In the darkness of a winter morning, when the house still smells of freshly brewed coffee and candlelight dances on a good book, this time to think and plan is my meditation. It's my time to set the day right, before it has begun.

It took me too long to learn that, to have a productive day, I need to start with the end in mind. Which is exactly what I did in the silence of this a.m.

Starting with the end in mind is a trick that highly organized, get-shit-done project managers use when planning to develop an app, build a skyscraper, or send a man to the moon. It’s what highly-successful people do to have a massively productive day.

That’s because, the more clear your vision for the ending, the easier it is to develop a path to get there. The more focused your vision for the future, the more obstacles you can foresee (and address) in advance.

Beginning with the end in mind is the only way to know where you are going. It’s the basis for understanding how you’ll get there.

But even if you know where you’re going, you still must make the journey. You still have to walk the steps.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

— Yogi Berra

You have to put in the work—as even the best plan with no effort is wasted time.

This is the difference between the entrepreneurs and the talkers, the haves and the have nots, the warriors and the wannabes. It’s one thing to have ideas, it’s a wholly different thing to take action and turn those ideas into reality.

“You can’t plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind.”

— Gordon B. Hinckley

With the right plan and an attitude toward taking action, you can move from a candlelight morning of thinking and planning to making your dent in the universe, however small.

Start with the end in mind, build your plan, and take massive action today.