Gear Up To Pare Down
January 4, 2012 by MaryEllen
What one action could have a real impact on your business for the next few months? Define and begin that action, and prepare to reap profits.
Too simple? Simple makes sense.
If you have difficulty narrowing a myriad of projects to one goal, welcome to reality.
I participate in a mastermind group that tackles reality with a theme. Each participant develops the wording to focus their actions for the year. For example:
- Transcend What Is and Invent The New
- New Me
- Heart Vision, Intuitive Momentum
The theme offers a solution to multiple projects because, like an umbrella, it embraces all. Scheduling determines priorities.
Although every person has the same amount of time in one day, some get far more done than others. I’m convinced productive people know exactly what they need to do.
The steps look like this:
- Establish a theme
- Define goals
- Break goals into realistic steps, i.e., what will I concentrate on this month?
- Take monthly goals or concentrations and divide them into weekly ones
- Each week, for example, list the top 10 goals for the week
- For each weekly goal, list the steps or tactics that must be taken
- Define a realistic amount of time for each tactic
- Physically schedule tactics on your calendar
A calendar facilitates reality. If you have realistically estimated the time involved and marked it on your calendar, it’s simple to see if you are over-committing. I, for one, frequently list far too many projects for the time allotted if I fail to visually map out the tasks on a calendar.
One of my most important projects for first quarter 2012 is paring my 198-page ebook, “The Six Week Marketing Master Plan” to Four Weeks.
- Step one is to revise the 45-day table of contents (toc) outline to a new 30-day outline.
My TOC outline is due on/before next Tuesday. I estimate it could take as long as three to four hours to complete. My calendar has time blocked for completion of this task.
- Step two, the copy portion of the project gets more complicated. Working from the toc outline I plan to complete all content rewrites prior to February 15. I will then and submit the new product to a graphic designer for finalization.
- Step three, the finalization of the project will be complete on/before March 15, 2012.
I determined one action – the rewrite of this ebook – could significantly impact my business in the next few months. I added accountability to my own project with a promise to copy someone else on my toc outline due next Tuesday. Then, I published my own deadlines here for the world to see.
It’s simple, this effort of gearing up to pare down.
What one action could have a real impact on your business for the next few months?
What’s stopping you from taking action?
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Great article! One thing that was really stopping me in the past was multiple calendars. So I would also suggest having one central calendar and follow up system. CRM can be great for a small biz to keep track.