Planning is important to success involving any endeavor in life. Yet, few small business owners bother to plan. We feel that a large part of the reason for lack of planning is not understanding the type and level of planning needed.

Business advisors, bankers, consultants, government agencies and business school professors all tend to push the 60 to 100 page Business Plan. Few business owners find this approach helpful. The traditional business plan is designed to use as a tool for attracting capital infusions (usually as investments in stock). But this approach requires a lot of maintenance to keep it current - time which you probably don't have.

A better approach is to write an Operations Manual. This manual details "what you do" and "how you do it", in all areas of your business - marketing & sales, operations, accounting, technical, etc. Keep this in a notebook along with a section for goals. A one page worksheet listing monthly goals can work more effectively for the average small business owner than the 60 page business plan.

To be useful and increase the chance for effectiveness, goals should be kept simple. For example, you may want to set monthly prospecting and sales targets, goals for turnover of inventory or jobs, and other key facets of you operations. List the goals in one column, and update the actual performance, variance and year-to-date variance in adjoining columns. You should take a day off, at least once a year, to review the company's performance and decide on new or revised goals.

Owning a small business means "flying by the seat of your pants" a large portion of the time. However, you can gain control over some of those surprises by using a pocket day planner. Several of the companies who offer day planner products also have seminars and courses to help you develop good time management skills.

Periodically, you should also analyze how your business processes the work. Look for bottlenecks in your operations to determine better, lower cost, or faster ways to get the job done. In particular, focus on the high expense areas of your income statement.

To save you time, look for the three to six month trends in your income statements and cash flow. There is an old business saying that goes "the trend is your friend." By looking at a trailing six months performance every month you will be able to spot significant changes in expense or sales categories. Focus on capping negative expense trends or enhancing positive sales or expense trends. You can probably ignore the routine items, rather than trying to analyze everything, and thus not spend enough time fixing the big problems.

Finally, you may want to outsource all non-essential tasks, such as accounting, problem collections, payroll, employees (through temporary agencies), independent contractors or vendors, and any other areas where you will not have to examine the operational details as closely or lock up cash.