hr 04-16-08
- Decide on guest list (need hubby’s help) 30 min 04-16-08
- Print out guest list 15 min 04-17-08
- Print labels 1 hr 04-17-08
- Post and send! 1 hr 04-18-08
I take into account that it seems demons often inhabit printers, so I leave some leeway time there. Also, anytime I have to go to the post office, it is a big deal, so I budget about an hour for that as well.
This way, as long as I follow the plan, these invitations SHOULD be in the mail by Friday. We’ll see how it goes! Anyway, without a plan, I would never get anywhere, so I think it will help!
BTW, if y’all are interested in attending, let me know! J
