The Biggest Planning Mistakes You Might Be Making

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Are you making these planning mistakes?! Watch this video to find out if you're making these mistakes and what to do instead!

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video transcript:

The Biggest Planning Mistakes You Might Be Making

Let’s talk about the biggest project planning mistakes that you might be making. I’ve realized more and more how important project planning actually is, and how many mistakes I was making before this, so I thought I’d make a video all about it, sharing the biggest mistakes that people generally make when it comes to planning out their projects.

Proper project planning is essential to ensuring that your projects actually get done. I have made all of these mistakes in the past, so I thought it would make for an interesting video and we could talk about how to plan your projects better.

Break Down Your Projects

Mistake number one is being too vague. For example, I decided that I needed to do a course launch, and so I would go over to my calendar and then I would put in Launch Starts and Launch Ends. It was hardly enough information to know what I actually needed to do to accomplish that goal.

Whenever you are project planning, you want to actually break down your projects into small specific tasks so that you know exactly what it is that you need to do. Being too general or vague can leave you feeling overwhelmed and unsure what you’re actually supposed to do that day - and then you just watch Netflix instead.

Now, rather than just having Launch Starts and Launch Ends, there’s a whole lot of tasks in there telling me exactly what I need to do, and what that launch actually comprises of. By breaking down your projects into smaller tasks, you’re creating an achievable to-do list for yourself, and it makes it a whole lot less overwhelming.

So, take your project and then break it down - write down every single one of the tasks that you need to accomplish in order to mark this entire project complete. Then you want to assign dates of when you’re actually going to accomplish them. You’ll have a mix here – you’re not just going to have standard due dates – you’re going to have the days where you’re actually working on them, and then you can set milestones of when things are actually due. This way, we’re ensuring that it actually gets done because we’re marking down those days where we’re working on it on our calendar.

A big part of this is taking the time to plan your projects thoroughly. I totally get it if you don’t want to do this. I had a lot of resistance to slowing down and actually planning out my projects. However, even though it feels like you’re slowing down, you’re actually going to accelerate your growth and get so much more done, way faster.

Use a Project Management Tool

Now let’s talk about tools. Maybe you have some notebooks, you have physical planners, or maybe you use post-its – there’s a good chance that, if you’re like most people, you feel a bit frazzled and overwhelmed with your project planning system. For this reason, I recommend that you use an online project management tool. I use Asana - I’m completely obsessed with it, and it’s going to take your project planning to a whole other level.

Another planning mistake that you might be making is that it’s not enjoyable - you’re dreading sitting down and actually doing the planning. This is another one of the reasons I would recommend that you sign up and use Asana, because it makes it quite enjoyable. There are a few things that you can do, like color-code it, so that it makes it quite visually appealing and very easy for you to see exactly what it is you need to do. Also, with every single task, you mark it complete. I love checking things off of the list – it makes me feel so accomplished, so if you like that too, you are going to love Asana.

Give Yourself Enough Time

The next project planning mistake that you might be making is that you’re not giving yourself enough time to actually accomplish things that you’ve added to your project plan. It’s a careful balance between pushing yourself and putting way too many tasks on your to-do list and overwhelming yourself, which therefore results in nothing actually getting done. So, give it a try – use it for a week and then you’ll start to get a sense of how much you’re actually working each day and how much you’re actually checking off, and you’ll start to get a better sense of how much is actually realistically do-able each day.

Those are the biggest planning mistakes that I have made in the past. Now, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know in the comments what your biggest struggles have been when it comes to project planning.

If you’d like to try the project management tool that I recommend, click the link in the description below, or the one appearing onscreen right now, and grab your free Asana Roadmap. This is going to show you how to setup Asana for success. Once you grab it, you’ll be on my list and you’ll also get notifications for the free training series that I’m hosting next week and am super-excited about. If you are watching this live, definitely don’t miss that.

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