This week’s Weekly Planning Hack is all about “Making things Visual”. How often do you find you:
One of the reasons why I was passionate about creating an analog workbook and planner for Coaches (Coaching Business Builder) as well as Virtual and Remote Professionals (PlanDoTrack), was to create a place where what’s in our minds, could find a home on paper. Paper planners are great for some, but even then, things can get lost. What’s another layer to make those important things stand out? Have you considered:
Where the visual cues that will keep what’s important to you visible and in front of you? Best, Jennifer Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week! Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
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![]() Week 26 Focus – Mid-point Check In Focus Question: What have you achieved so far this year? Description Wow! Here we are in week 26, mid-point of the 52 weeks, and of the year. This week you are encouraged to block off time to take stock of your achievements. First, review your annual plan. You may want to include some information around these questions:
Research/Story Creating intentional pause points is an important part of any coaching and learning process. Being able to stop and reflect is also critical for business success. While we can keep on doing, are we doing the right things which have impact? What is working and what is not? This is the premise of the Virtual Retreats I host throughout the year in the PlanDoTrack series, as well as the month end reflection and monthly planning hacks. 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 Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram As we move from one season to another, we have the opportunity to undertake a “clean sweep”. Having lived and worked in the tropics for the first 15 years of my career, and now having been back in Canada for 15 years where the seasons are so distinct, I have come to (re) appreciate, how significant seasonal change provides an impetus for change and review. Have you done a clean sweep of your surroundings lately? Is it time to clean up your files? Your desk? Your contacts? There is a lot written on clearing and creating order – from the work and writing of Marie Kondo to Gretchen Rubin’s new book – Outer Order, Inner Calm. Last fall, I offered up a weekly planning tool (separate from the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack) called the Clean Sweep. Structured as a five-day planning tool, it also offers some prompts and reminders for business owners or virtual workers to take action on some of the more overlooked aspects of our work. For example, outreach and building of relationships. Taking these small steps continue to “add up”. Download a copy of the Weekly Sweep for your business document here. Where could you benefit from a "clean sweep"? Best wishes, Jennifer Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week! Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013) Want to offer this body of work to your own clients? Join us in July for the inaugural PlanDoTrack Facilitator Training program, kicking off on July 9th. Ongoing learning is part of business success today. We each have areas in which we will want to learn and grow in. What are those areas? As you consider your own learning pathways, what is going to help you stretch? What will help you grow? There are many ways we can be learning and growing including:
Best wishes, Jennifer Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week! Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013) As virtual businesses, solopreneurs and service-based businesses, content and educational marketing may be a significant strategy in marketing, and letting the world know what we have to offer. As someone who has been a long-term blogger (I published my first blog in 2005 – which is still active today – the Group Coaching Ins and Outs blog), creating content on a regular basis can be an ongoing endeavor. While we may feel like we need to constantly create new content, there are ways to recycle and repurpose our content in creative ways. As we say in marketing, it can take 7-11 times for a message to be heard. We don’t want to send the same message, the same way every time, but rather share the same message in different ways. Consider this situation. You have spent time developing a presentation on the skill of influence – a key skill for virtual professionals today. You spent a lot of time doing research and pulling it together. As you delivered the presentation, people really enjoyed it an asked for more. You realize that there are several different ways that you can expand on this content including:
Activity Take a look at all the content you have created. Note it down. This could include blog posts, Instagram stories, Facebook Lives, etc. As you look at what you have created already, consider:
Best, Jennifer Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week! Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013) Questions form the backbone to any great coaching conversation. What is the state of questions being asked in your team? While asking informational questions can be of great value, in the virtual team context, we may be in multiple conversations where we are using questions to:
When we operate in the virtual and remote context it usually means that we aren’t having to advise, but rather coach. This can necessitate a different set of questions or a different way to ask questions rather than a Yes/No approach. In creating more powerful questions for the virtual space we want to focus on a few things:
In coaching we usually encourage questions to be:
Best, 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 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 In a virtual team it is critical to build capacity given that people are working more autonomously. Time spent equipping team members with the tools to influence, be proactive and also communicate is key. This week I wanted to zoom into three skills related to coaching that may be valuable to your virtual or remote team. These skills are:
I often am amazed at how many organizations have not invested time, or resources, into helping team members work around goals. While there are many frameworks including:
I usually encourage organizations to consider what’s going to work best for you. A majority of clients I work with are aware of SMART Goals, which we morph into SMART – E Goals, E meaning Exciting. If our goals are not exciting or motivating, it’s unlikely that we will get them done. As a quick refresher – SMART goals are goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound. What is important to note around GOALS right now? Best, 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 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 “There are patterns which emerge in one's life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation of a theme” ― Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Chosen At the start of the year there is often a push to pick a theme to anchor the year. In my past few years I’ve had themes like – Waterfall (2013), or this year’s theme of Magnify. These anchoring themes can provide a valuable touchpoint in terms of focusing effort, creating momentum or even helping with decisions. For example, this year when I am faced with competing options I am finding myself asking the question – which one would help me magnify things more. Have you considered setting a theme as well for the month or quarter? You’ll notice in many of the planning tools I have included in the planner sections of PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder, that there is space for you to note the theme. To support you in picking a theme this year, you may want to take a look at some of the photos I share in a video I created earlier this year for setting your annual vision. You can view it here. What is your theme this month? Best, Jennifer Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week! Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013) For many years in my global career I faced multiple complexities which would get in the way of a regular work day. From regular periods of no electricity, to political and natural disasters which pulled work off course. I learned early in my career the value of two things which continue to help me flourish today – #1 – Focus – Focus when you can, even if it is for a short while. Productivity is not always about the long haul, it can also be about the short burst of focused effort. This is especially true in my world where I am regularly juggling roles, hats, responsibilities and clients. As much as I would love to have huge swaths of time to undertake my work, it’s unlikely. Therefore, focused burst of work, coupled with #2, help me (and the business) keep moving! #2 – Be clear on the top 3 – 5 goals for the day, week and month. My world was the world of contingency planning on steroids, so being clear on what top 3 or 4 to-dos were for the day, or the week, or the month, created a powerful anchor to planning, and also feeling satisfied when EVERYTHING on the list did not get done (which was almost every day). What are your top 3-5 goals TODAY? This week? This quarter? Do you review these regularly throughout the week/month/quarter and adjust accordingly? Best, Jennifer Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week! Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013) ![]() Week 13 Focus – Quarterly Check In: Skills Focus Question: What have you accomplished in this last quarter? What are the tasks you want to undertake in the next quarter? Description In addition to building in time for weekly and monthly planning, it’s also important that we build in time for quarterly planning. For some, it may be easier to break down annual goals into quarterly milestones and micro-projects. For others, you might work upwards from monthly themes and projects to quarterly plans. A quarterly check in can look different for each virtual professional or business owner. From dedicating an hour for review to ear-marking a full day with the team to review and plan for the time ahead. Be sure to use the weekly, monthly and annual resources available to you in the workbook planner. Research/Story Create a quarterly review day. Put a date on the calendar every quarter can help to update certain tasks. Set a date in your calendar to look at the following quarterly items: A. Review financials – sales, expenses, revenue. What needs to be changed? Where is revenue going? What is cash flow like? What about the accumulation of debt? What is the financial data saying? What is that status around invoicing and accounts payable. B. Update your metrics. Complete your statistics. What are the things you are tracking in the Monthly Daily Trackers? Over the course of the last 3 months ask yourself:
D. Focus on project related work:
What resourcing is helping you? Consider:
F. Content Creation and Visibility:
G. Organizational Learning Check Point
I. Looking ahead – What are the main priorities for the next 3 months? What are the creative projects which are going to pull you forward? Activity Schedule in 15-30 minutes to undertake your quarterly review. It might include a selection of these questions listed above. As part of the review you might also undertake or revisit any self-assessments such as Wheels you have completed. In both the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack, I have included a Wheel of Small Business Mastery (page 8 in Coaching Business Builder, or page 27/28 in PlanDoTrack) and/or Virtual and Remote Work page 14 in PlanDoTrack). Take a few minutes to score yourself and revisit where you are at. What has shifted? What new skills have you learned or started to master due to use? What new skills are required on the horizon? Connection to the Workbook and Planner In addition to the wheels there are four sets of quarterly tools throughout the two planners. Be sure to take some time to explore these tools in Section 5 of the Workbook/Planner: Quarterly To Dos – Use this to capture key to-dos in each of the 4 quarters of the year. Some professionals will use this as a warehouse over the course of the year. Quarterly reflections: Use the chart to capture:
Finally, join Jennifer for a live or on-demand quarterly planning session where she provides you with a step-by-step series of questions to think about for your quarterly plan. 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 |
AuthorJennifer Britton is the blogger behind the popular Teams365 blog, a daily,blog for team leaders and members since 2014. Her latest publication is the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner. Pick up a copy at Amazon. Pick Up a CopyUpcoming Programs
Join us for the 21 For 21 Virtual Co-working Sprints - $21 US. Want to access the recordings and bonus worksheets? Join us at the Booster Pack $79 US early bird rate. Sign up at 21for21 Virtual Co-working - STAND OUT VIRTUALLY! Stand Out Virtually - Incubator - Running an online, virtual or digital business and want to get the word out to organizations? Join us for the 8 week Stand Out Virtually Incubator. Next group starts April 2021. Build out your brand, offers and proposals. Virtual Facilitation Essentials (8.5 CCEs)- Expand your toolkit for better remote and virtual conversations. This is a virtual train-the-trainer - 5 weeks: Fall 2021 programming starts in October $495 US Learn more and register. Coaches! Register for the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator. Join us for 60 Days support and ACTION for coaches wanting to grow their businesses. On-Demand Course. PlanDoTrack Facilitator Training Program (24 CCEs) - Starts again in October. Contact Jennifer to discuss. Month-End/Quarterly Planning Session: Thursday September 30th - 8 -9 am ET Archives
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