By definition...
Begin:
Planning to begin...
In my line of work, I spend many hours meticulously planning. Planning workload, planning life and daily schedules to ensure that everything gets done. Whilst this is a critically important element of business support, we must not neglect the actual doing. We must begin.
Making a plan is one element of setting out to complete a task. The end goal is to complete it and complete it well. To do this, we must not procrastinate for too long and make a start…begin.
Finding a balance...
In my corporate days, I would arrive at my desk ready for the day to be greeted with an inbox full of meeting invitations. Whilst some of these meetings were essential to pave the way forward, often the remaining 3/4, in my opinion, were meetings for the sake of meetings. Time taken out of the day that could have been spent working towards and completing the to-do list. When time was money, I had to learn quickly what meetings would add value to my task list, which could be done another day and which were not needed. Only then did I have a good shot at completing the list and achieving my goals.
At times we may feel a little lost not knowing where to start. In these situations, it pays to leave that for a moment and come back to it. Giving ourselves time to take a fresh perspective. No good will come of sitting in front of a blank screen, the minutes whiling by and achieving nothing. It is a positive to take time out, do something else and revisit with clarity. This enables us to begin.
The point I would like to make is that we must ‘just start’. Until we begin a task we do not fully know what we might encounter and how we will approach it to get it done. We then must allocate a little time to evaluate the success to inform our strategy of approaching this task in the future.
Every day and every task we approach is a learning.
Be confident, remember planning is only one element in achieving a goal, and above all begin!
Gemma White
MBS PA
