David Carruthers

Strategy & Planning is for everyone!

How much time do you devote to strategy, planning and prioritizing and getting the things done that you want to achieve?

Are you drifting through life allowing events to mould your actions, emotions and outcomes?

I have always been a compulsive list maker, it has served me well over the years but especially now. My daily to-do list is the centre of my world, always written at the end of the day before I go to sleep, it allows me to sleep soundly in the knowledge that all I need to focus on is written down and can be accessed when I awake fresh and looking forward to a new day.

It is important to prioritize your to-do list into A, B and C tasks. C tasks can be disregarded, and A tasks should be tackled first. B tasks that do not become A tasks should become C tasks and therefore disregarded.

A very good friend of mine has always encouraged an rationale of “effortless” towards task achievement, this is not a lazy or lethargic approach, but a smart approach to life, that is well thought out, focused, efficient and set on achieving the important things first.

A Chinese teaching says. “A beggar lives meal to meal. A peasant lives day to day. A farmer lives season to season. A nobleman lives a year to year. A king lives 10 years at a time but an emperor lives a century at a time”.

Start to gain control of what you do and why you do it, always look into the future but live in the now.


David Carruthers 19th November 2007.