Chapter 15 Time Management

Critical Success Factor: The Weekly Review

Everything that might potentially require action must be reviewed on a frequent enough basis to keep your mind from taking back the job of remembering and reminding. In order to trust the rapid and intuitive judgment calls that you make about actions from moment to moment, you must consistently retrench at some more elevated level. In my experience (with thousands of people), that translates into a behavior critical for success: the Weekly Review.

 

All of your open loops (i.e., projects), active project plans, and "Next Actions," "Agendas," "Waiting For," and even "Someday/ Maybe" lists should be reviewed once a week. This also gives you an opportunity to ensure that your brain is clear and that all the loose strands of the past few days have been collected, processed, and organized.

 

If you're like most people, you've found that things can get relatively out of control during the course of a few days of operational intensity. That's to be expected. You wouldn't want to distract yourself from too much of the work at hand in an effort to stay totally "squeaky-clean" all the time. But in order to afford the luxury of "getting on a roll" with confidence, you'll probably need to clean house once a week.

 

The Weekly Review is the time to:

Gather and process all your "stuff".

Review your system.

Update all lists.

Get clean, clear, current and complete.

 

Most people don't have a really complete system, and they get no real payoff from reviewing things for just that reason: their overview isn't total. They still have a vague sense that something may be missing. That's why the rewards to be gained from implementing this whole process are at least geometric: the more complete the system is, the more you'll trust it. And the more you trust it, the more complete you'll be motivated to keep it. The Weekly Review is a master key to maintaining that standard. —- The Art of Getting Things Done (page 46)

Most people feel best about their work the week before their vacation, but it's not because of the vacation itself. What do you do the last week before you leave on a big trip? You clean up, close up, clarify, and renegotiate all your agreements with yourself and others. I just suggest that you do this weekly instead of yearly.

 

The Weekly Review: It’s the way I get the Visionary and the Doer together in a regular staff meeting, and they get to work things out with cooperation and enthusiasm. —- David Allen in “Ready for Anything” (page 86)

One Thing of Success = Planning Finally, your success boils down to One Thing… “Planning”… Execute your planning in 3-Steps:

1.   Write down your next day plan (to-do list) with “12-3-1 Rule, ” in the evening (Time Block for it).  
2.   Before  bed, visualize (10 minutes) your plan for the next day, especially about your “One Thing.” 
3.   Attack your “One Thing” in the morning relentlessly, with a Time-Block for four hours.

PS: If you want to put a 100-Power into it, then follow this formula: After Writing down the next day’s plan, go sit in a dark and quiet place, and do the… “Image Streaming.” This is how you run the movie of tomorrow, in your mind’s eye, today. Also do the “Future Mapping,” by Paul Scheele, along with it (June 28th 2016). The Harbinger of Business Success = Do the MITD without fail, like Yoga. Finally, your success boils down to “One Thing” called, “Planning.” Schedule 30 minutes every day as your daily-planning time… More you think more are the chances to find your One Thing. Execute your planning in 3 easy steps, for a chain-link reaction: 1.Write down your next-day plan (to-do list) with “12-3-1 Rule, ” in the evening. Do it daily on a designated time. “Time Block” for 15 minutes for it. 2.Based on this list, before bed, visualize (10 minutes) your plan for the next day, especially about your “One Thing.” (For example, Selling an annuity on 6/30/16). 3.Affirm it for 300 times a day, “I focus only on my One Thing called Vacuum.” A great formula for doing it… VAC = Visualize for 10 minutes. Affirm for 300 times. Write my next days’ calendar. Now, say it like this… “I focus only on my one thing called VACUUM.” PS: If you want to put a 100-Power into it, then follow this formula: After Writing down the next day’s plan, go sit in a dark and quiet place, and do the… “Image Streaming.” This is how you run the movie of tomorrow, in your mind’s eye, today. Also do the “Future Mapping,” by Paul Scheele, along with it. Also, get better in GOTS (Get on Their Side) by doing 2 things: Memorize 5Q’s FIA Presentation and practice MIFD (Most important 15 Daily), on a designated time, every day for a year. This is one of the best things I ever found out about time management. This is how it goes. Say like you are working on a project and your energy level is at 5 (On the scale of 1 – 10) and your focus level is at 1 (On the scale of 1 – 10). The formula is: Energy x Focus x Time = Output So, if you put: 50% of your energy 10% of your focus 10% of your time Multiply all these three, 5 x 1 x 1 = 5. But, if you are putting 100% of your energy, focus and time. Which boils down to 10 x 10 x 10 = 1,000. See the difference? You’re being 200 times more productive with the same amount of time spent in any endeavor.