I trust you have been enjoying this series exploring the 7 Keys for Living a Productive Life from my book: The Productive Life. In this message I am going to cover Key #4: Plan Your Time.
Let me give you a detailed overview of what I have included in this chapter of my book as I unpack some best practices around planning your time. There are 4 tools that will help you become productive as you plan your time:
1. Use a Planner: A productivity planner is a game changer when it comes to planning your year, month, week and day and to prove just how serious I am about using a planner I have actually spent the last six month working on one that is aligned with the 7 keys and that will help you get on top of your life. It is currently available as a free printable download for anyone who buys my book. Here are images of the main pages:
2. Plan in Advance: There are countless benefits to sitting down and planning what you are going to do (whether it is in the next hour, day, week, month, year or decade) and a good productivity planner will help you do the kind of advanced planning that will jumpstart your productivity. One of the things that I do every day, using my planner, is setting aside fifteen minutes every night to plan my major priorities, projects and tasks for the next day so that by the time my day starts I know exactly where I am going and I am less distracted and spin my wheels a whole lot less as I gain traction with my day! If you look at the first image under the last point you will see that the shaded part of the page (the T-shape) is what you complete the night before so you are ready for the day before it arrives!
3. Create Your Goals: I am going to introduce you to a fantastic tool that was created by the guys who released The ONE Thing book called the GPS Goal Planning Template. I have a Word version that is available as a download with the book which helps you create a Goal for each Life Area, then you set 3 Priorities for each goal; then design 5 Strategies for each priority and finally you choose a Deadline for each of the 5 Strategies. Here is what the GPS Planner looks like:
4. Schedule Your Goals: Who says that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Earlier this year I learnt how to use my calendar as a secret weapon to ensure that I move towards reaching my goals. Not only did it fast track my efforts at creating a leadership pipeline for the organization I am working in, and help me create a brand new daily morning routine, but it also got my book written and released. Clearly it is a game changer!!!
Okay, so I am a little excited about this Key and believe that it will change your life. I don’t quite know what to give you to get you going, other than to seriously urge you to consider making the investment in yourself by buying a copy of my book and working through it. You won’t be sorry for stretched yourself financially because of the return you will get for your investment. What price would you put on creating a life that is firing on all cylinders? Whatever value you come up with, do the math and if my book on Amazon – at around $10 – is less than 10% of that figure – then you would be crazy not to make the investment!!! Get it with this link: http://bit.ly/TPLBOOK
In the next message I will explore Key #5: Focus Your Mind. If you think I am excited about Key #4 – just wait until next time!!!
Your productivity coach
Mark