Keep it Stupidly Simple When Planning

It's so easy to get caught thinking we need to pursue the shiny and new, only to find ourselves trapped in an overly complex thing we don't understand fully and rarely stick with. Things can get really messy really quickly if we're not ridiculously ruthless in cutting out what doesn't serve us, regardless of how innovative or how much potential we think it might be. We need to stop obsessing over the tactics and start obsessing about the end result and allocate our finite resources against the infinite options available. This is the crux of the creative mind.

BUT IF IT ALL HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL HOW DO WE DECIDE WHAT TO CUT OUT?

It starts with the end in mind and there are 3 areas to better understand.

1. What can you do more of?

2. What can you do better?

3. What do you avoid?

HERE'S A SIMPLE NOTEBOOK EXERCISE TO HELP YOU THROUGH THIS PROCESS.

Break your page into 4 quadrants like below. The top right of the quadrant are activities that make the biggest impact and come the easiest. The bottom left make the least impact and take the most time to do. We want to focus in on the top quadrants as much as possible.

KEEP DOING WHAT YOU'RE DOING. KEEP GETTING WHAT YOU'RE GETTING

Alex Hormozi, a well known entrepreneur had a great definition of intelligence and learning. He defines them this way: 

Intelligence: The rate of which we learn new things
Learning: New behaviours applied to the same conditions

Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to become a better learner. When you know what to do, you can change the behaviours, when you change the behaviours you get different outcomes. And should you find yourself caught in the feelings of it all, here's some mantras' to help you recalibrate...

“When I feel sad - all that means is that I have a perception of a lack of options and I just do not know what to do next.”

“When I feel anxiety - all this means is that I have too many options available and I just don’t know how to pick.”