THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

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Prediction - A Critical Leadership Skill

I wrote a LinkedIn post this week answering the question I was asked in a talk I did with a group of entrepreneurs:

"Is detailed planning limiting for startup founders?"

The short answer is yes - and it relates to one of the key leadership abilities of Predicting - Planning for the future and solving the right issues along the way to make that future a reality.

Predicting and planning evolves as organizations evolve - timeframes may lengthen as companies age, but developing the muscle of predicting the future is essential for any business leader at any stage.

You can read the post here - click here

What I didn’t cover in the post - weekly and daily planning.

Today I’m going to cover daily, with a simple way to build the planning muscle - and reducing the constantly reactive way most of us live our lives.

The problem almost all leaders I work with face, and what I’ve struggled with my whole career - and still struggle with although I’ve made dramatic improvement - is our good intentions fall apart on a daily basis when the urgent tasks of our business and life start coming at us.

The important tasks, or biggest priorities, always get pushed back until we “have time”, and rarely get the time and energy they deserve to make real progress.

This is how most people spend their days - reacting to the urgent requests that get fired at them throughout the day, and rarely getting to the important things.

This is one reason so many people work on nights and weekends, so they can do their important work when nobody is harrassing them.

This leads to daily frustration and burnout even in the best people. And without changing something, nothing will change.

Here’s a simple framework I use for structuring each day to get my most important work done, more frequently:

Morning Setup

1. Start slow - Waking the brain up properly is really important. To do this I start with reading from a book for 10-15 minutes. Lately it’s been the Bible which I’ve never really consistently read. Try to avoid the phone, email, or small administrative tasks in the first hour.

2. Morning Journal - I spend 5 minutes laying out the day:

   1. 3 things I’m grateful for

   2. Story from yesterday

   3. Score the day 1-10

   4. Did I complete yesterday’s priorities?

   5. What felt good & what felt bad

   6. How I’m feeling today & why

   7. 3 Things I need to complete today

   8. 1 Affirmation

   This short exercise contains a lot of psychology for improving my mindset throughout the day, but most relevent to this article is listing out the 3 Things I need to complete today, and tracking whether I completed yesterday’s 3 things.

   These three things are always with my 90 day priorities in mind, which I review weekly. Based on my priorities, and everything going on, what are the 3 things I need to get done to have a great day?

   Listing these things out, and then putting in the work each day to accomplish them, creates a magical loop of progress in my life that spreads to all parts. Seriously.

Note - my morning setup can flex from 3-60 minutes, includes other things time permitting, and needs to be flexible.

Time blocking around priorities

1. Your calendar should reflect your priorities if you want to get them done, not the other way around. To do this I make space for my priorities in my calendar through time blocking.

   I do this each week first with my Practice Manager, Cami, when we do our weekly meeting. So each day my calendar already has big blocks. When I look at it daily it’s a 10 second review with a few tweaks to make sure I have time to actually accomplish my big 3 for the day.

2. Deep work first - That’s anything that requires focus and non-distraction. It also includes any work that’s “hard” like some of my sales/biz-dev activities that I’m prone to procrastinate - then admin later in the day when my brain requires less focus.

3. Time for myself each day - My workout plan is non-negotiable. I also find quiet time each day to think and reflect on business and life. That doesn’t need to be an hour, but I generally find 90 minutes to myself each day which includes some combination of exercise, meditation, reflection, sauna, walking.

Shut down

Closing out the workday with a short ritual is a wise way to transition off of work. A simple way to do this is a brief reflection:

• Did I complete my 3 things?

• 1 thing to focus on for tomorrow

• For my work specifically if I have a client session the next day - Did I do my session prep and what still needs to be done for tomorrow?

This exercise allows my brain to transition with less anxiety, less checking of phone, and less distraction.

I still fail at this shut down part the most of all three sections. And I still fail at all three regularly!

I’m human.

But just like the great advice I was given about feeding toddlers - don’t worry about an individual meal or even an individual day, think about the nutrition they get over the course of a week - I don’t need to worry about getting every morning or day perfect.

Rather, if I have mostly good days and weeks, track my progress, and get good at doing what I say I’m going to do - great things happen!

Talk to you next week,

Mike