March 15th, 2008

Finding Balance: Make Plans But be Quick to Act

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When I founded my business back in October 2006, I had no idea that a year and a half later, my business plan would be to make money through writing. My plan was to write software and then maybe start making games after I had stabilized my software business.

People learn. Plans change. And as long as you are moving forward, I think that’s how it should be.


I started my blog about 10 months ago, in May 2007. During these ten months I have learned more about myself, my goals, and my talents than I could have ever imagined. For that, I give credit to three main reasons: I started with a plan. I acted consistently on the plan. And most importantly, I was always ready to change my plans when I saw it necessary.

In this article, I will explain how I find the balance between planning, sticking to the plan, and just doing things. This is not the only way to do it, but it’s a way that works - and even more importantly, it’s a way that has taught me a lot about who I am.

1. Start with a plan

On the first of March, I told you that you should start by looking at your dreams and creating goals out of them.

Goals are great - I have a big bunch of them both in my notebook and on 43 Things.

But they are not enough.

You also need a plan, a road map that has the power to get you to actually do something.

I start with a long term plan that covers my life for a few years in advance, and a more detailed action plan for the next two to three months.

The long term plan is more generic, describing things like how soon I think I can support myself through my own businesses, and how much I need to increase my earnings each month to get there as well as a list of activities that I think I will do to get there.

There is a good reason why I say “I think”. It’s because I don’t know.

The short term plan lists things that I am committed to doing, like writing some number of blog posts for my blog this month, writing some other number of posts to my customers, and the magazine articles that I have agreed to do. This is the day-to-day action plan that keeps me moving when it would be so much easier to just stay idle and think about the things I want to achieve six months from today.

This plan tells me what I need to do today.

2. Be quick to act

I’m a big fan of agile software development (don’t worry if you don’t know what it means - you can always check from Wikipedia).

I love the idea that you start by designing just the bare bones, and then move quickly to implementation. And I believe life works the same way. You can’t plan for every possible scenario, so the best you can do is to have an understanding of your overall goals, the big picture, and then, as soon as possible, start doing something.

Because no matter how good your business plan, if you don’t do anything, you’ll never get anywhere either.

And before you try, you can’t know what works.

3. Refine your plans

Another key principle in agile software development is iteration, the art of creating the software in small steps rather than building the one big, complex product at one go.

In business, iteration can also be described as trial and error:

You write one plan.

You execute it for a while.

You see what in your plan works and what doesn’t.

You notice the things in the business you love and the things that you’d rather give away.

And that’s when you need to iterate: Go back to your plan, adjust it to match your new, better understanding of who you are, and then - quickly - get back to work, following the new version of your plan.

I have noticed that at each iteration I like my plan more. Sometimes the changes are just fine tuning. Sometimes they are more dramatic. But the underlying set of values, or vision gets clearer every.

What about you?

This is how I plan. And this is how I act on my plans.

How about you? What do you do the same way I do? What do you do differently?

Let’s talk!

This was the fifth article (1, 2, 3, 4) in my series on building a profitable side business that doesn’t break your work/life balance. There are still three more articles coming, so if you don’t want to miss any of them, subscribe to my RSS feed!

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4 Responses to “Finding Balance: Make Plans But be Quick to Act”

  • Maria Marsala Says:
    March 16th, 2008 at 6:05 am

    Excellent advice! Glad you mentioned that plans change. Actually if they don’t I’d worry :) Change is good when it brings you closer to what you love doing and doing more of it.

    Have you tried the one page business plan process? I found it back in 2000 and now work with my clients to create theirs. Excellent - short and to the point.

  • Mark Says:
    March 16th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    Hi Jarkko - Very nice post! I try to create a rough plan in my mind but the most important thing that I have learned is that FLEXIBILITY is key.

    Mark’s last blog post: How to Travel the Globe for FREE Using FLICKR

  • Pierre Adama FAYE Says:
    March 17th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    beautiful history!!!! It is the history of two friends who walked in the desert. At one time, they disputed and one of both gave a slap to the other. This last, endolori but without anything to say, wrote in sand: “Today my best friend gave me a slap”. They continued to go then found an oasis, in which they decided to bathe. But that which had been slapped missed drowning and his/her friend saved it. When it had been begun again, it wrote on a stone: “Today my best friend saved me the life”. That which had given the slap and had saved his/her friend required him: “When I wounded you you wrote on sand, and now you wrote on the stone. Why? “the other friend answered: “When somebody wounds us, we must write it in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can erase it. But when somebody does something of good for we must himself engrave it in the stone, where no wind can erase it “. Learn how to write your wounds in sand and to engrave your joys in the stone It IS The WEEK Of the FRIENDSHIP. Send this sentence to people whom you will never forget and remember to make it turn over to the person who it sent you. If you do not send this sentence to anybody, that means that you are pressed and that you forgot your friends. Be caught time to live… Your friend

    Pierre Adama FAYE’s last blog post: Beautiful history!!!!

  • Jarkko Says:
    March 17th, 2008 at 6:58 pm

    @Maria: Thanks! I haven’t read much about the one page business plan. Heard the name some time ago but that’s about it. I’ve never been a fan of big and thorough business plans, so it sounds like something nice :)

    @Mark: I agree - flexibility is important. To me (at least at this stage in my business) a business plan is a tool for finding my core values and defining what I stand for. Every time I change something in it, I think about what I’ve learned and why I’m making the change. And I also keep in mind that I don’t know everything - that the plan will change again once my mind gets clearer…

    I guess this approach wouldn’t work that well for defining a big company and its mission, but then again, I don’t care about big that much anyway. ;)

    Thanks for the stumble!

    @Adama: Thanks for sharing the story. It reall is an inspirational one!

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