This week’s planning hack gets you to consider how you can use color coding to support organization and focus. One of the challenges in today’s work is an overload of data. It is said that “color is one of the first things we take in when looking at an image.”
Using color to help sort through the myriad of emails, files and to-dos can create a quick sort. This may help us do things faster and also not feel the “cognitive load” of tasks as much.
Consider how you might use color to:

• Segment focus
• Identify tasks of a certain priority
• Flag emails around a certain topic or project
• Flag emails from a certain person

Here are some quick examples of how I use color coding:
To denote different tasks in my monthly daily tracker, the colors say much more than numbers would.

Different colored folders for different tasks and projects – Client files are purple, Writing files are usually blue, Speaking files are yellow, Financial files are red.

What could you do with color to help you with your organizing and planning?

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
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Week 7 Focus – Resourcing and Past Experience
Focus Question: What can you do to leverage what you already have done?

Research/Story
What helps coaches be successful with their work? As a professional it’s likely that you have already had many accomplishments. These can be leveraged for future successes.In this week’s focus you are invited to think about what pat successes you have enjoyed and created for yourself.
​
Activity
​Take a few minutes to list the top 10 things you are most proud of accomplishing.
As you identify the experiences, note:

• What were the skills you utilized to make them happen?
• What was the learning created through that experience?
• How can you apply that going forwards?

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Planning, Doing and Tracking here.
Best wishes,
Jennifer 
Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Planning, Doing and Tracking

Week 6 Focus – Enablers: Resourcing, Partnerships, Mindsets, Strengths
Focus Question: What are the things that are going to help you as a business owner/coach/virtual employee?
​
Description
​The term « enabling » is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as “making something possible or easier”. What, and who, is going to help make your vision and your key goals possible?Being able to lean into different areas is key for our business, especially when things get busy, or we are tasked with a big project, or one that stretches us.At these times it is important to lean into areas that will help us – or the enablers. That can include:

• Resourcing
• Partnerships
• Mindsets
• Strengths

It is important to identify what these key enablers are, so we can lean into them for support. Work around each of these areas is important, which is why we are going to explore each one of these areas more in-depth in the coming weeks.  For now, use the following graphic to note the different “enablers” you have in your business or work at the moment.

Activity
​Using the following worksheet - Identify the Resources, Partnerships, Mindsets and Strengths, and past experiences, that are going to move you forward with a current project.

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
​Many of the resources in the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack workbooks help readers identify and focus on these areas, in particular:

​Additional resources that will support you in this area include:

• Mindset – Carol Dweck, NeuroLeadership Institute
• Strengths Assessments – VIA Strengths, StrengthsFinder 2.0

We will explore the different areas (Resourcing, Past Experience, Partnerships, Mindsets, Strengths) over  the next 4 weeks.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Planning, Doing and Tracking here.

Check out past weeks of the 52 Weeks of Planning, Doing and Tracking here.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer
​Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Planning, Doing and Tracking

​Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Author of several books including: PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized  - Specializing in support to virtual and remote teams, leaders and entrepreneurs
Award-winning Coaching Skills Training
Join us for one of our 2019 Annual Coaching Groups - Teams365 Leadership Lab for Virtual Leaders and Team Members or
Coaching Biz Growth Lab - for coaches and other virtual entrepreneurs
(416)996-8326

Stay Connected

​Week 2 Focus – VISION Milestones
Focus Question: As you move towards your vision, what are the milestones along the way?
​
​Description
Chunking down our vision into more manageable pieces allows us to start laying out the roadmap in discrete pieces. This then allows us to move forward strategically. Once you have your vision, creating milestones along the way is an important part of the process.

Research/Story
“Rome was not built in a day.” My father’s voice continues to echo in my ear, years after first hearing. An entrepreneur himself, my dad ran an old-fashioned corner pharmacy for decades, taking over Britton’s Pharmacy from his father, my grandfather who founded it in the 1930s.
Hearing this phrase mentioned regularly reminds me that things that time to create. It’s the consistent action that forges the road as we go.
What are the steps you want to accomplish as you go?

Activity
Using the Vision RoadMap, look at the big pieces of your vision and identify the actual steps you will need to take (and want to take) to move yourself along. With the Vision Roadmap you will be able to break larger projects down into more discrete milestones.
Questions to consider when looking at developing your vision roadmap
As you look out across the year, what are the key elements or what Steven Covey would call “Big Rocks.” Place these on one sheet of paper. Now working with each one at a time, identify the key milestones or smaller pieces along the way. This will help to break it into chunks. You might want to consider these questions:

• What are the key activities which will make up this project?
• What needs to be done first?
• How long will it take?
• What else will I need to do this?

At this stage you may still feel that you are working at a macro-level, and this is fine.
If you want to work at the micro-level, turn to page 38 – and review “Be True to Who You Are – The Micro-Vision.” As the page invites you to, take time to identify what’s really important to:

• You – as the business owner, leader or professional
• The business or organization 

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Several areas of the Planner and Workbook touch on chunking things to milestones including:

• Vision Timeline – page 97

Be sure to place these in the relevant Annual Planning and Content Planning Categories such as:

• Annual Plan
• Content Planner - Annual Overview – page 245

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Planning, Doing and Tracking here.

Use the hashtag #52weekspdt (52weeks PlanDoTrack)
Check out last week's Week 1 of the 52 Weeks of Planning, Doing and Tracking here.

​Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPT
Author of several books including: PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized  - Specializing in support to virtual and remote teams, leaders and entrepreneurs
Award-winning Coaching Skills Training
Join us for one of our 2019 Annual Coaching Groups - Teams365 Leadership Lab for Virtual Leaders and Team Members or
Coaching Biz Growth Lab - for coaches and other virtual entrepreneurs
(416)996-8326

Stay Connected