Here are the 3 strategies I use with ruthless relentlessness to manage my workday.
1. Live by the 80/20 sword.
Do you love your free time? I do! I require a lot of time to sit in my favourite chair and drink coffee, read books, go for long rambling walks and plan out my mem-wahs. I need at least 90 minutes to complete my morning regime. I don’t work at night. So how do you build and grow a 7-figure business when you adore free time as much as we do?
You apply the 80/20 principle to your life with vigour and relentlessness.I have blogged extensively about the 80/20 rule, or the Pareto Principle. The idea is that there are only a couple of things you do that really move the needle for your business…
As in, if you were to list 20 business-related tasks that you do on a weekly basis, anywhere from 3-6 of them drive most of your results. Therefore, if you really love your free time, the remaining 14-17 tasks should probably be scrapped, automated, or delegated.
What are the 3 activities you do that drive the biggest results in your business? For me, they are (quite broadly): planning, writing, and speaking. My job is honestly to maximize my working time in these 3 areas, and then either scrap, automate or delegate stuff that isn’t among these categories of activities.
If this concept intrigues you, you should make time for Episode 435 of Power + Presence + Position How Scarcity Mindset Feeds Business Complexity where I share how my decision to invest “planning time” into business systems eliminated a TON of business complexity and ultimately allowed our company to achieve MORE with fewer employees.
2. Block trolls.
Have you ever blocked someone from a social media channel or your cell phone? It’s amazingly simple to do. Google it and feel the sa-weet liberation of becoming Editor in Chief of your newsfeed.
If you practice the 80/20 rule with the type of zealous fervour I encourage, you’ll quickly discover that…there’s a lot of stuff that goes un-done. Projects that get delayed because they don’t meet your criteria for what is worthy of your attention or your team’s attention. Details or behaviours that others do reflexively, but (again) don’t meet your criteria, so they are undone. Sometimes you’ll find there are worthy and important projects that are put on hold for 90 days or more because they aren’t important now, nor do they offer enough long-term value to be done now.
I call these undone items trolls. Unless you develop fierce blocking skills, these trolls will gather under the bridges of your mind, hang upside down on your ceilings at night, gnashing their teeth and telling you bad things will happen if you don’t handle the details of everything all the time NOW.
You gotta learn to block the trolls. Here’s what I do. I literally turn the lights on by stopping, and saying aloud to myself: I’m not prioritizing this now. NEXT. If you do this consistently you’ll retrain your entire self to the fabulous reality of seeing firsthand how utterly unimportant those undone items actually are.
You will become an epic troll slayer, is what I’m saying. And from one Epic Troll Slayer to another, I can tell you that troll slayers have much more time, money, and impact than troll prey, so please, proceed with all haste through steps 1 and 2 of this article.
3. Make fun plans.
I absolutely adore my work…and I adore it so much that it’s easy to let it consume my calendar because it really is fun. And, well, there’s always more that could be done. Know what I mean?
Thus, I have found it to be very effective to plan fun activities for myself so that I actually WANT to stop working and go do something else that I enjoy just as much. Get ruthless about having fun, queen.
OK, there you have it. 3 tips to help you ruthlessly prioritize.
Need more help?
- Book a Debrief call with my team. We are very good at pinpointing the ONE THING that will drive the lion’s share of your growth.
- Uncover your niche by attending the Niche Down, Cash Up Masterclass
- Listen to Podcast Episode 435: How Scarcity Mindset Feeds Business Complexity