“All my life I wanted to be somebody. Now I realize I should have been more specific.”

-Lily Tomlin

A few weeks back I posted about cleaning out your email inbox. If you missed that, please check out the YouTube video here.

This week, I’m going to be writing about a tool I’ve been using for a few months that has been pretty amazing. It’s a system for being more productive outlined in the book “The 12 week year” by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington (check out Resources —> Book Recommendations above for the link to Amazon to purchase, if you want it). 

Here are the basics of the book:

• It’s easy to be busy all the time, but to achieve anything meaningful, you have to focus your energy and effort on the things that move the needle toward what’s important to you. 

• To reach big goals, you first need to declare them to yourself. (Write them down!) 

• After defining your big goals (year 1, 3, 5+), you can then consider the steps needed to get there. 

• Use 12 week blocks to make these steps happen, one at a time. 

• Within each 12 week block, focus on just 1-3 goals, and write down what your weekly progress will be. 

• Score yourself each week. 

• Review your progress/scores at the end of each week. Alter your goals as needed (did you plan too much? Not enough? What worked well - do this more! What didn’t work - eliminate this!)

• Focus on what you can control (the lead indicators) and keep track of the outcomes (lag indicators). Accept that the lag indicators are not totally within your control, but in time will happen for you if you keep honing your lead indicators that are working well. 

• Meet weekly with a group of peers to guarantee your accountability. You are 7x as likely to stick with goals when you have an accountability partner or group! 

Step one is to think of your goals and create a vision. Make a compelling vision for your future that is so amazing it makes you feel eager to get started. You can’t wait to get started because you want to experience this so badly. This is the kind of vision that will help you to commit to the actions necessary to achieve these goals. This is the way vision board manifest things in your life, not by magic, but by inspiring your ACTION. 

For us, as parents, I’d like to encourage you to think about where you want to be in your relationship with your kids in one year, 3 years, and 5 years. Try it for one year from now using this worksheet. Include as many details as you can. Make it a nice story that makes you smile to imagine. 

Next week, I’ll show you how I use my new favorite productivity app - Asana (it’s FREE) - to make this happen.