​Week 52 Focus — Tracking, Celebrating and What’s Next?
Focus Question: Think about where you were and what you were doing at this time last year. What’s changed? What’s different?

Description
I want to say a huge thank you for inviting me into your world this past year. Whether you started with us a year ago in Week 1 with this series, or you joined us mid-year.
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I hope that this week you will take a few minutes to notice what’s shifted for you over time. Take note of your metrics. Also, where do you want to put your attention in the next year?

It’s been a pleasure to bring you each of these prompts.

Activity
Take time this week to stop and pause, reflecting on these questions:
Take note of where you started in week 1 of this series. You were asked to create your vision of your work a year from now.

• What does your work/life currently look like?
• What’s shifted?
• What’s possible today which was not possible a year ago?
• How are you different today, then when you started this series?
• What’s going to support you in continued focus and action?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Review your last 12 months of planning pages.
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Looking to your annual planning pages:

• What do you notice? What do you want to celebrate? What needs to be carried forward?

Looking to your quarterly planning pages:

• What do you notice about themes across the seasons? What do you want to note for next year?

Looking to your tracking pages (Monthly Daily Tracker):

• What do you notice? What changes do you want to make?

 
Let’s stay connected via next year’s 52 Week Series which is going to have a focus on remote business.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.


So now what? This weekly  series is wrapping up with this week's post. I'll be continuing to offer the Weekly planning hacks as we move into the new year, along with regular posts related to planning and productivity.

If you haven't "heard", I'm also hosting a new podcast called the Remote Pathways Podcast. It airs every few weeks and zooms into the landscape of today's remote workspace. We explore the people, places and pathways to remote work, which is very varied! Check out the podcast and subscribe with your favorite podcast player!

Coaches - starting Wednesday January 1st I'll be leading the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator. What's possible if you were to focus for 60 days on your business with consistent action?

Thanks again for bringing me into your world this year. 

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the  19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram
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Years ago, I taught business studies part time. Teaching Business Fundamentals was one of my courses. I loved introducing new business students and entrepreneurs to the world of different business models and approaches.

JIT - stands for Just in Time. Historically, companies like Canadian Tire were well known for having a merchandising strategy where everything they did was right at the “right moment”, just when things were needed.

Computerization has really helped with JIT approaches to all kinds of businesses, large and small. When stock is low, an order can go in, rather than keeping a lot of money tied up with excess merchandise or having to pay for more space to house it.

What are the things that you could be creating or making available in your world?

Best,
Jennifer

Happy Holidays! My hope is that this week you are able to spend some quality time with loved ones and/or renewing.
We know that high performance is as much about renewal as it is about pushing hard when needed.
Thank you for spending time this year with the blog. I hope that you have found many interesting posts and elements to support you in productivity and remote work. I look forward to continuing to bring you the Weekly Planning Hacks and other information about planning, doing and tracking.
Enjoy your holiday time off!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Author of PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner (2019)

​Week 51 Focus — Momentum
Focus Question: What is the momentum you are creating in your business right now? What’s become easier as you moved throughout the year?

Description
Over the last 51 weeks, we’ve covered a range of topics – from onboarding and team development, to growing your relationships. Each week I have also encouraged you to undertake some consistent action on your work/business. My guess is this has supported you in creating some momentum in areas which were not present before.
Momentum is a scientific term. It has the following definitions in the Oxford Dictionary:

1. the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity.
2. the impetus gained by a moving object.

One of the key premises in the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack is that consistent action, and daily steps will add up and create momentum. These, coupled with the experiments you may undertake, are key to generating its own energy.

Activity
Consider the area(s) you have created momentum in.  What has helped you pick up speed? What do you notice about momentum at different times of the year?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Look back at the daily actions you have been taking in key activities? What do you notice?
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As you think about your key goals for the end of next year, are there some new daily steps or consistent actions you want to commit to?
 
Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram
​

This week’s Weekly Planning Hack is all about undertaking ongoing learning. The world is not stopping for anyone. Each one of us, regardless of how well educated or credentialed we are (and I say this as someone who has multiple degrees and credentials), can benefit from ongoing learning. Whether it’s picking up a new skill set or getting skills into practice, ongoing learning helps with productivity, AS LONG AS it’s not just learning for learning’s sake but “learning for application sake”.
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I hope that this week you’ll take a few minutes (15 minutes tops!) to think about these questions:

• What learning have you been undertaking?
• How is that ongoing learning helping you?
• As you look ahead at your work, what new learning do you want to undertake?
• How can you learn (think courses, mentors, online learning etc.)?

What else is important to note about learning?

All the best,
​Jennifer

Week 50 Focus — Experimentation
Focus Question: Where might experiments in your work or business support you?

Description
In the three books I have published since 2017, I make reference to the need for experimentation in today’s VUCA – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous – world.

Given that things are changing so quickly, trying things out to see how, and if, they work can be an important part of the business process.
It may be the things we are not sure of, that give us the greatest impact. Part of experimentation means that are we willing to try something out, and another part of experimentation is tracking our results.

In my business, one of the longest experiments I have undertaking is my writing at the Teams365 blog. Born on January 1st, 2014, the blog was an experiment to initially see how I could enhance the readership and visibility of my work and brand. What initially was going to be a one-year experiment in posting blog posts has grown into a six-year experiment (2014-2019) and an important part of my creative process. My regular writing under the Teams365 banner has become an important part of content creation for my client programs, and an important vehicle for me to find and magnify my voice in the areas of leadership, teamwork, remote work and virtual conversations. It’s become a really important repository as well for my work and intellectual property.

After six years of blogging, I would say that this has been a success. Website visits have moved from 80 page reads a week to more than 10, 000 a week.
What experiments have you undertaking? What ones do you want to plan for the new year?

Activity
Think about your key goals right now. What are the things which could benefit from more experimentation?

What is your hypothesis, or what do you think is going to happen?
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What do you want to track so that you know your experiments are working? What are the short-term metrics? Long-term?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Consider using one of the Monthly Daily Trackers to track the results of your experiments.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram
​

This week’s Weekly Planning Hack gets you to think about swapping the word AND for BUT. Relationships are critical in today’s business context, particularly the remote space where we need to get things done via others who we may never have met. Language use becomes very important in terms of building connection and trust.

A lot of us use the word BUT when we are presenting information. You did a great job, BUT next time, can you do x.

When we use the word BUT it tends to totally negate whatever was said in front of it. So, in this example, all the person hears is “can you do x”. The praise or acknowledgement provided at the start of the sentence was not heard or captured.
With this in mind, think about what you can do to remove BUT from your wording this week. What do you notice?

Resources
For more on this topic check out:

• This Entrepreneur article
• Saying "Yes, and - A principle for improve, business, & life by Mary Elisabeth
• The book, The Achievement Habit by Bernard Roth, also explores this topic.
• Another great resource is Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses "No, But" Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration--Lessons from The Second City, by Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton.

​Best wishes,
​Jennifer

​Week 49 Focus — Outreach
Focus Question: WHO do you want to reach out to, to grow or magnify your work in the next year?

Description
Collaboration is a critical skill set for all business professionals and business owners today. We don’t operate in a vacuum. Outreach is critical for learning, delivering key business items, scaling your business, and collaborating.
 
Who do you need to be fostering closer relationships with?
 
Outreach can take many forms:

• Attending networking events
• Virtual or in-person coffee dates
• Connecting with professionals via associations (conferences, meetings)
• Hosting events and open houses
• What else?

 
Being an active member of your professional or industry community can create a win-win for everyone involved.
 
As a starting point, consider:

• Who do you want to connect more with?
• Think about the work you did in week 37 around building your team. Some of the members that you might want to have on your team include an accountant, a legal professional, a content creator, and instructional designer, videographer or photographer, an accountant, a virtual assistant. Who would others recommend?
• What new topics or areas do you want to learn more about? What associations, conferences, or learning events will help you obtain this knowledge?
• Make a list of 10-20 people/organizations/resources you want to connect with?
• What time do you want to dedicate to your outreach on a consistent basis?

 
Activity
Return to your vision and think about WHO you need to help you grow your business.

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Revisit your Relationship Web and List of 20 Key Business Relationships.
Networking and outreach are two-way streets. What are you bringing to the relationship as well? Review the sections around collaboration in Sections 3 and 4. Consider integrating some of the questions posed in the collaboration section.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram
​

This week’s Weekly Planning Hack is all about taking consistent action, starting out in 15-minute bursts. The tagline for my Workbook Planners, PlanDoTrack and the Coaching Business Builder, is that business success in today’s disruptive environment is about taking consistent action on a daily basis, in order to generate the momentum needed around projects.

A key challenge of today’s VUCA and ever-changing context is that things are occurring so fast many times we are abandoning long term projects in trade-off of short-term creation.

We still need to get our big projects done. For leaders, these are the strategic issues that are going to move the business forward. For business owners, these are the big projects - like writing a book or creating something else – that is going to keep the business moving.

The challenge is finding the space to work on projects. As Thoreau wrote “I love a broad margin to my life”. I have been enamored of his writing on Walden Pond since my early 20s when I was a grad student in Environmental Studies. As many of you know, each summer I retreat and work remote out of my cottage in the solitude of nature. Even with that, the margins of my life are compressed most of the time – as a business owner, author, mom and primary support to my aging parents. Finding huge swaths of time for creative projects is always a challenge. Two years ago, after my return to the city, I didn’t return to watching TV or Netflix. I still have ample screen time in my line of work, but it created a bit more margin for creative and strategic thinking.

Even with this, I started finding that some projects really could only have 15-30 minutes dedicated to it at any given time. Great examples of this are this series – the Weekly Journaling Prompts which have been created in 15 – 30-minute windows of writing, posting and recording throughout the year, as well as a lot of my writing on the Teams365 blog.

You might not think 15 minutes a day adds up, but it does. Take a look at the volume of content generated over at the Teams365 blog which has now shaped not only one, but three of my books.

What are the key strategic and long-term goals you want to work towards? How might 15 minutes a day of focused effort, and consistent action on a daily (or regular) basis help you?

Experiment with it. See what happens. AND – Let us know!

Best, 
​Jennifer