Published on
April 11, 2008 in
Books, Educational, Mental, Must Read, Personal, Professional and Reviews.
Tags: David Allen, Delegate, goal, GTD, outsource, project, time manager.
Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far then you’re probably more organized than you’ve been in a long time. All of those projects floating around in your head and on your desk have finally been roped in and tamed. You’re mind should feel a lot lighter and you should feel a lot more relaxed. Now it’s time to up the ante. You have two nebulous folders in front of you that say Defer and Delegate. We need to turn these folders into action plans to make sure the projects they contain get done. Let’s deal with the Delegate folder first.
Open up your Delegate folder and take a look at each project in it. Now think about who you’d delegate each one of those projects to. Start making separate stacks for each person you want to handle you projects. You should be looking at several stacks of paper and each stack should be labeled with the name of the person you’re going to trust with those projects. Take those stacks and place them each in their own folder labeled with the person’s name. On the outside of the folder, staple a list of the projects that the file contains so you can check them off as your project manager completes them. Now you have a way to track the progress of the people you’re trusting to complete these projects.
Next it’s time to tackle your Defer folder. The goal here is to give each project its own file so we can develop action plans. Let’s take “Build a Website” as an example. Your action plan may look something like this:
1. Decide on content and product
a. research feasibility and demand for product
b. research wholesalers/drop-shippers for product
c. decide whether to write my content or outsource it
i. research sites that offer article writing services
ii. write articles or post ad for a writer
2. Decide on a domain name
a. research domain name providers
b. reserve domain name
3. Research web store hosting sites
a. research credit card processing options
b. research web development software
c. purchase hosting and/or software
d. sign up with a credit card processor
4. Decide on site design
a. build site
5. Research other ways to monetize my site
a. adsense
b. affiliate programs
c. integrate into site
6. Find ways to advertise site
a. article marketing
b. adwords
c. banner ads
d. viral marketing
e. link trading
7. Implement, Review, and Refine
Once you have one of these outlines for each of your projects, take the first step from each project and put them all on their own list. Now you have a “Next Action” list for all of your projects. Every time you complete on of these tasks, go to the corresponding project folder and write down the next task. In this way you have a dynamic list that’s constantly moving you towards completing all the projects on your list and you always know exactly what the next step forward is!
Now all of your projects are happily on their way to completion. But what about the projects that keep coming back every week, month, or quarter such as inventory or washing your car? Read the next article on to The Perpetual Project War Board to find out how to deal with these persistent projects.
We’ve all said it. I’m willing to bet you’ve said it more than once. “All I need is a few more hours in a day.” Or maybe it’s, “If only there were 8 days in a week.” There just never seems to be enough time. But the truth is there’s plenty of time in each and every day to accomplish your most important tasks and it only takes about half an hour a day to set yourself up for success. How can this miracle occur? You just need to weaponize your day.
What do I mean by weaponizing your day exactly? Too many of us go into our days without a plan. We simply take whatever task presents itself, complete it, then move on to the next task. What you need to do is determine ahead of time what tasks are important? What tasks are going to be the most productive for you? Think about that for a minute. What tasks are hanging over your head right now? What tasks would advance you most financially, professionally, or personally if they were completed tomorrow? Now write those tasks down! Take a page from David Letterman’s playbook and make a top ten list. This list will be the backbone of your day. Come rain or shine, if nothing else gets accomplished, these 10 items will be done! Do this each and every day. I find that it works best if I make it part of my nightly routine. Before I brush my teeth for bed, I write my top 10 list down in my trusty notebook.
So what’s making a top ten list going to do for you? Well, first of all it will help you prioritize your day. You’ll no longer be a slave to those little projects that seem to pop up out of nowhere. When you prioritize your most important tasks it makes it infinitely easier to say no to the little things that crawl out of the woodworks to drain suck up your precious time. Every time someone asks you to do something you’ll immediately think, “Is this task really important enough to take time away from my top ten? Should I delegate this task or just say no all together?” By setting a goal for yourself ahead of time you’ve ensured that you don’t wander through your life just trying to keep up. You have a plan, a purpose, a direction; and nothing will derail you from that unless it’s of the utmost importance.
I was watching a computer animated film the other day where the main character tried to fix this strange invention that was supposed to make the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well the repairs didn’t go so well and the device sprayed PB & J all over everyone in the room. Instead of getting angry everyone congratulated the young lad for his spectacular failure! If only real life was like this. In the real world we’re bombarded with slogans like, “Failure is not an option!” The fact is failure is an option. Any time you take on a new endeavor, you’re more likely to fail than to succeed. Should this deter you? No way!
Failure is a tool to build success. Success is the good stuff. It’s the goal. But failure is what will lead you there. Failure is a learning experience. From success you get nothing in terms of development. When you fail you haven’t really made a mistake, you’ve simply found the wrong path to success. After a while you’ll get on the right track and success will be yours as long as you have the guts to keep on going.
Persistence is what separates the achievers from the naysayers. Too may people have it in their heads that you should never fail. If you’re one of those people then I can say with absolute certainty that true success will never be yours. You’ll have a lot more success and a lot more fun in life if you not only accept failure but seek it out! Why not? Make it one of your goals this year to have a spectacular failure. I mean a real bomb!
Why the heck would anyone tell you to fail? To get you to try! What is it that you’ve always wanted to do but have been too afraid to take on? Go ahead and do it! The fear of failure has prevented more people from achieving their dreams than any other force on this planet. A failure is not someone who fails; it’s someone who gives up trying before their goal is reached. Give yourself permission to fail and see what happens. At the worst you’ll get a great learning experience and who knows, you might just make your dreams come true.