Two weeks ago I covered how to build your annual goal tracking sheet and last week I covered how to turn that goal tracking sheet into a quarterly plan which indicates your action items for each and every week.
Now we are taking it the final step to turn these sheets into daily action item logs. All of this is to help ensure that you are moving closer towards your goals and achieving more in 2020 than you ever have before.
For the audio version of this lesson, check out the BEYOND THE IMAGE PODCAST where I do a deep dive on the topic!
For daily action plans I prefer the bullet journaling method (check out the book all about how to create a bullet journal) – but here is how I tie it into everything we discussed.
I start my bullet journal with listing out the action items that need to happen in any given month. Where do those action items come from? Easy! The 90 Day Roadmaps we created last week. I just copy all of the relevant ones over to the month of January. Now I have a full list of everything I need to get done in that month.
Next, every Sunday I host what I call a WAR ROOM meeting. I start by doing this alone and if I need to bring my team in for a portion of it, I do that at the end. But the idea of a war room meeting is you set your action plan for the week.
From my monthly list, I break out what I need to get done that specific week. You are noticing the trend. I take a goal and I break it into the ridiculous bits to make it easier to manage and digest.
Big goals seem hard AF to get done. But break them into 52 tiny chunks and every week you move forward in your progress.
If I look at my war room action items for this week it involves work across most of my projects. But I have no projects that need to be finished this week, just moved ahead incrementally. However if I don’t accomplish these tasks for this week, everything the following week will now be a week behind.
Once the war room meeting is concluded and I have my list of what I want to focus on that week I open up my Calendar App. I prefer Google Cal as I can share with my team, but whatever way you want to track your time is fine.
I go into the calendar and I start to block out the time throughout the week (and yes, I only work 1 week at a time) that I need to accomplish the week’s worth of action items. I need an hour for this task here, 30 minutes for that task there. I block out my time aggressively but leaving about 30 minute buffers in between blocks to allow some stuff to roll over or stuff to come up (which it always does, naturally).
The war room meeting and calendar build can take me anywhere between 30 minutes and 90 minutes depending on the complexity of the week I have ahead. However it is worth every second as it is what ensures my focus and effectiveness in the week ahead.
Thus I invest this time to SAVE time throughout the week.
Lastly, every day in my bullet journal I will list out the tasks that need to get done that day, from my weekly list and my time blocked calendar. I work quickly, focused and aggressively knocking off each component on my list.
If I planned my day effectively, I finish on my estimated concluding time. The more I do this, the better I get at estimating. It is a muscle that requires work.
Know that early on it will be harder.
Know that early on you will get off track easier.
Know that early on you will be easily distracted.
However the more you focus, the more you customize to your needs, the easier it will get, the more focused you will get and the more accomplished you will become!
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James Patrick
JamesPatrick.com
IG @jpatrickphoto
