109. Ideas and Inspiration For Annual Planning with Melina Palmer - a podcast by Amber Hawley

Have you started planning your goals for the year ahead yet? Or do you have a long list of things you’re just hoping to get around to, without any clear roadmap for achieving them?

On this episode of the podcast, Melina Palmer and I are exchanging some ideas and inspiration to incorporate into your annual planning for 2022. Think of it as your ultimate CEO Day, a valuable concept where you dedicate time and space to those big picture goals that will move your business forward—but which we usually relegate to the “non-urgent” task list. This conversation will help you to determine what’s really important and make practical steps toward scheduling, planning, and prioritizing success.

Melina is an applied behavioral economist who helps us understand how the brain actually works instead of how we think it should. So we’re really talking about some of those brain biases and how to overcome them...because we all fall victim to mistakes in planning. Because we all have a brain.

When it comes to productivity, eight hours is never eight hours and 90 days is never 90 days. Listen in to find out what we mean! And join me for the What’s On Your Plate workshop on January 7 if you want to maximize the first 90 days of 2022 to be as productive as possible toward your one big business goal.

About Melina Palmer:

Melina Palmer is founder and CEO of The Brainy Business, which provides behavioral economics consulting to businesses of all sizes from around the world. Her podcast, The Brainy Business: Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy, has downloads in over 170 countries and is used as a resource for teaching applied behavioral economics for many universities and businesses. Melina obtained her bachelor’s degree in business administration: marketing and worked in corporate marketing and brand strategy for over a decade before earning her master’s in behavioral economics. 

A proud member of the Global Association of Applied Behavioral Scientists, Melina has contributed research to the Association for Consumer Research, Filene Research Institute, and writes the Behavioral Economics & Business column for Inc. Magazine. She teaches applied behavioral economics through the Texas A&M Human Behavior Lab and her first book, What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You, was published in May 2021.

Links and Resources:

• The Brainy Business
• How The Brain Works with Melina Palmer (My Biz Bestie Episode #89, Season 6)

• What’s On Your Plate workshop

Time Stamps:

[2:52] What Melina does as an applied behavioral economist

[4:34] Annual planning as a multi-day, multi-faceted process

[6:25] Clear multiple types of clutter out of your way first

[7:06] Narrow down your big goals to three things only

[7:57] Shiny objects may be desirable but they’re distractions to achieving your top three goals

[10:15] Amber’s quarterly workshop is like Melina’s 90 day sprint

[12:00] Take steps and build credibility toward your five-year goal today in your planning

[15:32] What’s the one thing you would be happy to achieve by this time next year?

[16:25] Make your to-do list smaller to avoid optimism bias 

[20:53] Pre-plan your goals in a “cold state”

[21:20] 90 days is not really 90 days of productivity

[24:40] When planning your schedule, start with the big rocks

[26:40] ADHD-ers need filters and lenses to make decisions about what to pursue

[27:47] What is planning fallacy and how to counteract it

[30:52] Emotional clutter can be urgent, unimportant things that take up time

[35:20] Melina’s top advice for planning out the next year

Further episodes of The Easily Distracted Entrepreneur

Further podcasts by Amber Hawley

Website of Amber Hawley