Winging it is one way of managing your business, but does it get you the results you want? There's no doubt you will achieve some of the goals you have in mind, but equally, what else could you achieve with a bit of focus? You may find that without a plan you end up going in a completely different direction than the one you intended.

A recent participant in my Planning for Success Workshop said: ‘It allowed me to focus on elements of the business that were neglected or just kept ticking over as I'm usually just working on day-to-day tasks. Allowed for better planning for the future. Helped to set goals for increasing sales and a plan of how to achieve it.’

The first thing we looked at and explored in detail was the answer to this question: What does success mean to you? Once you understand where you want to end up, working backwards to create your plan is easier. Use these questions to help you and write down your answers.

• What does it look like?
• How will you know when you’ve arrived?
• What will you (or your team) be doing?
• What won’t you be doing?
• It might look very different to when you started
• What’s your vision?

 A little bit of planning goes a long way to making the most of your time and conserving your energy.