The day you learned to get shit done

I went from years of not being able to get stuff done, to being fairly productive. So I decided to put together a framework that worked for me.

The 2 Week Goal

Since I work almost exclusively with startups, I’ve realized setting a 2-week goal is critical. Anything shorter than 2 weeks results in not having sufficient time to think & execute. And anything longer results in not getting feedback quickly enough.

Your goal should also be outcome-driven & not activity driven. For instance, if you are trying to generate leads in a new market, your goal should be to generate XX leads in 2 weeks, instead of starting a new campaign in 2 weeks.

It’s important to be focused on outcomes & not on activities.

What you work on > Efficiency

It makes a lot of sense to spend time thinking of what you are working on. I generally spend the first hour of each day thinking about how will I spend my time the rest of the day.

There are two filters that I use to identify what I should work on:

• Only work on activities that directly impact your 2-week goal.

• Within those activities identify the highest impact activities.

Ignore or delegate everything else.

Don’t do more than 3 things a day

One of the biggest challenges that hurt my productivity was my unrealistic optimism. Thinking you can knock off an unlimited number of things every day, is going to hurt your productivity more than anything else.

I’m not disciplined enough to do 3 yet, I’m at about 4-6. But I’m consciously working to get it down to 3 big things a day.

Do uncomfortable work first

Knock off things you are most reluctant to do the first. I generally spend my time knocking off things I am reluctant to do before lunch.

Track your progress visually

If you can’t see your effort visually, it’s hard to keep yourself motivated. Having a scoring-sheet where you see your effort moving the project forward, is the best way to stay motivated during the day.

Keep yourself Accountable

This is super critical but gets tricky when you are working by yourself. You ideally want to check-in with someone every 2 weeks, and see if you are honoring your commitment. Pick a group or a person to report your progress. Pick someone where you feel genuinely embarrassed if you don’t honor your commitment.

That’s it. That’s my system.