My Handmade Biz-Business Planning, Writing Things Down

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Writing things down is the most important part of business planning and goal setting.

In the last 4 weeks we’ve talked a bit about business planning and goal setting.  Have you been thinking about what your plans and goals are?  More importantly, have you been writing things down?  Most people don’t and that’s a HUGE mistake.  The difference that the simple act of writing down your plans and goals for your handmade or creative biz makes is amazing.  That’s what I’m going to talk about in this weeks blog post.

In case you missed one of the other posts in this 7 week challenge, here is what I’ve shared so far:

• Planning is the “secret” to success
• Knowing where you’re at now
• Increasing Traffic
• Working Backwards

Why writing things down is important

Ok, so the obvious reason for writing things down is so you don’t forget.  While forgetting certainly happens, there is a lot more to it than just that.

Let me see if I can explain.

• The simple act of setting a goal, even if it’s just in your head, doubles your chances of success.  That’s a pretty big deal isn’t it?
• But, if you take it a step further and actually write those goals down, you’re 10 times as likely to succeed.  Read that sentence again please.   Yes, you can increase your chances of making it by 1,000%.  Pretty mind-blowing, isn’t it?

There are a few different processes going on here that start to give us a glimpse into why it’s so important and effective to write our goals down.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

The first is that it’s a lot easier to remember something we’ve written down.  You’ve probably experienced this with your grocery list.

When you make a mental list of 10 or 15 things you need at the grocery store, you’re likely to forget about half of them by the time you actually get to the store – right?  But if you write down your list (and then end up leaving it on the kitchen table), you end up remembering most of the items you need.  This happens with me fairly often.

Remembering the items that you wrote down on the list is explained by the fact that information is moved from one area of the brain to another to turn it from thoughts into written words on a page.  A process called encoding is also involved.  All of this helps you to retain and store information better.

The second reason, is when you write down your goals, you have something you can review regularly.  This adds another layer of processing and increases your chances of success even further.  Unfortunately, only a small percentage of people make the time to regularly review and evaluate their goals.  The ones that do are the most success people out there.

To recap:

• Start by setting smart goals.
• Write them down in as much detail as possible.
• Set aside time to review them on a regular basis – weekly or even daily

Try it for yourself.  Download my free 4-page Business Planning & Goal Setting template.

Join my Facebook group (you will be asked 3 questions before you’re approved).  Once you are approved go to the Files section and download the 4-page Business Planning & Goal Setting template (designed in Microsoft Word – which can be opened with Google Docs).  This 4-page template includes:

• Quarterly Goals
• Monthly Goals
• Weekly Goals
• Daily Goals

Does writing things down help you to stay focused and achieve your goals?