As a busy entrepreneur, you’ve probably (like me), found yourself wishing for more hours in the day. Do you find yourself thinking, "hmm… if I just had another 10 or 12 hours a day, I could finally ! get my business and life where I want it to be?" I know I have. Though, despite all my wishing, I’m still working with the same 24 hours as everyone else. 🙂
I do know a bit about getting a lot done- and I wanted to share a strategy I’ve been working with for the past six weeks which is working really well for me. I tend to take on a lot of new projects all at once, which leads me to feel a bit scattered and uncertain about what to make progress on, first. The strategy I’ve been using is called the 3 tasks/3 buckets strategy (I made this up) and it’s been helping me to stay on track and to be very productive.
Basically, you take the next three buckets (projects) that you want to or need to complete. Project A, Project B, Project C. These can be a mix of personal and business projects, though your business will grow more quickly if you focus on just business tasks during the workday. Anyway, so you take these three projects, and then you list, each day, what three tasks you’ll accomplish for each project. So Project A, task 1, Project A, task 2, Project B, task 1, etc.
So, my list, lately has looked like this:
Authority Summit
Task 1: Contact Speakers about Teleseminar
Task 2: Promote Teleseminar
Task 3: Contact hotel about meeting room layout
Consulting Clients
Task 1: Set up program structure for client 1.
Task 2: Contact Sam to revise site
etc.
What I do, then, each day, is make a list of 3 actions I need to take, in each of these buckets/project domains. I’ve identified these as being most important, either based on deadline (The Summit is just over a month away), commitments (I made a commitment to my clients and need to help them first), or finances (items which I can complete to bring me cash immediately.)
This approach has been very helpful at organizing my massive to-do list, and has been working well at providing me a sense of completion and accomplishment each day. You can, of course, adapt this system to suit yourself.
If you try it out, or improve on it, I’d love to know how it works for you. And, of course, if you have any other suggestions for finding more time to complete everything, I’d love to hear those, too!
