Learn the Principles of Project Planning to Be Successful

Two things come between you and success: a plan and follow-through.

Think about it.

By plan, I don’t mean a general idea of how you’re going to go about doing it. I mean a coherent, clear, and actionable blueprint for how you’re going to make that idea happen in the world.

Unfortunately, most people miss out on epic success because they don’t have this one simple skill locked down. Creative Giants — the creative, compassionate, talented people we work with here at Productive Flourishing — often fare no better.

Why?

I can give you a few reasons:

1. No one ever sat down and explained to you how to set project-based goals, likely because they never learned themselves.
2. People sold you the “geniuses don’t need plans” or “creativity and planning are incompatible” myths. If you were particularly lucky, they sold you both simultaneously.
3. You’re so damn good and talented at what you do that you never really had to learn how to plan. You could pull an all-nighter and do better than people who spent weeks oafing their way through their work.

Newsflash: the most successful people in the world are incredibly strategic and know how to convert ideas into workable, finishable projects. And (gasp!), they either do it or pay other people to do it for them because they know that the difference between epic success and mediocrity or failure often hinges on how well people have thought things through.

I learned the value of action-based, strategic planning as a Joint Force Logistics Officer in the US Army. Strategic planning wasn’t something we did because we loved cerebrating; we did it because it laid the foundation for us to excel with the resources, mission, and time we had. Everything was a project, and we had too many of them with too few resources to go around. Decades of experience has taught me the ability to turn ideas into successes and clients pay me thousands of dollars every month to help them do the same as a business strategist.

The thing is, projects gathering dust are not helping other people live better lives. And they’re not helping you do your great work either. 

If you have a never-ending list of half-considered ideas, half-finished projects, or are tired of suffering through perennial creative constipation — yep, you know what I mean — it’s time to get GUTSY and join Principles of Project Planning.

Get GUTSY with Your Project Planning

The great news is making project plans that work isn’t rocket science. It’s not that you can’t do it, you just don’t know how to do it the right way. Learn the framework once and you’re far more likely to be successful for every project moving forward compared to the 99% of other entrepreneurs out there who are still shooting from the hip when it comes to creating, launching, and delivering exceptional, meaningful, impactful products and services.

We boil it down to five key principles, conveniently expressed in the acronym GUTSY.

• GOAL: Having a SMART, compelling goal that specifies what the end result of the project is.
• UNDERSTANDING the value and priorities that relate to this project. For value, we can not only look at budgets and expense, but also positive expected yield from the project and the opportunity costs of not doing the project. Priorities are both about the action items that need to be prioritized within the project itself and how you’re able to prioritize the project amidst the total context of all your other projects and responsibilities. UNDERSTANDING thus helps us determine what matters within the project and how the project matters more globally for us.
• TIME. How much time will be required to get the project done? How much time is available? What can we do to avoid the trap of both overestimating our available time and underestimating the time required?
• SUPPORT. What support is available to get this project done? What support will be required? What’s needed to make the project successful?
• YOU. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What’s your story about the project itself? How might you leverage your strengths, mitigate weakness, and create a compelling, useful story about the project that keeps you glued into it?

It so turns out that the simplest of frameworks or questions can often be the hardest to answer. It’s easier to work through a simple method that focuses your thinking on what matters than to have no method that keeps you stuck and unable to take action on the things that really matter. It feels better to know where you’re going, than to feel overwhelmed by the jumble of thoughts in your head with no real idea how it all fits together.

Accomplish YOUR Level of Success

You’ve got so much more to give.  

I see you for the Creative Giant you are, and I know you can stand taller than you are today.

You might be able to throw something together last minute and have it be what other people call good, but you and I both know you have more and better work to give to this world.

What would happen if you truly thought through how to use all of your resources on the one or two BIG goals worth achieving for you?

What if, rather than having 17 “priorities,” you instead focused on fewer things but did the caliber work that you truly can do when you get behind something?

What if you actually let other people enhance your success rather than trying to do it all by yourself?

I want you to step into that higher level of performance and success that’s available to you. I want you to achieve your BIGGEST goals. I want you to be doing more work that matters to you and less of the minor details that someone else can do for you. I want you to spend more time being the Creative Giant you know you are offering the great work you have to give to this world and less time playing small because it’s safe.

Never Feel Overwhelmed by Big Projects Again

To that end, I’ve put together the Principles of Project Planning course that expands on the GUTSY framework. The Principles of Project Planning course isn’t about how to plan a specific project — it’s about learning how to take any idea and convert it into an action plan. A good strategist and planner can get herself into and out of just about anything because they’ve mastered the principles of making things happen. I want to teach that to you.

The Principles of Project Planning is delivered as an online course. You’ll get access to everything all at once, and the modules work through each step of the process in turn. The course comes with:

• Five audio discussions of each of the GUTSY principles
• Five handouts from each principle that make it easy to take notes on what you’re listening to
• Five worksheets on each of the GUTSY principles that help you apply the GUTSY framework to your projects
• Video tutorials on how to use the worksheets
• Additional resources to help you with other aspects of planning and getting your best work done

Bottom-line: if you listen to the discussions and fill out the worksheets, the only thing left between you and success is you doing the work. Alas, I can’t bottle that up for you.