Everyday there is so much to do. But if we look back at the end of the week, most of us have a problem identifying a few things that got accomplished. The culprit – planning by activities and not focusing on outcomes.

Granted, an activity or a set of activities will produce outcomes. However, during a week we may perform a number of activities and not produce any outcomes. If this by design, it may be OK but most often it’s NOT! We get carried away by a number of activities (planned and unplanned) and a week passes by with no outcomes.

What we should all be aware of is that we get rewarded for producing outcomes and not for participating in activities. If all the activities that we are participating are leading to no outcomes, there is a problem, a serious problem! That needs to be fixed asap.

The solution may be as simple as planning our week by outcomes – what do we want to accomplish this week? It can be only one outcome or a few outcomes but the deal is to know what results do we want to produce this week. End of the week, we can do a quick analysis to see where we are and design the next week accordingly.