by Doug Emerson
(Reprinted with permission)
I like to call the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve Reflections Week. There are pauses in the regular work schedule to tie up the loose ends of the year, relax a little and do some reflecting on what has happened in the past twelve months.
Your mind’s eye, given the right timing and environment, will replay the movie of 2009 for you to see what happened during the year. You may want to look at your written goals for the year and see how you did with the job of completion.
If you are like me, you probably have a list of completed and incomplete projects. If you accomplished everything on your goal list, Congratulations! I suspect your perfect achievement record came about because you never sleep or you didn’t get very brave with your goal setting and picked easy goals. Neither option is a good choice.
If your reflections on 2009 reveal you want to get more important things done in your business in 2010, consider making a small investment in a time management device used for centuries. No, you won’t have to invest in an antique tool.
The device I’m talking about is the full year at a glance wall calendar. You’ve seen this type of calendar before. It’s one big sheet, lacking pretty photographs, made out of plain paper or paper laminated to plastic. It shows the 12 months and 365 precious days of 2010. If you haven’t gotten yours yet, go get one in the next few days or order it online. I want you to use one of these huge full year calendars in 2010. Because, for 2010 to be your best year yet, you need to be thinking in terms of an entire year; not tomorrow, next week or next month. You need to know what’s going to happen this year.
Hang it on your office wall or in a conspicuous place for you and everyone who has a connection with you, to see any time. Here are the planning steps for you and your new full year calendar:
- Choose your days off and mark them first. Remember, boss, the only person who gives a business owner a day off is the business owner.
- Decide on dates for all events that you are responsible for creating and planning. Clinics, camps, horse shows, events, rodeos, trail rides, demonstrations, seminars.
- Next, pencil in club meetings, dinner meetings, trade shows and seminars, auctions and sales you won’t be organizing but will be attending If you have a regular schedule for farrier and veterinary visits, mark those days as well.
- If your employees will be away or off on certain days, code those days too.
- Record all family gatherings, birthday, weddings, graduations. Your personal life and business life are inseparable.
- Make note of any other significant events scheduled for 2007 on your wall calendar.
The purpose of this exercise is to nurture peace of mind for you as the business owner as you “brain dump” dates and times. Creation of a full year planning calendar is a decluttering process which frees your personal RAM for solving other problems.
The benefits of the full year calendar for all to see are:
- Creates personal commitment by you and limits the temptation for procrastination
- Allows your staff and clients the opportunity to know what to expect from you and to build respect for your valuable and precious “free time”.
- Paints a full picture of the year to emphasize the limited amount of time you have available to do the work in your horse business that creates income: lessons, training, boarding, sales.
You can make 2010 your best year yet after reflecting on 2009 and projecting the new year of 2010 on a full view planning calendar. Get Planning.
Doug Emerson helps professional horsemen struggling with the business half of the horse business. Find more articles about the horse business like this one at www.ProfitableHorseman.com
