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Topic: Tools for Sticking to the Day’s Plan

Tuesday, January 28, 2020
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. Eastern plus 15 minute Q&A
(12:00 noon PT, 1:00 p.m. MT, 2:00 p.m. CT)

As part of my transition from solopreneur to entrepreneur, I am developing a skill I have never before mastered: how to stick to the day’s plan.

I have tried to calendarize work in the past, and all previous attempts have failed miserably. Most of my productive work has been done in heated sprints, in relatively large blocks of time. I can concentrate and get a lot done when I clear the decks, so that has been my main productivity approach: create large blocks of time.

To complicate my personal situation, whenever I’ve run into trouble completing a specific task on a specific day, I’ve usually chosen to analyze the psychology of the trouble. This has been excellent research, which has helped me to understand many cognitive and motivational problems. But dropping everything to do psychological research interferes with the scheduled activities of the business.

Now that I have a team, it is critically important for me to do tasks on schedule, so I don’t hold up their work. If I don’t do my part in time, I don’t get the benefit of having them do a chunk of the work.

The challenge is to stick to a schedule objectively. Things can come up that should change the schedule. But how do you make an objective change to the schedule, instead of just doing what you feel like? I have thoroughly eliminated my duty premise. I simply refuse to “just make myself” do things. I rebel at any method that shuts down my emotions. I know how destructive that is.

So, I’ve been working this problem. I am happy to say that I have several tools I can recommend to make the transition from ad hoc work to objective, calendarized work, without guilt or duty or forcing yourself. We will discuss:

• Cal Newport’s Objective Rescheduling Technique
• Brooke Castillo’s “Urge Jar”
• The Go-No Go Decision Method

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