Back in the days when we wrote Cobol code on the big IBM mainframes, sitting in Cubicle nation, we had a saying that rung true every day. The Sooner you start coding the sooner you will have to start again. This was told to us again and again by our project manager. It proved to be true then and still hold today. Too many people jump right in and do the ‘work’ of a task before they have stopped to think or plan.

Another useful saying “Failing to plan is planning to fail” once again we see the simple logic in having to stop and plan you day, your project, your website and any other activity before you jump in with two feet and get it all wrong.

Take time to plan your task, look at issues around it that may be affected or impacted by change, use all the cool toys available: mind mapping, project planning, flip charts, whiteboards, scribble.

I even went out last month and bought a pack of index cards that I used to map out our new POD system, this I then translated into a mind map, then a Word document, now it is evolving into HTML code for the new resource website. I could never have gotten to this stage if I have jumped in and started with the colour design of the background and border width.

Stop: take time to plan, then jump in with confidence.