The Map - Acuity Path

At the end of September, I hosted another quarterly planning workshop. The member of the workshop on their plans for the next quarter.

One of the last steps in the planning process is to move their 90-day goals and strategies into “The Map.”

The Map is a list of the discrete action steps needed to achieve their goals. The steps are mapped out over the 13 weeks of the quarter.

I have found that those who take the time to create the Map and use the Map have success. Those that don’t …

You get the idea.

Many people think about their goals.

Only a portion will write the goals down.

Even fewer will then break their goals into achievable 90-day pieces.

And only a tiny percentage will then take the time to reverse engineer their 90-day gaols into actional steps mapped over the 13 weeks of the quarter.

This is the secret sauce of a successful plan, and very few will do it.

It’s easy to do, but most will not take the time to map out the plan.

What happens is that they then look at their goals (or don’t) but feel overwhelmed by them. Each time they look at them, they have to figure out the next steps. This creates a whole lot of mess.

If you take the time to create the Map, you gain some leverage.

You know what to work on when. You don’t have to figure out the next steps, you know.
When you fall behind, or when a hiccup happens, you can see the impact and to the rest of the plan and plan accordingly
When a new idea comes up or a shiny object falls into your line of sight, you have to look at your Map to know if you have the capacity. Or decide what has to drop because of it.
By taking the time to map your goals, you know in advance if your goals are achievable. By reverse engineering, you can see from your Map if you have enough time to hit your deadlines and see if you have too much in any given week. This helps you avoid overwhelm and disappointment.

The Map helps you create success.

You still have to take action. But the Map shows you the way.

Have a bias towards action – let’s see something happen now. You can break the big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.
Indria Gandhi