Does Preparation Always Lead to a Better Product?

Better Preparation – This post will cover the benefits of and the drawbacks of preparation.  I am currently planning an event for a men’s organization that I am part of.  I have planned successful events that are similar with less than 2 days notice.  Those events are amazing because they came with pure passion.

Better Preparation

I knew about this event about 2 months ago and it has been suffocating for me for a great period of the time.

Let’s explore why that is -

I am a doing machine – I always want to do something and I always want to be active.  That is the way that I am wired and I may always be that way.  Well, there is not enough to do to fill up three months worth of time. However, when I am not doing the work, then I tend to beat myself up.  Interesting, huh?

Fear of Loss – Every day that goes by, I fear that another day has slipped by with not a lot getting done.  It is like I am marching to my execution.  That is the experience that I have had in the past.

Ok, so the problem is interesting, but how do we solve the challenge?  Here is what I came up with when it comes to better preparation -

Determine the things that are time sensitive – There are a couple of things that need to be handled pretty quickly.  People need a way to register for the event, somebody needs to handle food for the event and a team needs to be filled out.  Everything else can happen at a fairly stable pace over the next few weeks as we build up to the event.

Take a little bit of action EVERY day – Each day, we are either making progress or we are regressing in our projects.  Taking a little bit of action every day causes progress in the right direction.  Progress every day leads to success.  However, if we do not take action every day, we actually go backwards.  When you go backwards, you need to take a step forward to get to where you were yesterday and then you need to take another step forward to make progress from where you were.  This is how the status quo gets maintained and how we feel like we are treading water.  That feeling is not very empowering and is not very exciting.

Make it a great day.

Better Preparation – Empower Network @ 2012