Starting All Over After a Lockdown by Ekekere Samuel Ufot - HTML preview

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IT’S TIME TO PLAN

Everything has to have its place.

GREAT IDEAS PLUS RESOURCES do not guarantee a great life after the lockdown. An idea is like a seed, available resources is like water. But having just seed and water does not guarantee a great farm. You’d have to do the work of tilling the ground, putting the seed in, watering the seeded ground and fertilizing if necessary.

You have the well thought idea and you’ve made provisions for your resources to give the idea the push, what you do need now is a plan of action to guide you on how to get the idea rolling.

Every idea needs a strategic planning work to sufficiently leverage resources provided to meet the needs of the idea. Fact is, you may likely not get enough resources to start with but you have to start anyway.  You have to plot your graphs to know where you have to put in more resources and less resources.

Even when you have an overdose of resources, not efficiently planning could lead to wasteful spending, taking you back to where you originally started from. Whether you have too much resources or too little resources, that is not stopping you from doing the correct planning work.

Quality planning is a gift in this lockdown’s disguise . You have all the time to get it right till the lockdown is called off. You don’t want to rush your idea out because you are in a hurry. As much as everyone is in a hurry to achieve something, this lockdown has shown how ideas and businesses without a well thought out plan have fared. Extremely terrible.

This lock down has offered us a worst case scenario so that you are looking at equipping yourself with the correct plan so that taking off after the lockdown is easier.

It’s like a person who has the type of house he wants to build in his head, has the money to at least start the building but has no building plan. He calls a builder and tells him verbally what he wants and expects the builder to start building. The builder will have problems interpreting the building idea if there is no plan to show the size of the rooms, the facilities to be made available, the building style etc.

You will have problems interpreting your idea if you don’t plan every stage of the idea correctly fixing the right resources at the right places.

What should characterize your plan as you work towards life beyond the lockdown?

• The well thought out idea. You can’t build what you can’t picture in your mind. While you have the picture in your mind, you should also have the prototype on a paper well grafted out.
• Available resources. How much is available? You tell yourself this is what I have and this is the goal I am pursuing. Can I achieve this with what I have or do I need more. How much do I even need to reach the goal?
• A scale of preference. Think about the actions that should come first and what should get resources first. resources are slim so you want to put resources into the important parts first.
• A fixed starting time. It is important to define when you want to start your idea and also when you hope to conclude it. This will help you to put some force into what you are doing to achieve your goal
• An order of work. Every idea starts from somewhere. It’s a process. You want to define the process so that while working you know what stage or level you are or how far you have gone with the idea.
• A fixed time for the completion of a work set. At every stage of work you want to have the time frame so that you know when you’ve spent too much on a work set.
• A fixed completion time. Don’t just define what you want to achieve, fix a date for completion

While you may be in a lockdown, it’s a fantastic time to get to your drawing board. Everyone has a drawing board somewhere in their minds but only few persons use it because often they get too busy with the issues of life.

This lockdown provides us the ample opportunity to take a look at our life drawing boards to see where we’ve missed it before the lockdown and where you’d want to get it right after the lockdown. You can subsequently rejig your life.

We have fantastic ideas and resources but we sometimes have complained of time to put the two together. You can leverage on this time to put them together knowing that life after the lockdown would be on the faster lane when you should be hoping to release your new product.

People fail to plan and they get nothing done though they have great ideas and sufficient resources at their disposal. You perhaps have heard people say “with all that he had, he could not invest or build a future for himself”

To enjoy a fantastic life beyond this lockdown, you must be willing to strategically plan your way out of it. It has to be a deliberate effort.

You know what you want. In your hearts of hearts, you have your idea right there waiting for the opportunity to poke out. It has to have a soft-landing on this side of life by your willingness to commit to the right plans.

Imagine all the possibilities that can arrive f your idea finally sees light. It may have a rippling effect on several other people who may catch their ideas too. In reality, every fantastic idea spurs other fantastic ideas producing an idea chain.

So what’s your plan? Or what’s the plan? I have heard people been asked any of these questions. I remember my dad asked me the same questions after I finished university. With this lockdown, everyone should be answering this question. This lockdown is a university of new knowledge. How far you will go after it will depend on what you want.

Your plan has to be workable. It should have a high degree of humanity, something that one can easily put hands on.

Some person make grandiose plans, the kind of plan where we envisage resources that are almost impossible to get to start it. Your plan should have the possibilities of been easily funded by the resources around you.

A plan of action saves you the stress of turning round and round when you could be definite about what you are doing. Why would you want to roam in a circus when you can get straight to the point?

The best you want for yourself is to set out how you want to go about your beautiful idea walking. No matter how beautiful an idea is, it remains a beautiful idea until it is converted to an actual piece and it is able to breath.

Note this characteristics, your plan has to have them.

• It must be proactive.  This means it has to be practical and hands-on.
• Something you can leverage on. Your life should be able to take the shift when you get it to work.
• It should be all-inclusive. Your present, past and future should be considered in the plan.
• It should negate laziness.  You can have a plan to do nothing. While doing nothing may be seen as an action, it should not be the action as you work towards the better life post the lockdown.

Priming your life to enjoy the best after the lockdown should be because you have a plan to work it out. Don’t just want to wait for all things to work together. You have to define what you want.

While things may naturally turn out well after the lock down, there is no guarantee it will fit in for you except you have your plans sorted out that will enable you key into the possibilities of the realities that will result.

Don’t just watch how things play out. Be a factor for things to play around. If the economy is going to become better, let it happen with you keying in.

Your plan is the bridge between you great idea, resources and the accomplishment of the idea. If its tardy, you’d be left frustrated. Its best to get it right.

Why must you have a plan? It’s the real deal. You don’t want to commit yourself to nothing. The plan is a contract you are making between your fantastic idea and your beautiful future.

I’ve stated earlier in this book that every lockdown offers opportunities for those who will open their eyes to see it. The possibilities you see are possibilities you must plan your way to enjoy.

What you have is a closed door. But you must key in. Your plan is your key. No plan, no key. If you must enjoy the possibilities of your fantastic opportunities that are showing up right around this time, you must connect those opportunities with the right plan of action. Have a plan, it matters.