Kelford Labs Daily: What you know about next year

Most things that happen next year are completely unpredictable.

Planning for what will happen is inherently frustrating—and next to futile—because we don’t know what the future holds.

But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, because it means we can focus our energy where it actually helps—not on an unknowable future, but on a knowable strategy.

All we know—all we can know—is what we want and what we can do to get closer to it. Every single day, for as long as it takes.

That’s the essence of strategy: having a structure to wrap around efficient actions that will take you closer to your ultimate goal.

Which means, the task for your year-end planning needn’t be to write down in detail everything that you plan to do if things go well or go your way.

It can be writing down everything you know you can do, no matter what the future brings.

You can’t predict the future, and you can’t plan for every eventuality.

But you can spend a few minutes every day working on your marketing.

You can identify your best customers and what they value most about you.

You can streamline your activities and focus on what matters.

And you can prepare for a messy, complicated, confusing future—by focusing on what you do best, and what your best customers value most.

Embrace the unknown and the unknowable, by focusing on what you do know:

Your value, and how to express it to the people who need it.

Keep Reading:
Plans Don’t Last Long
This is All Strategy Is
More Before They Are Counted