By James L. Castellano

All great leaders start the day with a preparation (1 Peter 1:13, NIV) exercise. Whether it is praying, using a planner, reading, doing affirmations or all of the above. They realize how important it is to be properly prepared to face the day.

My preparation consists of the following:

1. Prayer.
2. Reading daily devotional with my wife. We use Leadership Promises by John Maxwell.
3. Write and verbalize my affirmations.
4. Write and verbalize my life mission statement.
5. Read at least 15 minutes.
6. Write and verbalize my 10 daily priorities.
7. Write and verbalize my short and long term goals.
8. Make sure my planner is current through the week.

At first glance, you may think you don't have the time to do this each morning. As a real leader though, you'll know and understand the importance. It takes less than 30 minutes to accomplish this.

Could you imagine an NFL team simply showing up for games without preparing themselves? Of course not, so why should you show up for the day without preparation? You shouldn't.

Take the time and set a routine for each day, the results will be astonishing!

Another part of your daily preparation is the planning (Proverbs 14:22, NIV) stage of your day. How can you be prepared if you don't have a plan for the day, week, month, year... Seriously, how can you be a leader if you don't have a plan to lead yourself by?

Over my life I have used many different planning systems and they are all good. Since none of them fit exactly what I needed, I developed my own. You can check out a copy here.

This system is a two-page system and covers everything you need for your preparation and planning. Most people think the planner is simply a calendar to mark down appointments. That is a small part of the system. A complete system will let you record your affirmations, personal mission statements, long and short term goals, daily priorities, what you are reading, what you are praying about, and your daily calendar.

The age old saying, "people don't plan to fail, they fail to plan" is so true. I would venture to say many actually do more to plan their vacation than they do for their future. People spend $1000's on a wedding and won't spend $20 on a planner. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Time management is often talked about, but can we really manage time? Probably not, but we can manage our priorities and our commitments. Time happens whether we do anything or not. How we manage our commitments and priorities is what really counts (1 Timothy 3:4-12, NIV).

I learned years ago to plan out everything that is critically important well in advance. This includes church, family time, personal recreation time, and business appointments. I use my planning system, my Outlook, and my cell phone to keep track of all these events. Cell phones are awesome tools to keep track of recurring events. I also set adequate reminders, so I'm not caught off guard. The last step is entering additional events and appointments as they come up.

One of the major foundations of my leadership philosophy is sowing good seeds and reaping good harvest. You can fall back to this in any area of life because good habits lead to good results. And doing the right things repeatedly forms these habits (Galatians 6:7-10, NIV). You end up reaping the reward of more free time to enjoy yourself because you sowed the seeds of proper planning.

Start developing a solid preparation and planning routine and watch your organization or ministry grow!

James authors the popular leadership blog, Leading The Way. You can participate in the daily discussions by visiting www.leadingisreading.blogspot.com.