How would you like that prepared?

The other day at lunch someone was asked that standard question “how would you like that prepared?”

I thought about that question as it pertains to work. The parallels to me were striking (warning: there may be some groan inducing comments below)

- If we prepare just a little and then get the work out the door – our chance of success and improvement is Rare.

- If we prepare the same as everyone else, we should expect the chances of success to be about the same as everyone else or Medium.

- If we take the time and prepare more than everyone else – we have insured that our most likely result is a job Well Done.

So we should take a moment each day, and think about what we have coming up that is key to our success and achieving our goals. Then look at your calendar and check to see if you have set time aside to prepare? We all think to prepare, but if we do not schedule time to do the preparation then life gets in the way, and we scramble just to barely get enough done. Take a moment, look at the major tasks that our key to our success, and make sure that you have scheduled in a ton of preparation time. This is an investment that will pay off.

Whenever you are looking at getting something done ask yourself “have I schedule enough time to over prepare for this?” When you add this to your routine you will have learned a valuable lesson that will lead to continued improvement and success.

The lesson: be prepared, in fact be over-prepared. It is the key ingredient to a job well done.

(sorry…couldn’t resist one last one!)