It’s lovely and wonderful to have your focus areas for the year.  Well done for getting this far!

 

Ready

Now you have to figure out how to act on them, organise yourself around them, and ultimately ensure that when you review them in a year’s time, you can actually say to yourself:  “Wow!  I really did have a productive year and I’m proud of myself for the progress I’ve made in what’s important to me.”

Even better is when you have other people notice your progress as well as support you in your efforts, as they can now clearly see what you are working towards because you are now much clearer yourself.  You’ve allowed yourself to be deliberate and set some boundaries around yourself, which will also contribute towards living with more compassion as you can hold both yourself and others accountable to those boundaries (see “Do You Understand the True Essence of Courage, Compassion, and Connection?” for more about this).

All you have to do now is make progress!

Steady

So how are you going to do it?  Quite simple really.  Bregman suggests in his book “18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done” that your ‘to do’ list becomes a ‘to do’ grid:

With this format, you are able to very quickly see the tasks you are doing in relation to the focus area they support (see Banish the Catch All To Do List! for more info on finding your focus areas).  If things don’t fall into one of these categories, and it is too big for the other 5%, you will have to make some extra decisions that include what the cost is to your focus areas if you allocate time and energy to this task that doesn’t support them.  Let’s get you started with it now.

1. 1. 1. Find a piece of paper and draw your ‘to do’ grid
      2. Label each of your boxes with one of your focus areas
      3. Write some initial ‘to do’ items in a few of the focus areas
      4. Notice if you have a balance, or where you might need to prioritise

You may also find it useful to have an ‘Ignore’ list – the things that you are consciously not going to do.  Some things you may consider including are what you are not willing to achieve, or things that don’t make you happy when you are doing them/after they are done, or things that are just not important to you.  What gets in the way of  what you want to focus on?  And can you get rid of it?  Having an ‘Ignore’ list is almost more important than your ‘to do’ grid.  It allows you to block out the noise and messages coming at you and mindfully/consciously choose what doesn’t get done – which is much easier to live with than the guilt of having let things fall through the cracks!

Speaking of cracks, now it’s time to crack on!  Get those items done and dusted so they can be replaced with new ones next week that move you even closer to your goal.

 

Go!

You are ready to start cooking with gas.  You’ve got your focus areas, your new ‘to do’ grid, and your ignore list.  Great!  Congratulations!  You’re almost there.  As the old adage goes: Failing to plan is planning to fail.  So you have your plan, you know what you’re doing, you see how it contributes to your focus areas, as well as knowing what you are not going to do, and you are pretty chuffed with yourself for making it this far.

Lights, camera, action!  Trouble now is that the most difficult part is upon you – the day-by-day follow through.  It’s much easier to decide what’s important than it is to spend time doing it.  So I’m going to finish this article with some tips on getting things done and being successful.

 

The Surprising Secret to Success

It is probably no surprise to you that we have to stay motivated to be successful.  Hours, years, decades have gone into research to determine the true secrets to success.  And it boils down to three crucial elements:

1. You want to achieve it
2. You believe you can achieve it
3. You enjoy trying to achieve it

Most of us get 1 and 2 – obviously!  But 3?  This is the surprising secret.  Think about all the failures that add up to a success.  How many times does an elite athlete lose before they win?  A child attempting to tie a shoelace before they actually manage it?  The act of trying to achieve it becomes the most important element in success.  When we enjoy the challenge, we keep trying, and we keep trying because we want to achieve and believe we can achieve because it’s been done before or we want to go one better.

So it doesn’t matter how fast or slow your progress is on your new ‘to do’ grid.  What matters is that you enjoy working towards those goals, trying to get those items crossed off.  You should get pleasure from the journey to those goals as well as the achievement of the goals themselves.

 

Share Your Insights

What has made it onto your ‘to do’ grid?  What are you consciously choosing to ignore?  Share your insights in the comments below.

 

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