(Today is the first day of FinishYear, a 31 day experience to slingshot you into finishing the things that matter to you in 2012! (Read all about it here.)

Each day in January, we’ll all be sharing progress, tracking results and amplifying encouragement. We’ll do this via Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #FinishYear and with comments on this blog.

Now that the formalities are over, let’s get started.)

The art of eliminating surprises.

I used to write advertising for one of the largest retail stores in the country. Every fall, a great sense of panic would sweep into the office. What was the cause?

Christmas.

Every year we pretended like it wasn’t going to arrive on December 25. Rather than planning for it and getting ahead of the countless catalogs, brochures and ads we needed to create for Christmas sales, some people would act shocked that the holiday was in the same place on the calendar again.

Instead of preparing ahead of time, we’d wait until deadlines were dire and then launch into a frenzy of manic activity.

We let ourselves get surprised by Christmas.

The same thing happens with our goals and resolutions. I have friends who will start diets a week before Thanksgiving. Two weeks and one failed diet later they express shock that it was hard to maintain their strict eating regimens when they went home to mom’s cooking for the largest meal of the year.

I did the same thing last year with my goal for the Nashville Half Marathon. I committed to an intense training schedule and then acted shocked that it was hard to maintain it as I traveled around the country dozens of times. Did I ever call ahead and see if the hotels I was at had workout rooms? Did I pack my running stuff each trip? Of course not, I was surprised I was on the road.

What do all three situations have in common? No one in any of those stories ever sat down with the calendar to eliminate “surprises.”

But you and I, if we’re going to finish, are going to do that.

Take out your calendar. January has 31 days. Now take out your Finish List. Looking ahead at the entire month, do you see any obvious conflicts that might make it hard for you to work on your goals?

I’ll use myself as an example because I’m the only one in the room right now as I write this.

My focus for January is to make the Quitter Conference awesome. In order to do that, I need to spend time writing, practicing the speeches, adding awesome things to the content and doing a million other tasks. Is there anything in the month of January I need to plan around?

January 18 I’m speaking at an Entrepreneur event at Belmont University. I’ll need to write that speech, practice it and be out of the office that day.

January 21 I’m speaking at the Dave Ramsey Live event in Atlanta, GA. I’ll need to prepare for that.

January 26-28 I’m MCing and keynoting at the Georgia Baptist Convention. I’ll be out of town three days and need to create a lot of content for that event.

January 31 I’m speaking at the Oklahoma Baptist Convention. I’ll need to get that material ready as well.

So in a matter of minutes, I’ve already noted four big things that will require my time and creativity in January. Rather than planning to get a ton done on my Finish List on January 31 and then being surprised I couldn’t because I was in Oklahoma speaking 3 different times, I’ll plan around it.

I’ll do extra work on the days before the 31. I’ll plan to bring the right things on the plane so I can work on my Finish List when I’m traveling. I’ll schedule in practice time for my speeches and put everything where it goes on the calendar.

But can eliminating surprises work for you if you’re not traveling much like me? Of course.

Look at your calendar. If you’ve got a dentist appointment on January 10th, don’t wait until that day rolls around to get ready for it. On the spot for January 9th pencil in, “Spend 30 minutes extra on Finish List today,” and then do it. Instead of being angry that the dentist ate your 30-minute window of time to work on your list when the 10th rolls around, you can relax that day knowing you weren’t surprised. You were ready.

Do surprises still happen? Without a doubt. You’re going to get a flat tire. Your son is going to get a stomach virus on the morning you got up at 5AM to write. A project is going to blow up at work in an unexpected way. Life is going to throw some real surprises at you.

Eliminate as many of these fake ones as you can if you really want to finish this year.

Question:
What’s one surprise in the month of January that you can identify and eliminate right now?