Spend 5 Minutes Planning for Your Business (your stress levels will thank you)

My beautiful wife Sarah Alexander and I live in our fourth and final home, each of which we bought as fixer-uppers.?

Whether they were owned by a cat lady, foreclosed upon, or in a rental situation, like this last case where the previous owners were super sharp with good jobs but had mental health conditions that prevented them from taking care of their home.

By the way, when I say "my beautiful wife," I know everybody feels like they married up.?

I know for a fact that I did.?

That's not to brag because I'm not Sarah.?

And by the way, men, we live in a golden age of wives. Not only do they do a lot of the cooking and cleaning, errand running, and figuring out what homework is due, but they also work full-time, go to burn boot camp, see the nurse esthetician, nip tuck, pluck all the things. Growing up in the eighties and nineties, dude, it was not that way. Moms were full of Astro vans, mom jeans, and bowl haircuts. So boom, we're lucky.

Anyways, back to the houses.?

This last house we took over in the fall of 2018.?

It's a great house with a great layout in a beautiful neighborhood, but the previous owners had let the landscaping completely overgrow. The house has great bones, but there are odd amenities, such as a shelf in the middle of nowhere and countertops that don't match anything else. There's also a completely unfinished bonus room that didn't show well. However, Sarah and I could take advantage of that, just as we did with all four of our homes.?

We're not Chip and Joanna Gaines, and we can't hammer a nail straight, but we can plan.

Sarah is an accountant by nature and plans nonstop for everything. She loves a color-coded spreadsheet like most people love their children.?

For us, it was about finding what we could do over a period of time. When we got this last house, the planning stage looked like this:

• Determine our budget
• Identify what items needed to be updated
• Determine what we could and could not do
• Figure out who else we could get involved
• Put the budget on the timeline
• Figure out in what order we had to do everything
• Do the big things first (e.g. roof, gutters, HVAC, windows)
• Then work on the smaller things, such as the kitchen or bathroom remodel
• Figure out who else could do it and how much money we had
• Determine what we could or could not buy at Lowe's or where we should splurge
• Finish with the final objects (e.g. paint, carpet)

One of the houses we ended up flipping or moving into, required us to get on a very tight timeline because we had to live with the in-laws for six months. By the way, six months is the maximum you can live with your in-laws.

All of the time we spent planning was necessary. We spent more time planning for a house that we would move into than many people do for either their startup or their existing business.?

It's mind-boggling to me, especially as someone who does business coaching consistently.

If you are a small business owner:

1. Spend at least 5 minutes each day planning.
2. Identify your long-term goal and block out time on your calendar to reach it.??
3. Treat that goal like a doctor’s appointment and don’t let anything interfere with it.
4. Planning at the end of the day for tomorrow or first thing in the morning works best.
5. Don’t let email or meetings interfere with this planning time.
6. Color code your planning times, so it is visual.

For those of you who are doing a startup:

1. Do the same as above.
2. Don't quit your job yet.
3. Create your budget first. Determine how much cash you need to make to keep the lights on, feed your family, and pay the mortgage company.
4. Figure out all of the steps you have to do to market your business, and how much time and money you're going to invest.

As for me and my beautiful wife, this last house is our last house, or at least it is for now.

Small Business Owners click here for The "Get This One Thing Done!" Fill-in-the-Blank Template for Busy Professionals

Start Ups click here to get the first three chapters of How to Start Your Business While Working Full-Time