I appreciate your patience next week as our offices will be closed as I host my annual strategic planning retreat in Cancun. (The picture on this post is me working hard at last year’s retreat.)
Oh, perhaps I should have added the word “solo.” My annual SOLO strategic planning retreat in Cancun.
Just me, myself, I and a backpack full of index cards, Post-it-Notes, masking tape and colored pens. And before I leave, the walls of my beachfront villa will be covered, but all of that clutter will have been placed into a task management system and ranked so that when I return, I will have:
- Updated my ActionMap for Designing Profits, Inc. and be clear on my 5 “Critical Cores”
- Have updated my Photomap from the “8 Steps” program. (As mentioned in the previous post.)
- Have wrestled with the question from Gary Keller’s “One Thing” book: What is the one thing, such that by doing it everything else will become easier or unnecessary?
- Have the timetable and deadlines for all of the course development I am committed to doing this year.
- Made a commitment about partners and outsourcing for 2020
- Have a line item budget for 2020 including revenues and expenses
- Have identified new ways to add value for members of The Edge
- Have gotten a little sun
- Have spent plenty of time in the ocean
- Have had a margarita or two at sunset. (Though I actually prefer coffee at sunrise!)
I tell you this because I’d like to add one more thing to your New Year’s planning slate: Find a few days for yourself. It’s the only way to get perspective. Read. Meditate. Think… And above all, “simplify, simplify.”
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