80/20 Strategies for Web Marketing, Business Systems, & Personal Productivity
In a previous article, I wrote about how a simple project matrix spreadsheet tool can simplify decision-making for choosing the highest yield projects. This is such a great system for entrepreneurs at all stages because it allows you to take a quick 30,000 foot look at your current situation. Often, we entrepreneurs can become so overwhelmed by our own ideas that we end up never doing anything and caught in an endless “project planning” loop…
In this article, I want to go to the next level and talk about how to finish projects. The project matrix tool is perfect for evaluating and choosing projects. This is definitely important and a critical first step. But afterwards you can be left with some difficult questions…
What do you do once you’ve chosen a project? What’s the best way to get started? And how can you take a project from idea to completion?
To understand how to finish projects, first we need to look at the drivers behind project completion — goals.
At the beginning of 2010 I set some pretty large goals for myself and my business. Back around January, that was enough to keep me motivated and focused. But somewhere around early February, the game changed a bit for me. I found myself losing focus and increasingly distracted. Instead of taking steps to build and grow my business, I kept hitting roadblocks and getting stuck in the mud.
Don’t get me wrong — there’s nothing wrong with long-term goals. They are essential to the bigger system I’m building in my life. They help keep me centered around my values and my dreams.
The problem with long-term goals is they take too long to realize and, after a period, they’re not really that motivating. This, of course, is exactly what Tim Ferriss is talking about in “The Four Hour Work Week.” In the business and career world, the carrot most of us think about is retirement. That’s what we’re working for, right? That’s the big pie-in-the-sky. Trouble is, retirement is too far away to excite most of us (especially 20- 30- and even 40-somethings). And to top things off, the conventional formula of “save and invest now and get rich later” simply doesn’t work for most people these days.
So… what’s the solution? As Tim suggests, mini-retirements are a much better way to break up the work monotony of life and keep things interesting…
Another book I’m currently reading, The Power of Full Engagement, makes a similar point from a more scientific perspective. Oscillation, the authors point out, is one of the keys to happiness and productivity. On, off, on, off — on again and off again. This is exactly how we move through sleep cycles. First we begin to fall slowly into a deep sleep before entering the deepest stage called REM where we get our most rejuvenating rest. Then we come slowly back up into a wakeful state again before repeating the cycle. In sleep, we move through these cycles every 90 minutes.
The lesson we have to learn from our sleep, according to The Power of Full Engagement, is that our work-play or work-relax balance should also be built around oscillation. Work, play, work, relax, work, play.
Now, how can we apply this information to help with finishing projects?
During the last two weeks in March, my girlfriend and I took a trip to Europe for some rest-and-relaxation. We also had a social media conference to attend there, but that’s another story…
Before we left on the trip, I decided to think of the trip as a mini-retirement and to set a goal of finishing some things on my to do list so I could spend all of my time really relaxing on the trip. Basically, my goal was to clear my desk of all pending to-do’s and PROJECTS.
During the month or so leading up to the trip, I experienced a higher level of productivity and clarity than I had in months. Suddenly, I had a much higher level of motivation and my ideas about what was important and essential to complete were crystal clear.
Also before the trip, I identified about 5 projects that were eating up my mental energy and needed to be addressed. I simply told myself that these projects would have to wait until I came back from the trip before I gave them any additional attention. This one simple step freed up tons of energy and focus. Why didn’t I think of this years ago???
To sum it all up, clear set-in-stone deadlines force action and help eliminate distractions.
The simple system I am now using looks like this…
1. Get a Clear View of Your Projects
Use the project matrix tool to list out your projects and try to put them all into perspective. Be super honest about how much money it’s going to cost and how much time it’s going to take. Then you can quickly see which projects are worth your time and which are not. Spend enough time on this first step, and I think you’ll be surprised by which projects actually deserve your attention.
2. Create a Reward with a Deadline
For me, the best rewards are vacations. I think vacations work so well because they combine “fun and relaxation” with “time away from work.” To put it another way, when I’m on vacation I am simply not interested in work because I have so many other exciting and interesting things to do. Travel of any kind is great for this, especially since I work from a home office. It’s even better if you can share this deadline with someone else — a friend, spouse, significant other, business partner, whatever.
3. Choose Your Projects and Create Your Action Plan
Now that you have a clear deadline (preferably 4-8 weeks from now), you can choose the highest value projects to focus on to completion during that time period. This is also an important time to put any other pending projects to bed. It sounds obvious, but you really need to tell yourself in writing or even aloud that these projects simply have to wait until the next round.
4. Make Sure Your Project Goals are Measurable and Clear
This last point is extremely important. Let’s say you choose 3 projects to complete before you go on a cruise with your spouse two months from now. Great! Now it’s time to “redesign” those projects so they are associated with a measurable goal.
For example, let’s say you have two business projects and one personal project. The business projects are “Create a New Video Product” and “Write More Blog Posts.” The personal project is “Exercise More.” I hope you can already see how vague these projects are. Actually, as projects they’re not vague at all. The problem is they’re not yet strongly associated with any goals. This is exactly why it’s so helpful to rename projects with the actual outcome you want. Your goal is not to create a new video product — your goal is to “Sell 10 New Video Products” before you leave for the cruise. Your goal is not to “Write More Blog Posts” — that’s just a means to an end. What’s the end you’re actually looking to achieve? It’s probably something more like “Get 50 New Email Sign Ups on My Blog.” That’s MEASURABLE. Same with the personal project. Your goal isn’t really to exercise more. Again, that’s what you will likely do to achieve the goal. The goal is something clear like “Lose 5 Pounds” and to do it before that cruise!
I hope you get the idea. By first setting a deadline, your priorities become much clearer. Then, all it takes is a little rethinking of each project so you begin to see it in terms of a goal and not some silly project name that makes you feel like it’s never finished.
Trust me, when it’s time to grab your bags and head to port for that cruise, you’re going to feel great knowing that you worked really hard to achieve a clear list of goals and that you now know how to finish projects anytime you want!
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