Today my business partner (and as it happens, wife) will be sitting down to make plans.

We do this every six months or so, a time to hit the pause button, step out of the minutiae and ask ourselves just what the heck is going on around here.

We’ve already started sketching out the topics and issues we want to talk about, and I’m noticing how they fit on four different levels:

The immediate, everyday business level.  “What’s happening on this project?”  “Did you send X to Y?”  “Is it you or me who was supposed to do Z?”  This is all about tying up loose ends from the daily and weekly work we do.

That typically leads to…

The 2009 plan.  “What would be the two or three big wins in 2009?”  “What’s our Great Work for the year?”  “What other structures do we need to build?”  “What’s the right balance between travel and staying at home?”  This will involve calendars, figuring out what to say No to as well as Yes to, and committing to what I once heard someone call “the valuable few”.

Sometimes that then bounces down to…

The personal level.  “What do I want to achieve in the next little while?”  “What do I want to learn?”  “What will be my own adventure this year?”  “What’s my Great Work?”.  This is all about shifting the focal length and getting clear on your own agenda and what makes you tick.

And rarely, very rarely, you get to

The Meaning of Life level.  “What does happiness look like?”  “Where will we live?”  “What’s the life we’re trying to build?”  This shifts the focal length again and makes you ask whether the life you’re building is actually the life you want … or whether it just happens to be the life you’ve gotten into the habit of.

I’m pretty sure we’ll be bouncing around all four levels  … I can see that gleam in Marcella’s eye, and I can feel my own nervous excitement about it too.
=> By the by, what plans are YOU making?

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The other day a friend of mine was bemoaning the difficulty of staying focused on Great Work when he was continually side-swiped by the urgency of the day to day.

There is, sadly, no easy answer to this.

But here’s one tactic that might be of use.

At the start of each day - before you check your email - get clear on the one key thing you must accomplish that day that will get you closer to your Great Work.

At the start of each week - before you check your email - get clear on the three things that need to happen this week that will move you closer to your Great Work.

At the start of each Quarter (”Q4″ starts today by the way), get clear on the three to five key projects you’re working on that is your Great Work.

You need to keep resurfacing and taking your bearings on your Great Work.

(I’m also a fan of David Allen’s work - GTD or Getting Things Done - in terms of managing priorities.  And one of the reasons is that he sets out a process AND says “adapt it to make it work for you.”  The secret I think is to find the combination of tactics that best works for you).

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