Playbook to Success - Plan It Like You Mean It

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Summary

Look at the way you structure your day.  The goal is to have you working on projects or tasks that move you towards your end goals and not filling your day with meaningless junk that has you feeling or sometimes even claiming to be extremely busy.  By filling your day with stuff, you are truly just procrastinating and not getting the life changing things done.   

Take out your journal or a notepad and score yourself on a few items. First, on a scale of 1 to 10 how productive were you the past week on the items that will make a difference in your future?  If that is not a 10 then you have work to do.    

Like most people you use some kind of calendar to manage your time. Start thinking about time differently and it may change how you define what goes on that calendar.  Think of it this way, you can spend time doing something or you can invest time doing something.  So, this is very much like money, we can just spend money or we can invest it.  By investing it we expect a return on our investment.  Time is no different if you invest your time doing things you should expect a return on it as well.  By thinking of it like this you can see how your top 20% projects require an investment of time and all the other distractions are really just spending your time and will give you nothing tangible back.

Full Transcript

So many people tell me that they are so busy that there is absolutely no way that they can put one more item on their agenda, yet they are not reaching their goals or even moving towards them with any purpose.  It is not a secret that we can all fill our days with stuff that at the end leaves us feeling exhausted and completely unfulfilled, wondering what it is that we even accomplished.  You have great dreams and visions but you find yourself on the never ending roller coaster that can have you high with enthusiasm and energy just to take you down to despair, doubting you will ever have the time, support, or talent to get to what means more than anything to you. Maybe this resonates with you.  If so, this month's topic is for you.

How is it that the highest achievers can create and maintain at such an incredible level and still have an amazing life and family?  Very simply It is the tools, systems and habits that they have put into place. These are non-negotiable items that they adopted to make their world run smoothly and to eliminate distractions that will pull them off point.  By doing this they have control of their days and therefore they are able to focus on the most important needle moving items which results in faster and larger accomplishments.

This month I am going to guide you through some ways to possibly change up what you are doing.  To give you some methods to be more effective and efficient and things that you can pass on to your team or your family as well.

In this session we are going to look at the way you structure your day.  The goal is to have you working on projects or tasks that move you towards your end goals and not filling your day with meaningless junk that has you feeling or sometimes even claiming to be extremely busy.  By filling your day with stuff you are truly just procrastinating and not getting the life changing things done.  I know you think you are not doing this…but trust me you are.   

Take out your journal or a notepad and score yourself on a few items. First, On a scale of 1 to 10 how productive were you the past week on the items that will make a difference in your future?  If that is not a 10 then we have work to do.  I know it’s hard…I was famous for being the one that did everything while accomplishing nothing because who was going to do it if I didn’t?   Next week we are going to address just that question so hang tight.

Ok, let’s get into this….  I am sure like most people you use some kind of calendar to manage your time.  I want you to start thinking about time differently and it may change how you define what goes on that calendar.  Think of it this way…you can spend time doing something or you can invest time doing something.  So this is very much like money, we can just spend money or we can invest it.  By investing it we expect a return on our investment.  Time is no different if you invest your time doing things you should expect a return on it as well.  By thinking of it like this you can see how your top 20% projects require an investment of time and all the other distractions are really just spending your time and will give you nothing tangible back.

In regards to the type of calendars that are available all of us have our phones of course, but you really need to have something that is in front of you that you actually put pen or pencil to paper and write on.  This accomplishes a couple of things.  First off, when we write something it tends to stick in our minds better and also makes us evaluate what we wrote at a deeper level than putting an appointment on an app or phone calendar.  The other thing that it does is keep our goals and projects in the forefront as that paper, planner, calendar, or whatever you use is in front of you all day long reminding you of what is important.  I like to use a planner of some sort as opposed to just a daily calendar with time blocks.  Having a place to put priorities for the day, tasks that must get done and people that I need to connect with as part of that tool is key for my success throughout the day.  There are a lot of options out there for calendars and planners.  Like any system, the best one is the one that you will use consistently.  You can Google best planners and you will get a list of the top ten for the year and you can generally peak at what the pages look like before you put out the cash.  Again, the most important thing is that you use it. 

The art of time blocking is something that you hear a lot about, but it became kind of a buzz phrase that had people literally blocking out every moment of their day.  This is not how time blocking was designed to be used.  Using your calendar to block out sections of time that are to be protected to work on your most important projects is critical.  I know for myself if it is on my calendar it will happen, but the opposite is also true, if it is not on my calendar there is a good chance it will not happen at all or it will not get the attention needed for a successful outcome.

Your planner or calendar is your blueprint for your day, week, month and year.  You want it to be a positive tool in your world to help you improve and not shackles that tie you down.  

We are going to start by looking at the year.  I know this may seem overwhelming, but you will see where I am going with this.  The first thing that I want you to put on your calendar is time off or vacation time.  All the way from here I can see some of you throwing up your arms and telling me “there is no way I am putting vacation time on there.  I have not taken a vacation in 5 years”.  Well I will tell you right now that is a whole different problem for a different class.  So please if that was your reaction humor me…write it in pencil if it makes you feel better.  I don’t care if you put just a long weekend or a month vacation on there

Once you have your vacations in there we are going to move into personal time. I like to do this on a monthly basis, as some of these items change frequently and you likely don’t know them more than a month in advance.  These are the activities that you know you must do to keep life in balance and moving.    It might be your kid’s soccer games or school conferences.  Other things that could go on here would be your workouts, date nights.  These are events that have to happen to maintain normalcy and good health in your life.  Maybe you have a weekly happy hour with friends.  Whatever it is, put it on there.  These oftentimes are the things that we tend to schedule over or cancel.  This is the time to commit to the process and not compromise.  Once it is on the calendar it happens.  Now I get it weird things come up that can’t be avoided, but if you really think about it that is rare.  It is all in how you define what is important.  At the end of the day you are the most important, so you need to be consistent in being good to you. This is what the best of the best do.  The most successful, the wealthiest, the best moms… they have a plan that they wrote, that they believe in and that encompasses the big rocks.

Alright we have vacations or  recharging time and events that keep life in balance.  Now let’s back off to a week and this is where it gets very important to know what projects or commitments are the ones that will move you towards your goals and not just fill time or help others with their agendas.  Have you ever noticed how much of your day can get eaten fixing other people’s issues?  Don’t get me wrong we of course need to step up and help those that are important to us, but it needs to be on your terms and your schedule as you not pull you off track.   Don’t let those shiny things that dash by trick you, they do not all lead to the gumdrop forest or the land of white sand beaches.

This is where you are going to block out time for items of major importance. These will be items that are necessary to take me to the next level or move my business forward.  Each of these projects or appointments has a desired outcome.  Even if the project that I am working on is huge and may take days or weeks to complete there will still be a projected outcome for that day.  For example, I will block out time each day to create content for you.  I may be writing a large course that is going to take me multiple weeks to complete once I add in downloads and content, but I will have a goal for each day to complete a determined piece of the project.  In that way I have a measuring gage and I also know when I have hit the goal and it gives me that feeling of success.  Too often we measure success in such large pieces that we never get to celebrate the wins along the way which are critical to our overall motivation.  Knowing what your expectation of that meeting or project is helps you to evaluate each day. 

I do not block out every minute of every day.  That is not practical as there will be things that come up in the middle or end of the week that I could not project on Sunday night when I did my calendar.  If I am not realistic and leave room for those items, then I am forced to go over the top of more important already existing things and that my friends is not an option.  

I am very purposeful about not putting random stuff on my calendar.  That will appear on its own to the extent that you allow it.  I would encourage you to filter those items very carefully.  Many if not most are just distractions that pull you away from your objective and often are someone else's issues or agenda.

I hope this has helped you have a clearer path to what your day can look like.  Remember you control your time and you decide what you allow in and what is not a good use of time as you work towards your end goal.  

If you found this useful please share it with 3 people that like you are on the path to bigger things, and remember it is always your choice to focus forward.