How not to Plan: 66 ways to screw it up

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Running a project usually means getting collaborators involved in the execution of it. In your project management plan, outline which team members will be a part of the project and what each person’s role will be. This will help you decide who is responsible for each task (something we’ll get to shortly) and let stakeholders know how you expect them to be involved. Running a project usually costs money. Whether it’s hiring freelancers for content writing or a catering company for an event, you’ll probably be spending some cash.

Despite this knowledge, we often fail to prioritize planning where it matters most: our daily lives. Getting started in the morning without a clear plan sets us up to fail. Once you’ve covered the high-level responsibilities, it’s time to focus some energy on the details. In your work plan template, start by breaking your project into tasks, ensuring no part of the process is skipped. Bigger tasks can even be broken down into smaller subtasks, making them more manageable.

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We stand on the shoulders of giants. ‘Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it’ PJ O’Rourke FOREWORD

oDon’t just use the definition that’s been used for years. Markets are less segmented than you think. You compete with every brand in the market to some extent. Further analysis suggested why. The two big brands had followed identical marketing strategies. In trying to increase ‘Return on Investment’ (ROI) and efficiency, each reduced marketing expenditure. Each cut emotional brand advertising in favour of ‘harder selling’ stuff focused on ‘new news’. Each replaced expensive broadcast media with cheaper digital channels; this tighter targeting allowing both brands to reduce ‘wastage’. So, they trash among other things CRM and loyalty programs, most quantitative and pre-test research, and the bulk of social media and digital marketing. That’s just a random selection. Identify stakeholders up front: No matter the size of the project, it’s critical to know who the stakeholders are and their role in the project so you ensure you involve the right people at each stage. This will also make the review and approval process clear before the team gets to work. It’s not uncommon to need to experiment and try a few iterations of daily planning before we land on the method that actually lead to getting more done.

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In time, this process will become second nature and you’ll naturally draft a single to-do list with only “Urgent and Important” and “Non-Urgent and Important” tasks on your list. It’s particularly annoying because they “advise” you to be open-minded and consider multiple scenarios and contexts, then promptly don’t follow their own advice. A to-do list app like Todoist has the benefit of keeping everything in one place and accessible from anywhere. Specialized Planners — We’re seeing the rise of specialized planers or paper and pen planning systems like the Passion Planner or Bullet Journal. These systems are often complex, but can be powerful systems for dedicated practitioners.

The eagle-eyed among you will already have observed the contrarian title. We like a bit of contrary thinking, but there is nothing irrelevant or out of place about the contents of this book. It’s meticulously researched and incredibly detailed about what to do, and what not to do, at the different stages of the planning process. It’s written with a lightness of touch and a sense of humour, and embellished with lots of relevant and interesting examples and charts. However, don’t let your process run on autopilot. Take some time to regularly consider whether your approach to daily planning is helping you accomplish more. Make time every so often, perhaps during a weekly review, to consider whether your planning process is working or could be tweaked or even overhauled to be more effective. Next, to help you understand what your project management plan should look like, here are two example plans for marketing and design projects that will guide you during your own project planning. Project plan example: annual content calendar A final word – art and not science SETTING OBJECTIVES ‘If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there’ Lewis Carroll ONE

Dr. Michael Greger, the internationally-renowned nutrition expert, physician, founder of NutritionFacts.org, and author of the New York Times mega-bestselling How Not to Die, now turns his attention to the latest scientific research on the leading causes—and remedies—of obesity. Dr. Greger homes in on the optimal criteria to enable weight loss and considers how different foods affect our health and longevity. He lays out the key ingredients of the ideal weight-loss diet and explains how factors such as calorie density, the insulin index, and the impact of foods on our gut microbiome can help us add or drop pounds. Dr. Greger shows us how evidence-based eating is crucial to our success. (For all of How Not to Diet’s thousands of scientific sources, see How Not to Diet Citations.) Building the Optimal Diet for Not Dieting Kerry Hoffman, Senior Project Manager of Marketing Operations at ClassPass, oversees all marketing projects undertaken by the creative, growth, and content teams. Here are her top three strategies for managing project plans: swirl around marketing and communications by using evidence-based approaches and interesting examples to make their points. app_quote_featured]“The first step...is deciding what you want to make time for. Every day, you’ll choose a single activity to prioritize and protect in your calendar.”[/app_quote_featured]

Those of you who have been around for some, or even all, of the APG’s own life will be familiar with previous volumes published by the APG: the original ‘Blue Book’, called How to Plan Advertising, and its younger sibling, the ‘Red Book’, which for many years served as excellent reference and guidance. Regardless of the tools you use, make extreme prioritization a key part of how you plan your day. Plan your day with a productivity method That’s why having a daily planning ritual is so important. Some mornings we feel motivated to seize the day and create a to-do list that reflects our big ambitions. But those days are the exception. We need to get things done even when we wake up tired and disengaged, wanting to return to bed or longing for Friday at 5 PM. Those are the days it’s most important to approach the day with a plan.

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Personal and professional split. Use a digital system for your professional tasks and a planner for your personal tasks. This can be a helpful method if you dedicate working hours to striving for professional goals and dedicate your evenings to personal tasks and self-growth. In the same vein, you might use a task manager during the week and a journal on the weekends. The Databank also reminds us that reach and ‘Share of Voice’ (SOV) are crucial. No matter how well thought through your objectives, or how good your creative work, a campaign can’t deliver unless it reaches enough people. It’s also unlikely to succeed if it doesn’t outshout the competition. These are basic hygiene factors, but too often ignored by the wishful thinkers of marketing. Two of the main reasons for campaign failure were the catastrophic failure of intelligence which allowed the Germans complete strategic surprise, and the dominance of German airpower. Why were these things allowed to happen? Again a forensic examination of the anatomy helps our understanding, and in both cases institutional and systematic failure mixed unhappily with human error and the frailties of human nature. If you’re struggling to create realistic daily to-do lists that reflect all of your goals, you may have too many. Overextending yourself isn’t only tiring, it also means you’re unlikely to make meaningful progress in all these areas. Complete a commitment inventory to hone in on a smaller number of goals that are most important to you. As a general rule, avoid having more than 5 big goals at once, and consider a mix of short-term and long-term goals. Step two: Look at your week as a whole