Prioritisation, Planning and Perspective

Hello, 

Welcome to a new year, full of opportunities and quite probably a few hazards along the way. It wouldn’t be life without them, after all! Let’s see if we can’t avoid a few of them by preparing ourselves ahead of time.

This is a long letter so hang in there, I promise you it will be interesting and could change the way you  plan your day.

I was lucky to spend some time away from my desk dreaming up all sorts for 2022 and delving into some reading I’d been saving up during the course of last year. And oh boy did I have a few ‘penny dropping’ moments!

At the end of last year, I touched on the importance of the 5 P’s: Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance. I still stand by these 5 P’s, as I’m sure many people do. But after feeling inspired by some literature that caught my attention, there’s one more very important P I would like to bring to your attention this year…

P is for Perspective

I’m going to start with an analogy borrowed from a very inspiring mentor of mine by the name of Danny Iny, involving big rocks, pebbles, sand, and a large jar.

The large jar represents the year ahead – currently empty but full of possibility and fresh air!

The big rocks represent the big ticket, important items in your life and business. Landing a new client, securing a sale, making a big change, and so on.

The pebbles are the things that you need to do in order to move things along, but don’t necessarily create big changes. Raising an invoice, scheduling social media, recruiting a new staff member, and the like.

The sand is all the little mundane things that could become annoyances or distractions. Like checking emails every 10 minutes, doing a new task straight away instead of prioritising it, and so on.

The idea is that if you start filling the jar with sand, and then add some pebbles, you quickly run out of room for the big rocks, and suddenly 2022 is a bit puckerooed.

But if you start with the big rocks in the jar, then add the pebbles, there is still plenty of room for the sand to fill in all that blank space, and before you know it you’ve achieved some fantastic results without anywhere near as much angst.

As a business owner, the key here is that if you prioritise the big things in your business, you go from working IN your business, to ON your business, and that is why a change in perspective is so important.

Perspective – Part 2

The value of a new perspective is that it offers our brains an opportunity to think differently, see new opportunities and avenues, and – most likely – find new ways to solve old problems. Despite everybody’s individual strengths I believe this is something we can all relate to, and one that I take pride in instilling with my clients.

The most recent example I have of this which I am excited to talk about relates back to the piece on Time Management that I included in my last newsletter. What I didn’t think to touch on was that the management of time doesn’t necessarily need to be within a certain timeframe. Let me explain.

Against all societal norms, my body clock runs a bit like this:

7am – up and about, looking at the day ahead, get into work zone

12pm – hit a wall, go and do something else for a while; yoga, a walk, or similar

3pm – second wind hits, I get some more work and good thinking done

5pm – the lights are off, and I am in wind down mode

3am – the lights turn on again! I’m full of ideas and I often get out of bed to write things down so I don’t forget them. If I don’t, they disappear into the ether forever!

When I finally embraced the way that my body clock spreads its energy, I started being more productive, more focused, and – importantly – happier to be doing what I wanted to be doing, when I was doing it.

Health gurus may disagree with me on this one! But what I’m trying to offer you here is a different perspective on how we are all different, and how 9 times out of 10 our energy levels probably don’t align with the 9-5 ‘work’ day framework that we’ve been conditioned to work within.

There’s some food for thought. What are your energy level patterns? What are your staff’s energy level patterns? But here’s a pro tip: don’t go and schedule any 3am staff meetings!

Let’s move

Yes, it’s time. Time to move out of your comfort zone. Moving out of a comfort zone  requires us to break free from the past and push ourselves to do something we wouldn’t ordinarily do. A new daily schedule, perhaps?

Your comfort zone keeps you in a very predictable space: you usually know exactly what’s going to happen.  However, a fear of the unknown will keep you stuck forever. So the trick here is to let go of your expectations and accept the results of your actions. Of course, take risks in measured amounts, but be prepared to enjoy the fruits of new perspectives, new ways of doing old things, and new energy coming your way.

If you need help applying this theory to your day-to-day to ensure a strong start to 2022, get in touch. I’d love to help you. I offer a 45 minute free coachng call. Book you time with me today at  me at  and together we can fine tune your energy and focus for the new year ahead.

Energetically yours,

Heather.