How To Make Your Monthly Plan STICK

Last week I published a simple 5-step process for how to plan your month for maximum impact as an MSL. Time management is not something we learned in school. Many Medical Affairs professionals are forced to learn when they are overwhelmed and feel like they aren’t making any progress. There’s no way around it, mastering time management is required to consistently demonstrate value. Even when you have a rock-solid monthly planning habit, staying aligned to your plan can be a struggle. Here’s how to make your monthly plan stick.

You might be thinking I don’t make a monthly plan so this isn’t important for me. Think again! Being strategic is a core competency for Medical Affairs to demonstrate value. If you are an MSL or Medical Leader and you aren’t controlling where you spend your time, someone else is doing it for you. Time management and focus is a superpower. If you nail this, then you will become unstoppable. Here are resources for you to develop a planning habit that helps you execute what matters:

The Time Management Journey in Medical Affairs

Here’s what I have noticed happens with Medical Affairs and time management:

 

  1. With all the busyness people don’t focus on what matters
  2. They then start to lose confidence in their ability to deliver value, feel like they are failing and get overwhelmed
  3. With burnout looming and constant go-go-go, they realize they need to work on time management
  4.  This is when people start to understand the value of planning and it helps focus on priorities
  5. With practice and commitment, people can develop planning routines that make a huge difference
  6. Planning becomes a habit and people regain a sense of control
  7. Then somehow remembering to stick to the monthly plan is a struggle

This article will help you with #7 and getting that great monthly plan to stick 🙂.

Where’s the disconnect? How to make your monthly plan stick

Making a monthly plan makes you feel great. You are excited about the month, know what you are going to work on, and how you will kick butt. Then suddenly the month is over and you look at your monthly plan to find that you haven’t done anything you planned on doing.

This failure occurs when larger goals are not tied to the day-to-day. With the whirlwind of the day-to-day, monthly plans get forgotten. Here’s how to make your monthly plan stick:

 

Create daily and weekly habits that tie to your monthly plan

 

This will help you remember your monthly plan and stick to it. That’s why the 5 step process is so valuable. It breaks your monthly goals/metrics down into repeatable pieces (habits!) and forces you to think about them more frequently. Don’t skip out on step 2: breaking needle movers into monthly milestones and tasks.

Make your monthly plan stick by breaking your milestones and tasks into weekly or daily habits. In the example of 60 KOL meetings per quarter or 20 meetings per month, thinking on a weekly or daily basis can help tie your daily actions to the monthly plan: my target is 5 meetings per week or 1 meeting per day. Then tie this to the individual tasks to accomplish this. These actions should be framed as a habit:

  • I do 5 hours of outreach per week
  • I spend one hour per day doing follow-ups

Taking your monthly milestones and creating weekly or daily habits out of them will keep you connected to your monthly plan. Then you avoid those feelings of failure when you see your plan and realize you didn’t do any of it.

For more ways to keep your goals top of mind check out this article on how to crush your goals by reviewing them daily.

Conclusions: How To Make Your Monthly Plan STICK

There are constant distractions and fires to put out. The biggest barrier to your success is not being able to avoid distractions. Time management systems help you stay focused. Use this trick to create weekly or daily habits out of your monthly milestones to help you stick to your bigger plan. In combination with the 5 step process to make a monthly plan and the MSL Impact Templates Bundle you will be unstoppable!

What helps you keep your big plan top of mind? Please share!

How to Make Your monthly plan stick

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