”Plan the Dive, Dive the Plan is a rule in diving. It’s not just a catchy phrase, in a skill that can mean the difference between life and death, following and communicating the plan is vital. So how can this be applied to your life, and your business?”
When you are working for yourself, or in a small team, one of the KEY advantages over someone say, in a large corporate, is the ability to make plans, and execute them rapidly.
So, why then, is one of the biggest complaints (musings? mutterings?) that I hear from entrepreneurs is that they have tonnes of ideas, but not enough time to do them all?
What gives?
Well, on a practical level, a lot of ideas never really make it stage 1, let alone be something that can be executed by you, or your team. So, leaving those ones out of it, there are still only a fraction of the achievable ideas that arise in an entrepreneur’s brain that ever see the light of day.
One of the reasons for this is that some are quickly tested and checked, resulting ultimately in the decision to either cancel, shelve, or pass on it. That’s fair enough. The others may be started, and then because they aren’t the core business, or a tangent to an existing plan, they get not really shelved… just… left, in a limbo. Caught between being a viable actionable thing, and some words and diagrams written on a piece of paper.
So, how can someone with limited time, try and get the most out of the myriad of ideas that arise?
- Set aside time to review them. Either alone, or with one of your core team, or with a coach or trusted adviser. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, I’ll explain later!)
- Once you have reviewed them, instead of diving in (pardon the pun!), take a pause for a day or two and then force yourself to map it out. This cooling off time can help your higher brain functions decide if it is really something that is right to do – right now!
- Then, you execute your plan. (Dive the Plan). Make sure you have a checkpoint built in to follow up with the person you discussed it with to ensure it is on track, and if it needs to be changed or not.
So, back to the diver’s mantra above. You need to have a PLAN on how you deal with new ideas, then, when you get a brainwave, FOLLOW the plan on how to evaluate them and decide which become actions you intend to follow.
Simply having an approach like this (a Plan to make a Plan) saves you a lot of wasted time, and money, and puts a bit of structure on how you approach growing or investigating business opportunities.
Try it. You will be surprised how many of the great ideas are not so great in hindsight after you have reflected on them for a bit. (And those that still shine as brilliant – well – what’s stopping you?! 🙂 )
Hope this helps 🙂
Joe