Thought 48 (f): Action Plans

Setting a goal is the first step and this should be followed by actions to realize them. The proposed actions should be set down in what is called an action plan. This plan should say, what effort or resources are necessary and to what extent, what cooperation would be needed and how to achieve that, what information is needed and how to gather it, what infrastructure would be needed and at what cost, what risks are involved and do the risks justify the efforts, what roadblocks or barriers are likely to be encountered, what additional skills or strategies are needed and finally, what mid-course corrections and contingency plans are likely to be needed.

The needed actions should be broken down into easy steps, so that, implementation of this plan becomes easy and systematic - and monitoring and corrective actions become smooth. Goals are of no avail, if you do not frequently review the progress and apply the necessary corrections for the variances noticed from time to time.

The long term goals may be broken down into monthly action plans. You may set them three to four months ahead. When you have done the current month, add one more month, so that, you are always three or four months ahead. This may be continued until the goal is achieved. Review the progress once a month at least and apply the necessary corrections to your plans, before taking them up for implementation. This review can conveniently be done, each week for one goal. In this manner, you would have done conveniently, the review of four goals in a month. It is better not to take up more than four goals at a time. You can, then, handle them conveniently without any stress.

Each short term goal, in turn, may be broken down into four weekly actions plans, which, when successfully completed, will achieve the short term goal. It will be a good idea to make all the four action plans in the beginning - that is, four weeks ahead, which is, the time you allow yourself to achieve a short term goal. When you have done the current week, you can review the remaining weekly plans. Change them as needed before taking up the next week's plan for action.

In case of personal goals, you need not make elaborate action plans. What all that is necessary is to identify the important actions in easy steps. Henry Ford believed that no job would be too difficult, if it is broken down into small steps. Also, do not, in the early stages, look at the totality of the task involved - you may get discouraged, when the enormity of the task hits you.

The next thought is about “Everything changes constantly in the space-time dimension?