1. Do you know what it takes to get where you want to be?
2. Do you know how to actually do it?
3. Do you have a plan?

So, what are your answers? Many people can’t answer “yes” any of these questions. Most can only say “yes” to the first one. Some can go as far as answering “yes” to the first two questions, but only very few people can answer “yes” all three times.

This is one of the biggest reasons why the successful people in this world are a minority. Lots of people know what it takes to achieve the success they want and they might even know how to do it. But without actually having a plan, you got nothing!

Making a plan is really crucial if you want to success. If you aren’t planning to succeed, you will fail. You have to write a list of everything you have to do; then prioritize and finally add time frames.

You have to make a long term goal, and then a goal for the year, every month, week and day – once you have this you can dig a little deeper. What will it take for you to achieve this? What do you have to do this year to accomplish what you want? Then you can start making your personal plan containing your goals, the necessary action steps and time frames. Start writing everything in your plan and have plan for every single day where you write everything you do, every hour of the day – believe me, you will be amazed when you find out how much time you really have!

I can’t emphasise the importance of making a plan enough! A plan will keep you focused and it will help you remain an overview. Of cause you need to be able to answer “yes” to the first two questions before you can make a plan, but without a plan, don’t bother educating yourself if you aren’t going to do anything about it. So, when you can answer…

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes

…you are on your way! It is really all about educating yourself and taking action – one without the other won’t do you any good! Always keep this in mind, and start doing something about those dreams of yours.

Your daily plans should contain everything – when you’re at work, when you’re making dinner, taking a bath, cleaning and of course taking the action steps required for you to turn your visions into reality. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to post them below.

To become one hundred percent in control of your life, you must become well organized. Perhaps you are familiar with the idea of ‘to-do lists’. Perhaps you have tried to make some yourself, but without having success with it. I am going to add some knowledge to the thought of ‘to-do lists’ and you will become the master in your life by becoming more organized.

First of all – not a bad word about ‘to-do lists’. The idea of having a list with all the activities you have to in a day is perfectly fine. Now, the problem with most is that they are told to make a list and the information ends here. What most of us is doing wrong is that our lists are not planned and focused action lists. Instead of a ‘to-do list’ you have to create a personal action plan, which I will get more into in this article.

What is important is that you are specific. Remember that! An item on your list should not be “get started with cleaning the house”. In this sentence there is no specific action. In this case you must go down in details and you should write something like “clean all the windows” or “wash the floors in the bathroom, the hall and the children’s rooms”. See the different? You are now being more specific and there is actually some real action attached to the item on the list.

What is important to see is that, if you have lots of small, specific and quickly done items on your list, you will fail to make any progress in your big items, such as painting your house, making a beautiful garden or running a marathon. You have to have a personal action plan to have any chance of ever getting them done. E.g. when you want to run a marathon you must make a training plan, where you specifically write down what you must do to get there. How many times a week are you going to train? How hard and how long? Get the picture?

So, what I am saying is, turn your ‘to-do list’ into a personal action plan. Below here is a list of what to do in order to become well organized.

1. Write everything down. Your personal action plan must include everything that you must or want to do at some time or another – not just the things that are urgent. Everything! Many things might not even seem that important and some things might seem too small. You have to write everything down; whether it is personal or professional. Everything that needs action from you in order to be completed must be on your personal action plan.

2. Now you must take a good look at all the items on your list, one at a time. Ask yourself whether you should take action with every single item. Does it really have any relevance to you? The things that you can answer ‘no’ to must be deleted from your personal action plan.

3. Now the organization comes into the picture. You have to prioritize every item on your list. The way to this is to first put every item into smaller groups. The names of groups could be “At work”, “Physical training”, “Home improvements” etc. After having done this you need to take a look at each item’s importance, and categorize them A, B, C, D, E, F… A being the most important.

To support this personal action plan you must add time frames, and be careful! These time frames must be realistic. We tend to set unrealistic time frames that we cannot live up to, and this causes to failure. But if you are realistic and you turn your ‘to-do list’ into a personal action plan you will experience big improvements in several parts of your life, such as your health, your house, work or other categories in your life that you wish to improve. Just remember that all it takes is action, and the moment you have become well organized and created your personal action plan, I promise you that you will be more in control of your life.

Earlier I have written about how you should create a plan for your day and have time frames. By doing this and managing your activities you will be in control. But, you also need to become conscious about where your time is going right now.

How are you using the 24 hours you are giving every single day? What are you doing every single minute of the day? There is one way to get a clear image of this and that is to write it down. By writing every single activity and the amount of time you spend on it down, you will get clarity about where your time disappears. So, do that! Bring a log with you all day long for a period of time and begin to write. E.g. your lunch break took an hour and not a half as planed, write it down. Your friend called you and suddenly an hour had past, write it down! After having written everything down you will be able to see where you can cut down and use it otherwise.

While writing every activity down you must be honest with yourself. Most times people will experience that they are loosing lots of time on time wasters. You where just going to see the news on TV but after the news your favourite show started and then another one, and another one… Or you where just going to check your e-mail and suddenly you where surfing on the internet for an hour, or perhaps more. Sounds familiar? Well, by writing everything down you will soon have an image of how much time you can safe and where.

For those of you who have not already, you should read my article “Begin With A Plan For Your Life” where you can read more about what to do from here. It is very important to have a plan and first when you know what you want out of life, you can begin making a weekly and daily plan. But before getting to the plan, remember, you need to know where your time is going now. When you are conscious about that, you are ready to move on.

Do you know what you want to do with your life? I mean really know where you want to be. This is something you need to get clear about. What is your vision? What is your plan for life? Think about it, because before getting any further you must be sure about this. Have the vision. See it, feel it and want it. Truly want it, and I am confident that you will achieve it.

Without a plan your vision might seem more like a dream that is very far from ever coming true. You need to have a plan. You must plan every hour of your day. What do you want to achieve today? Which activities are you going to do and when?

Make sure to have small goals. This is important to keep yourself motivated and motivation is a very important keyword when it comes to turning your vision into reality. Your overall goal might be several years from now and it is therefore important to have small achievements along the way. Plan what you want to accomplish this week, and stick to it. But when you are creating your plan it is very important to be realistic. Things usually take more time than you estimate and this is a very common mistake to make. Time frames are necessary but be careful. Be realistic!

Always keep in mind that failing to plan is planning to fail. Beginning your day without a plan you might just end up doing all the wrong things and wasting a lot of time. If you are really serious about turning your vision into reality and being successful in your life, do yourself a favour and sit down and create that plan! You will achieve much more and you will get a little closer to your goal every single day.