This guide belongs to 100 Ways To Be Being Remarkable Series, a special project that brings you business and self-development advice from The Success Manual.

Don’t agonize. Organize.
- Florynce R. Kennedy, U.S. lawyer, civil rights activist

Long-range planning does not deal with future decisions. It deals with the future of present decisions.
- Peter Drucker

1. Don't do things that you don't understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.
2. Figure out the game when the stakes aren't high.
3. Don't cheat. Cheaters never win in the long run.
4. Stick to your principles.
5. You need to adjust your style of play throughout the night as the dynamics of the game change. Be flexible.
6. Be patient and think long term.
7. The person with the most stamina and focus usually win.
8. Differentiate yourself. Do the opposite of what the rest of the table is doing.
9. Hope is not a good plan.
10. Don't let yourself go "full throttle" all the time. It's much more cost effective to take a break, walk around, or leave the battlefield for the night.

If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.
- Confucius

There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, employ someone to do it, or forbid your children from doing it.
- Monta Crane

The most successful people are those who are good at plan B.
- James Yorke, mathematician,

We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.
- Herb Kelleher, founder, Southwest Airlines

A lot of companies......find planning more interesting than getting out a saleable product.
- Ed Wrapp

You need to plan the way a fire department does.
- Andrew Grove

In future the most successful companies will be those who work hardest to make sure they are in tune with society.
- Mark Moody Stuart

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
- Albert Einstein

PLANNING 101
1. Analyze opportunities – and their attendant risks.
2. What is the aim of your plan?
3. Explore options.
4. Select the best option.
5. Draw the detailed plan now – who will do what, when, where, how and why, at what cost, and what resources will be used.
6. What will be your control mechanisms that’ll alert you to difficulties in achieving the plan’s goals.

What are the risks?
Plan for contingencies – in case things don’t work the way they were supposed to.

7. Implement the change – your detailed plan will explain how.
8. Close the plan – note down the lessons you have learnt.

PR SMITH'S SOSTAC® PLANNING MODEL
The SOSTAC® acronym stands for:
Situation analysis - where are we now?
Objectives - where do we want to go?
Strategy - how we are going to get there.
Tactics - the details of strategy.
Action - putting the plan to work.
Control - measurement, monitoring, reviewing, updating and modifying.

Now add in the 3M's - the three key resources, Men, Money and Minutes.

Men - men and women, expertise and abilities to do different jobs.
Money - budgets - have we the money?
Minutes - time - what are the time scales, schedules or deadlines? Is there enough time?

- PR Smith, ‘Great Answers to Tough Marketing Questions’

Objectives should be activities, not abstract financials.
- Tom Peters

Fast-growing companies generally run into trouble at about $10 million in sales (when manageemtn's needs outstrip the founder's capacity). They run into trouble again at about $40 million in sales, when professional management techniques usually need to be installed.
- Boardroom Reports

Don't worry about trends. The best successes often lie in redefining dormant businesses.
- Tom Peters

Thinking must be the hardest job in the world. What people want to do is to outsource it to a mantra or a methodology like reengineering.
- Eileen Shapiro

Challenging the status quo has to be the starting point for anything that goes under the label of strategy.
-Gary Hamel

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