Busy Season

This is the season that, for many professionals, begins at a slower pace and quickly escalates to major compression. It’s the reason it’s called busy season. In my coaching calls this January, I heard a lot of anticipating the onslaught of busy season but not enough planning for it.

Planning Assumption

Planning is often conducted with the assumption that everything will work out the way its supposed to—clients get their information to you on time, complete and accurate. Staff will perform within their budgets. There will be no unexpected assignments, sickness or other disruptions. The software will function perfectly and there will be no IT downtime.

But that never happens. Because you can’t plan for every possible misstep, you may fall into the thinking that there is no sense in planning at all because nothing goes according to plan. While this may feel like it’s true, entering into compression season without thoughtful planning is asking for a difficult season.

Plan For The Main Things

You can’t plan for everything, but you can plan for the main things. Your large engagements are yours to make sure that clients cooperate, staff are prepared and timelines are on target.

• One partner meets regularly with her managers to make sure they are on top of their engagement responsibilities
• A manager told me he is very consistent with scheduling weekly 1-on-1s throughout the season with his staff to keep them focused.
• A senior manager looks forward 2 weeks to keep an eye on what’s ahead and to make adjustments as needed.

Rather than be eaten with anxious anticipation, they planned to make things work as well as possible. Thoughtful planning allows you to put things into perspective and remain focused on what is important.

As you look forward to the next few months, what causes you anxiety? What gets your heart rate up because you don’t know what will happen? Instead of anxiously awaiting what may befall you, what could you plan for to moderate or mitigate the problem? What clients should you contact now? What staff should you prepare for what’s coming? These are the ways you avoid anxiously anticipating and engage in thoughtful planning.