Whether it’s your most productive year, month, week or day, we all want to master the skill of getting our most important tasks done in an effective way. In doing so, you’ll be able to move your business forward, actually see the impact you’re making, and feel great about the work you’re doing.
But unfortunately most of you are currently spending your days in a much different way; the feeling of accomplishing a big task or project every single day is somewhat foreign to you.
I know from firsthand experience the frustration that comes with spending hours spinning your wheels on a task or project that, when it’s all said and done didn’t even provide the results you wanted – that frustration will quickly and easily turn into you throwing your hands up in the air and giving up.
I don’t want that for you – and I know you don’t want that for you either.
So let’s break this down into something super doable – a set of steps you can follow in order to accomplish a big task or project every single day.
THAT is what is going to help you experience your most productive year ever, one day at a time.
5 Steps to your most productive day ever
Learning how to become more productive is simple: all it requires is that you commit to practicing productivity every single day with these 5 steps.
1. Winning tomorrow today
One of the biggest mistakes we make every single night is not setting ourselves up for success the following day.
You win tomorrow today by laying out what you want to accomplish in the morning:
- Your morning routine (including actual times, like when you’ll wake up so you can hold yourself accountable), and
- The ONE goal you want to accomplish tomorrow.
Planning out what you’ll accomplish first thing in the morning with your routine and giving yourself a place to start when it comes to what task or project you’ll work on first sets you up for success because then you don’t wake up, sit down at your computer, and wonder “what’s next?”
2. Creating a plan for everything
Let’s say you’re working on creating your first online course.
You have an idea of the content you want to create, but you haven’t put anything together yet, and you’re not quite sure the exact ways you’ll market your course to your audience.
So… what’s your plan?
I can already tell that several of you are probably thinking things like:
- This course is going to be so much work;
- How will I ever find the time to put it together?;
- How will I market this and the other things I have going on in my business?; and
- I’m not sure where to even start…
Here’s the deal: this is not rocket science.
Creating a plan for everything you’re working on starts with breaking down your bigger, sometimes complex goal (like creating your first online course), into smaller, more manageable steps that you can accomplish during your Focus sessions.
You know how to create an outline for your content, you know how to create a video tutorial out of the lessons you’re teaching, so why aren’t you just doing it?
Your plan for anything and everything you work on throughout your day starts with:
1. Writing out the steps
2. Then:
- Determining dependencies;
- Identifying team members;
- Delegating;
- Putting a timeframe / deadline on each of your steps; and
- JUST STARTING
3. Setting Focus and Refresh sessions
Now that you have all the steps written out and you can see what needs to happen first, it’s time to create your first Focus session and start doing the work.
Your Focus session might be 45 minutes, which will allow you to create an outline for your course (it’s important that your Focus sessions has a specific outcome – what will you accomplish during that time?)
This will be followed by a Refresh period – maybe 10 minutes where you can give your mind a rest.
Then, your next Focus session might be 30 minutes, and your goal or desired outcome during that 30 minutes will be to record the first video tutorial for your course. Follow that up with 5 minutes of Refresh time.
And the cycle continues.
Now I’m not saying you’ll create your online course in a single day, but do you see how putting a plan in place and breaking down your bigger, more complex goals into smaller, more manageable tasks will help you conquer your plan one step at a time?
4. Keeping score
As you move through your Focus and Refresh sessions, it’s important that you keep score. This means grading yourself on your productivity and your discipline during each of your sessions.
By keeping score, you’ll not only be encouraging yourself to do better each and every time you set your Focus sessions, but you’ll also be giving yourself a baseline to gauge your progress and improvement over time.
So from 1 – 10 (10 being the highest level of productivity and discipline), how productive were you? How disciplined were you?
Be honest with yourself, because recognizing the roadblocks you’re coming up against and the struggles you’re having throughout your Focus sessions gives you the opportunity to find solutions for those roadblocks and struggles. And when we can find solutions, we can increase the progress we’re making towards accomplishing our biggest goals.
5. My biggest tip for FOCUS
Schedule it.
DO NOT use distractions as an excuse and DO NOT procrastinate because you don’t have a plan in place.
Entrepreneurs get stuck in the mud way too often.
We love to over-complicate simple things like planning ahead and actually writing out the simple steps we need to take in order to accomplish a bigger, more complex goal.
In doing so, we’re killing our productivity.
So just stop. Schedule your Focus sessions and start making your progress REAL.
The Mastery Journal
Need a little help with winning tomorrow today and setting up your Focus and Refresh sessions?
We create a guide to help you with both: The Mastery Journal.
Master productivity, discipline and focus in 100 days with your own Mastery Journal!
