I walked through the weekend. Literally. Altogether, I logged a little over 31 miles. And ever step I took was dedicated to a good cause: the fight against breast cancer. This year, I will once again walk the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure: 60 miles, 20 miles a day, over the glorious days. Not only will I walk miles and miles over hours and hours in training, I’m also responsible for raising donations.

As you can imagine, this is a big project. In today’s post, I’ll give you a backstage pass to how I planned out taking on a project of this magnitude. Then on Wednesday, I’ll talk about how I fit taking actions for this project into my day-to-day. Along the way, I hope to pass along some helpful lessons about setting goals, project planning, and how I use the Seven Dimensions of Productivity to take on a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).
 
In GTD-speak, this is one of my 30K items. In my vision for 2010, I called it “Walk the 2010 San Diego 3-Day.”

Taking that 30K vision, I defined my project: Complete the 2010 San Diego 3-Day. You’ll noticed the project verb here: complete. Project verbs are important; they help you to grasp the size of the undertaking as a collection of many actions.

Next, I determined what a successful outcome to completing the 3-Day would consist of. For any big project, it’s important to understand what success looks like. For my project, success includes:

• I raise at least $3,000 for the fight against breast cancer.
• I walk the entire 60 miles without blisters or injuries.
• I meet lots of wonderful people, raise public awareness about this disease, help people whose lives are affected.
• I inspire others to take action for a cause they care about.

Once I had an understanding of the project and its successful outcome, I broke “complete the 3-Day” down into two sub-projects: physical training and fund-raising.

• Complete training program for the 3-day :: Be able to walk three 20 mile days in a row.
• Complete fund-raising :: Raise $3,000 for Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

From there, I worked my way backwards from the event date in November.

My training plan includes meeting all the “requirements” of the physical feat itself. A weekly mileage total of 60. Three long days in a row. Walking on hard, paved surfaces. Using a spreadsheet, I worked backwards in time, determining how many miles I’d walk per week (maxing out at a whopping 71 total miles two weeks prior to the event), alternating easy and hard weeks, slowly building my mileage to prevent injury while increasing my endurance. (If you want a copy of the training plan, I’m happy to share: email me.)

Likewise, for my fund-raising plan, which really has only one requirement: meet the minimum of $2,300 (set by the event organizers). Host at least one fund-raising event. Send out lots of tweets. Email friends and family and previous year’s donors and ask for donations. And ask and ask. Tell total strangers what I’m doing. And ask again.

Taking on a project this size stretches me. And teaches me. Last year, I learned patience and persistence. This year, I’m learning about strategy and determination.

That’s the bones of the project. In my next post, I’ll explain how I fit all this into my day-to-day and keep it moving forward while doing everything else that I do.
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