Seven Years On, Reflections on Your Oxygen Mask First: Plan, Plan and Plan Again

“Every­one has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

-Mike Tyson, prize fight­er 

It’s inter­est­ing to see how sim­i­lar the plans are, for exec­u­tives we work with, in dif­fer­ent indus­tries and places in the world. If we were to take a cross sec­tion of a dozen plans, from dif­fer­ent CEOs, their goals could almost be interchangeable.

All gen­er­al­ly want to make sim­i­lar things hap­pen, at a high strate­gic lev­el for their busi­ness­es, for them­selves and in their lives.

Sim­pli­fied Clarity

Over time, we’ve found that peo­ple who fill in and fol­low the Mas­ter Plan tem­plate talk about:

• The clar­i­ty they get from zoom­ing in on the cou­ple of things that mat­ter most, 10 years down the road, and then what they have do in the next three years to get there. It makes their plans and their lives very simple.
• Par­tic­u­lar­ly help­ful are the reflec­tion ques­tions to answer, every quar­ter, that reveal what’s work­ing, what’s not, and how they might do better.

Those who have the dis­ci­pline to con­tin­ue to update their goals every quar­ter (and their progress month­ly) – eas­i­ly done by adding it to their cal­en­dar – use a sim­ple, colour measurement:

• Green — Com­plete­ly on track
• Yel­low — A lit­tle off but fine
• Red — Challenged.

Watch the video to learn how to map the next decade of your life.

Your Mas­ter Plan

Our Mas­ter Plan tem­plate (revised since I wrote the book) now spans 10 years, with updates every 90 days, every three years and annually.

We also added a sec­ond sec­tion to pro­vide longer-term per­spec­tive and to bridge between the end of the final years of our life and the next three years.

And cre­at­ed a sim­pli­fied, one-page ver­sion to, for exam­ple, build out a plan for 2025, with annu­al goals for Work, Self and Life, fol­lowed by sec­tions to revise every quarter.

Use the tem­plate to suit your needs. For exam­ple, I’ve seen some peo­ple split the Self col­umn in half so that they can com­plete it with their spouse or part­ner to cre­ate a joint Mas­ter Plan.

The Chal­lenge

• Are you clear on the #1 thing you want to achieve in the next decade in terms of your
  • Work: Career, mon­ey and investments
  • Self: Being hap­py, strong and healthy
  • Life: Friends, fam­i­ly and community
• Are you and the peo­ple close to you, in your life, aligned around these things?

Your Oxy­gen Mask First Resources

• 10-Year Mas­ter Plan
• Quar­ter­ly Reset
• Amaz­ing Life Grids

Oth­er Blogs

• Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Hack: The 53-Minute Mas­ter Plan
• Work Your Best Laid Quar­ter­ly Plan
• Keep­ing the Main Thing the Main Thing: What’s Your #1 Num­ber this Year?

Old­er Podcasts

• Why the One-Page Plan Works
• Five Things that Lead to a Bad Strate­gic Plan