If you were to call me and ask if I could fly out and meet with you on March 11th, the old me would pull up my CRM to see if that date was open.  If so, I would say sure, see you then! 

But what I could miss is that I was sched­uled to be at my daughter’s bal­let per­for­mance on the evening of the 10^th, and that the fol­low­ing week, I am to make two major pre­sen­ta­tions.  Not to men­tion, this all comes after three very full weeks of meetings. 

The old me would have made a com­mit­ment to that date with­out assess­ing how it would impact me and those around me dur­ing that larger period of time.  Out­look was not good enough.

The solu­tion was to go back to a paper tool. 

About 12 years ago, I found the Franklin Covey Yearly Fold Out Cal­en­dar.  This tool allows you to put all of the major events for the year onto one sheet of paper.  You can see your vaca­tions, busi­ness trips, impor­tant meet­ings, birth­days, anniver­saries, project due dates and any other key com­mit­ments that you are to make.  You can use your Life Plan and your Busi­ness Plan to help you fill it in.

The cal­en­dar can then be color-coded to show you at a glance how you are spend­ing your days.  For exam­ple, on my cal­en­dar we use yel­low for coach­ing days, pink for busi­ness travel, blue for ON-Time, orange for busi­ness devel­op­ment, and green for vaca­tion time.  This helps me to make bet­ter deci­sions as I can see how I am invest­ing my time over longer periods.

When you see the whole pic­ture — the weeks before and after the date in ques­tion — you are bet­ter equipped to count the cost and make an informed decision. 

A few years back, I was coach­ing my friend Mike Hyatt through this tool.  As Mike will often do, he took a great idea and made it even bet­ter.  He cre­ated an Excel Yearly Cal­en­dar, an elec­tronic ver­sion which we now use here at Build­ing Cham­pi­ons.  Mike and I gave it away to our Expe­ri­ence atten­dees ear­lier this year and we want to offer it to you now.

Send us an email if you’d like a copy of the calendar.

I hope this helps you to make bet­ter deci­sions in the year ahead!

Related posts:

1. There is No Sub­sti­tute for One on One Time
2. Your Per­fect Week

Tags: Core4, Decision Making, Life Planning, Mike Hyatt, Yearly Calendar

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 9:26 am and is filed under Priority Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.