If you intend to have a career, it makes sense to study the game plan of your chosen industry. Obviously, you will have to build in a certain contingency for the unexpected and the out-of-yourcontrol, but the shrewd Rules Player will have already amended their long-term game plan well in advance having seen the indicators and read the signs. I spoke to someone recently who said, Who would have predicted downsizing then? The answer is anyone with the brains to have seen which way their business sector was going. So, study your chosen industry and see the progression steps needed to make it to the position you want to occupy. Work out what you need to make those steps. Work out how many steps it takesusually no more than about fourjunior, middle, senior, executive. (If you think otherwise, dont write in.) Work out what you want from each stepgaining experience, handling responsibility, learning new skills, acquiring people management understanding, that sort of thing. You w

IF YOU DONT HAVE A PLAN, IT IS TERRIBLY EASY NOT TO STICK TO IT AND END UP WHERE THE CURRENT TAKES YOU.

How short is short term? Thats entirely up to you. I have three short-term plans on the gothis month, this year, five years. This seems to provide me with sufficient information to plan my workload. It also allows me to work in, in the short term, plans that affect my family. I can allow for vacations, changes of school, garden/house projects and birthdays, Christmas, that sort of thing. Your one-month short-term plan should obviously list current work projectsdeadlines, prioritized tasks, basic routines. This is for work actually being carried out. Your one-year plan should have projects that are being formulated, planned, presented, whatever. This is for work being planned rather than executed. Your five-year plan should be for ideas, dreams, goals, wishes, wants; it is for work you intend executing one day. Your long-term plan will have a career path built into it. Your five-year plan will take into it any steps you need to carry out that long-term plan. I tend to keep three separat

My one-month plan is kept on a clipboard on the desk. It contains a single sheet that lists boxes for deadlines, return phone calls, things to do. I suppose its a bit like a calendar but without daily entries. My one-year plan lives on the wall. It isnt a wall chart or year planner but, again, a single sheet with 12 boxes. In each box is a month with the relevant info of what I want to do during that time. It is what I want to do rather than what I have to do.