I love working with a 90-day framework for goal setting and implementation. Many of my coaching clients both here in San Diego and nationwide are finding that it is easier and more fun to set short-term goals and focus on taking action on a few initiatives from their annual plan every quarter.
You’d be surprised at how much more you can accomplish in a year with this mindset. It’s easy to get overwhelmed if you’re looking at what you want to get done in your business over the whole year. Sometimes it’s even hard to know where to start. Everything can seem like a priority.
Don’t get me wrong. You still want to spend time annually in setting your goals and planning your strategy for the longer term. You’ll also want to create a workable budget/profit plan so you know what numbers you need to hit each month.
But once you’ve done that, divide up your annual goals and initiatives into quarterly segments. Since you’ve created a profit plan, you know what your revenue and profit targets are for the coming quarter. What other metrics do you need to define for the next 90 days? List them out.
What initiatives do you have in your annual plan? For example, you might have some big things like:
- Develop a Training Program for employees
- Re-do the company website
- Implement a CRM
- Recruit and hire a new office manager
First, prioritize these initiatives to see which ones need to be done first. If your profit plan shows you hiring an office manager in Q1, then that makes it easy to put that in your first quarter. Maybe then having an office manager, you’ll find it easier to have him or her spearhead the implementation of a CRM in Q2, for example. 
Rather than try to start 4 things at once and not get any of them done, you can prioritize and plan, giving you peace of mind knowing that each initiative has its time and place.
Look at your goals for the year. What is the best initiative for you to tackle this coming quarter to make your year a success?
