“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” – Alan Lakein
The first step of the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle is to plan. This includes planning at multiple levels as well has having multiple related targets to shoot at. Whenever you’re making goals, give them a rank of A, B or C. A goals are the ones you have your mind set on or a necessary step towards a high level A goal. B goals are more like a side quest, they’re often in the same general direction of your A goal, but they may require some detouring, they should be important to you, but they’re not necessarily critical. Lastly you have C goals, these are more nice to have things that you can pick up along the way.
We start with at least one big high level goal. This is likely 3 or more years in the future and details may be fuzzy at this point. Once you get going, you’ll have a better idea of a time frame and/or if you’re asking too much or too little, though this is still subject to change, it’s most important that you have a direction to work towards. Generally this goal is something like completing a Marathon or a Half Marathon, maybe some sort of Triathlon.
On the way to your high level goal, you’ll pick a few milestones to be mid term goals. These are generally things you can complete in the next 6 months to 3 years. These will be a little more clear but you probably still don’t have all the details. These should be more achievable, often a 5k, 10k or short course triathlon.
Short term planning includes what are you going to do over the next 6 months. I like to have a workout structure and training plans laid out for the next few months, though I’m often making tweaks. Making tweaks is okay as long as you have the determination to maintain most workouts including both duration and intensity.
Below is a matrix template that gives you some ideas of what belongs in each box.
Below is a sample of what your matrix might look like, though everybody is starting somewhere unique and going somewhere unique so include what’s important to you.
I will share my matrix in another post with more descriptions about what I’ve included and why.