Over the last couple of days, we’ve talked about what it takes to be more organised and productive so you can create the ideal work-life balance. You know that the goal is to be able to sustain consistent focus and productivity throughout the day/week, and avoid going through “bursts” of productivity. Like this:
We’ve seen how most people try to learn on their own by reading books and spammy blog posts. They try to be more productive by sticking to a plan, working longer hours and following strict productivity “methods”. But because we all have very different work styles, these approaches just don’t work.
I myself have tried a lot of different pieces of advice and eventually learned that it’s far more effective to adopt a system that suits how you like to work (instead of trying to mimic other people or conform to a particular method). Once I figured this out, I was able to organise my time, get more done in fewer hours and accomplish more while still being able to do the other things I care about.
It’s funny I never expected that as a result of being more productive, I naturally started to stress less and I felt 10X happier. People tell me all the time how “chilled out” I am… and I put this down to the sense of calm that comes from being more organised and productive.
The key is to develop your own productivity system that helps you to manage distractions and suits how you like to work so you can make consistent and sustainable progress towards accomplishing your goals. Like this:
I call this having a “Personal Productivity System”. I use the word “personal” because it’s all about creating a system that revolves around YOU. The best part is, when you develop your Personal Productivity System, it’s guaranteed to work. Why? Because YOU designed it and it’s based on how YOU like to work, so you’ll naturally start to become more organised and productive.
“Actioning Your Goals”
So, how do you create this Personal Productivity System?
As I’ve explained on my blog and in my email course, the only way to know if you’re being truly productive and working on the right tasks is to have a clear destination in mind. If you don’t know what you’re working towards, how do you know if you’re working on the right things? This is why setting clear goals is so important.
When I started my website, one of the fist things I did was create a clear goal and a vision for where I wanted to take it. I researched different goal-setting tactics and worked out the best way to plan my work so that I could stay organised (instead of stressing out) and make consistent progress towards my vision. Along the way, I learned something…
Having a goal on its own isn’t enough.
Because we set big goals that a long time to reach, it can be tricky bridging the gap between where you are right now and where you’re trying to get to. That’s why you need to dissect your goals into all the individual tasks that need to be completed and plan out the correct sequence for tackling these in.
I call this “Actioning Your Goals“.
IMAGE: This is my Asana account where I dissect my goals into all the smaller tasks I need to complete. Don’t worry if this looks a bit fancy, we’re going to go through how to dissect your goals, step by step.
Once I tried dissecting my goals for the first time, I started doing it for every single project I was working on. At work, I planned out everything our team of 15 product managers had to do for our Christmas promotional campaign (which was a huge success). At home, I planned out what we needed to do to get into a position where we could buy our first investment property (which we did in early 2016). In my business, I use this approach all the time to make sure I stay organised and so I know what actions I need to take in order to reach my goals.
And I’ve taught this approach to other people…
Remember Katie who I mentioned the other day? Well, she was struggling with her workload. She’s a hard working and motivated person but was making herself sick with the amount of stress she was putting on herself. She was working 12 hour days and her weekends were used for sleeping and recovering (no social life what so ever).
I showed her my incredibly simple approach and we went through the process of breaking her goals down into all the individual steps she needed to take to get the work done. When we finished this process, she was instantly more organised and calm. Because she wasn’t trying to remember everything and she had a clear action plan in place, she was able to sleep better, worried less and had more spare time for gardening on the weekends.
Once you dissect your goals, it’s so much easier to put them into action. It’s so easy to do, I really don’t know why everyone doesn’t do this already….
In fact, I was talking to one of my email subscribers recently. He’s a motivated guy and has a clear goal in mind, but doesn’t feel organised. When I asked if he was using any kind of task list to dissect his goals, he said “no” [FACE PALM]. I said, “no wonder” you don’t feel organised, you haven’t taken the ideas in your head and processed them”. He’s now followed this technique to dissect his goals and has made more progress in the last 2 weeks than he has in the whole last month.
Have I excited you yet?
Step by step, how to “Action Your Goals” (in 10 minutes)
Okay, so none that I’ve demonstrated why dissecting your goals is so important, let’s get into the nitty gritty and look at how you actually do this.
Dissecting your goals (like I’m about to show you) isn’t complicated. Like I said, I’m surprised more people aren’t doing this already. This process can take as little as 10 minutes and will actually save you a tonne of time later on. Going through this process means you’ll have a clear idea of what you need to do and will spend less time between tasks working our your next steps.
I’ll walk you through how I personally dissect goals using Asana in this video. This coaching video has been pulled straight from my Personal Productivity Toolkit which goes on sale next week.
For a detailed explanation of how to action your goals, read on…
1. Open your task manager and create a new project
If you don’t have some sort of task management system already, I strongly recommend you get one. It doesn’t matter too much whether you use an app like Asana, Todoist or Omnifocus or something else like a notebook or bullet journal. Remember, the tools aren’t what’s important here. What is important is you use the tool that works for YOU (I like Asana because it’s easy to use and offers all the features I like).
If you’re using a task management app, create a new project. For example, let’s imagine you’re working on a new side-business and you’re going to be selling t-shirts online. Create your new project and if you can add a description, write down your goal. Be specific and include a due date.
2. List everything you can think of that needs to be done (go for volume)
Now you can start to list everything you need to do as part of this goal. The key here is to go for volume. Don’t worry about the quality of your tasks. Nothing is too small; just make sure you list everything you can think of that needs to be done.
Getting everything out of your head like this means you worry less about remembering what to do. It’s amazing how much calmer and more organised you’ll feel by taking this first step. Doing this also makes it easier to organise your work when you can see everything in front of you.
If you’re using Asana, you can use sections to break up the tasks. Simply type the name of your section, and add a colon on the end:
Another way to add even more depth and hierarchy to your work is to add subtask (which most task management apps support). I like using subtasks as a way of creating a checklist related to a task. For example, if I have a task to write a blog post, I’ll have a bunch of subtasks that remind me what I need to do before publishing that post e.g. creating a featured image, proof reading, writing a compelling headline etc…
You can also use subtask to break up a task into even smaller steps. For example, if you have a task to setup a homepage on your new website, list everything you need to do to create that page:
3. Put everything into a logical sequence
Now that you’ve listed everything you need to do, get everything into the right order. The easiest way to do this is to add due dates to your tasks.
When doing this, have a think about what’s going to make the most sense to do first. Which tasks NEED to be completed before you move onto others? For example, you need to buy a domain and setup hosting for your website before you can create a homepage.
Sometimes, it can be easier to start with your project end-date in mind and work back from there. For example, if you have a product launching on a certain date, work back from here to list the things you need to do before the launch.
e.g. product launch > test checkout > create sales page > setup ads
Or, as the bestselling author,Tim Ferriss, describes on his blog1, you can try and find the “lead domino”. In other words, which task, when you complete it will make other tasks easier to complete or redundant?
Creating this sequence means you no longer need to ask yourself “what do I need to do next?”. If you’ve planned everything in advance and have this sequence in place, you can move from one task to the next, with no downtime.
One of the other reasons I like Asana is for it’s “My Tasks” view. This is a page which summarizes all your tasks from across your various projects. The best thing about this page is that your tasks get organised into three views: “Today”, “Upcoming” (anything due within 7 days) and “Later”. When you set due dates, your tasks are hidden from view if they’re not due but come into the Upcoming and Today views as they fall due. So you can simply open Asana each day and you’ll have a clear list of tasks ready to look at without even thinking about it.
As I’ve already said, the tool you use isn’t as important as the principles I’ve described. You can apply all this theory to other apps and if you already have a task management system you like, that’s great!
4. Now get to work!
And really, that’s about it…
You can get a lot fancier if you want. I use various tags to organise my tasks a little more (which I’ll show you inside the Personal Productivity Toolkit). I even have task “templates” for various things I do on a regular basis, like writing blog posts. But you really only need to go through these few steps to dissect your goals.
To recap:
- Setup your project with a clear and specific goal in mind.
- List everything you need to do. Get it all out of your head.
- Arrange your tasks into a logical sequence.
Within 10 minutes you can plan out your project and I’m serious, you’ll be amazed at how going through this simple process can relieve you of a huge amount of stress. You’ll instantly feel more organised and calm as you get all of these ideas out of your head.
Where to from here?
Very soon the cart will be opening for the Personal Productivity Toolkit (for a limited time).
I have a lot more details coming your way very soon, but for now, know this… this toolkit contains a tonne of resources to help you learn about different productivity principles and ideas so that you can develop your own “Personal Productivity System”. I’m really excited to share more, very soon…
For now, I’d love to hear how you got on actioning your goals. Take 10 minutes now to go through the process and then come back here to share your progress.
How did you go? Was it easy? What project did you plan out? Share your progress below!