Episode 422: My top 3 rules for planning and productivity

If you’re reading this podcast episode when it’s released, that means you’re here at one of my favourite times of the year… it’s October!!!

Here in the Southern Hemisphere, things are starting to warm up more consistently. We’re also seeing Christmas decorations in the stores, and everyone’s getting ready in the lead-up to Christmas. I’ve already put up my Christmas tree! (I needed it, so I just did it.)

It’s also one of my favourite times to be online because people start to ask questions about business planning.

It’s planner season!

I’ve seen so many ads on socials for new and shiny planners. People are really starting to think about what they’re going to do for their business plan for next year.

The thing that I love about it is that it’s a brilliant time to be more effective and productive in your business NOW.

In today’s episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast, I’m going to share with you my top three rules for planning and productivity. I think you’ll find them really helpful, regardless of whether you’re someone who really loves productivity and organisation, or someone who thinks that it’s not the way they were built.

Let’s dive in!

EPISODE 422: Listen using the player below, or click the links to your fave platform to subscribe and listen over there:

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I’m a business planning and strategy specialist. I have worked with every size of business. Between solo entrepreneurs doing it on their own, all the way up to being responsible for the business planning for an organisation with over 10,000 people and a divisional business planning manager (my division was 2,500 people in that role).

I have a lot of experience and different volumes of business plans that I’ve worked with in the past.

I’ve also created so many different tools and strategies that I’ve helped people to implement in their own businesses, because I absolutely love and adore helping people to find their zone when it comes to having a clear plan and being very productive and effective in their business.

But I want to be very clear that the way I help people to create and implement their business plan is always designed through the lens of: What is going to be most effective for the individual? What is the most likely to be effective and work, and for you to actually want to open it and work with it very consistently?

Over the years of working with people on their business plans (and having now facilitated the Heart-Centered Business Planning System for 10 years), I have collected for you my top three rules when it comes to planning and productivity.

These planning and productivity rules may surprise you…

Rule 1: Be a kind boss

For most people reading this, they are the boss AND the worker in their business. We have different hats that we have to wear, and we have different roles that we have to take on as the owner of a business.

But when it comes to being clear on your plan and maximising your productivity, one of the most effective things that you can do to ensure that you get things done (and that you’re being strategic) is to be kinder to yourself.

Be a kind boss!

The way that I visualise this for myself is that I separate myself into two different people.

There’s boss Tash and there’s worker Tash.

If worker Tash is struggling to get things done because she doesn’t actually know what’s a priority, then it’s boss Tash’s job to help her with that clarity.

Imagine were managing a team in an organisation, and someone in your organisation came to you and told you how much they wanted to contribute to the outcome of the business, and how passionate they were about working in this role in their zone of genius, but they were finding that when they sat down at their desk each day, they had no idea what to focus on.

If you were that person’s boss, you wouldn’t tell them to just figure it out. You, as the boss, would be kind. You, as the boss, would help to create the structure and clarity that that person needs, because you can see the potential in them.

Well I can see the potential in you. And I know that you can see it in yourself.

You can see the potential in your business, that’s why you’re so excited to create and build it. But worker-you might not be as effective and productive as you might like, and you might be feeling a bit frustrated with yourself. In most cases, that’s not because you need to be tougher on yourself or you need a personality transplant to change who you are intrinsically at the core.

It’s because your boss-self has not been as kind to you as maybe they could have been. That’s what you need.

You need kindness. You need to gain some understanding of what it is that you need in order to be your productive self and to deliver on that with absolute kindness.

Yes, I am absolutely here for all of the planning and productivity tools, setting timers, rewarding yourself, etc.

But everything that I recommend when it comes to business planning and productivity always comes through the lens of kindness.

One of the big realisations that a lot of people who do the Heart-Centered Business Planning System with me is that they’ve been trying to be more effective in their business by being more cruel to themselves – by being a tough boss on themselves. All it’s doing is bringing out their inner rebel, or creating so much micromanagement that they aren’t able to be effective and flexible with what is happening in their business.

The first planning and productivity rule is to be a kind boss (particularly to yourself).

Rule 2: Make the plan work for you

You might be shocked by this one seeing as I sell an entire planning system where I’m setting out a structure for you.

But actually, the structure and framework of the Heart-Centred Business Planning System is just the skeleton of that framework.

The thing that we do together throughout our year is build a planning process and system within that that is completely personalised to the individual.

If you are struggling to implement your business plan, instead of trying to figure out what you need to change about yourself, or how you need to change your behaviours, I want you to look at that process/plan and ask the question: Why don’t I engage with this? Why is this not working for me?

Don’t just label yourself the problem and decide that you’re not the planning type, or you’re not a productive person.

Instead of making up stories about why you are somehow wrong or broken or unable, I want you to pay attention.

What is it that you do need?
What is it that you need from this that would make it feel like it worked for you?

Some of the things that I do to make my planning system and my productivity tools work for me is I use a lot of colour, stickers and beautiful, gorgeous stationery and post-it notes.

I also have what is a priority for me visible to me at all times.

I use my planner in a way that works for me, and I’ve crafted that system to tap into what my strengths are. I’ve created a planning system and a process for myself which means it’s perfectly designed for me and the things that I normally used to get angry at myself about for not being able to sort it.

An example of this is avoiding Asana. I would avoid opening Asana (my task management system) relentlessly. I just didn’t want to open it because it was consistently full of red tasks, because everything was always behind and there were a thousand things to look at. It was really overwhelming.

Whenever I opened Asana, my first job was to spend 25 minutes cleaning up Asana, and by the time I’d done that, I felt exhausted. That’s not my zone of genius. That’s not something that makes me feel excited and fulfilled.

What I needed to do was ask myself why I wasn’t looking at it, and why I was avoiding engaging in that process.

One of the reasons why I was avoiding it was overwhelm.

Looking at a giant list of overdue things makes me feel like a failure, and it makes me feel overwhelmed. It then gives me decision fatigue. None of those things are strength areas that are in my wheelhouse that make me feel like I’m going to be a success at the end of the day.

That’s exactly the reason why I created my planning system in the way that I created it. It feeds me three to four things at a time, and that’s all I can see. That’s all I need to see.

Until those things are done, I don’t need to look at anything else.

Every day I have generally three things on my to-do list, and every day I am very likely to get those three things done.

Every day I feel like a success.

This means every day I’m getting dopamine hits that say I am on top of everything and I am amazing.

Sure, there are probably a thousand extra tasks that I could do. But they are not the ones that I decided I was going to do today. Therefore I don’t need to see those.

Some days, I get my three tasks done by 9:30 in the morning, and then I knock off for the day. I’m done.
Other days, I get my three tasks done pretty early in the day, and then I get really excited and decide to get find three more things to do because I feel like it.

I’m not rebelling against myself. There’s no micromanagement happening, but I’ve created a system that really works for me.

In saying all of these things, I may have planted a seed for you that maybe you need to reduce the size of your to-do list, or maybe Asana isn’t the best business planning tool for you. It’s great for task management, but I don’t think it’s good for business planning (that’s a whole other conversation).

I want you to remember the core lesson here: make it work for you.

You can’t make something work for you if you don’t have anything in place.

You can’t adjust your business plan if you’ve never crafted a business plan. And you can’t pay attention to why you’re avoiding your plan or not being as productive if you don’t make any attempt at actually producing something.

Action is the way that we adjust our planning and productivity systems to get them to work for us.

You’ve got to get back up on the horse!

This brings me to my final juicy rule for planning and productivity…

Rule 3: Don’t give up trying

There are lots and lots of business plans, templates, processes, and things that I’ve set up for myself that I don’t use anymore. But I didn’t give up trying.

Now I have landed on a structure for my day, week, month, quarter and year that is perfectly designed for myself and that I use consistently and effectively with great success.

I love opening and implementing my business plan. I love opening my planner each day and seeing what’s on the agenda and seeing how productive and effective I am.

My productivity is not based on how many hours a day I can squeeze out of myself. My productivity is based on how quickly I can get my top three tasks done today.

For me, being productive often looks like a 90-minute workday. For me, being productive often looks like a 10-hour workweek.

I didn’t create a business so that I could do a 40-hour work week as though I was going to a job.

I created a business because I wanted a life and I wanted to create financial freedom whilst also enjoying the lifestyle at the same time.

Don’t give up trying.

If you find a business planning tool and you’re putting it in place but you’re avoiding it, that doesn’t mean that the business planning tool is not for you at all. It just means that there’s something about it that isn’t quite working for you.

Sometimes there’s some finessing on how you use it, and sometimes it just means we’ve got to look for something different or use different strategies to engage with it.

One of the things that I struggled with several years ago was I felt like I had a really clear idea of what I wanted to prioritise for the day each day, but as soon as I sat down at my desk, I was looking at my inbox, my Slack messages from my team and my social media DMs, and I felt like my day started by looking at what everyone else wanted me to do that day.

It would often mean that if I wanted to finish my work day at 1pm so that Davey and I could go to the movies, then an hour before I meant to finish up for the day, I was only just starting to look at what my priority tasks for the day were.

I felt like I kept starting my day focused on what everyone else wanted first, rather than focusing on the things that I wanted to focus on for the day.

My fix for that came in a really bizarre way, but it wasn’t the first fix that I tried.

I tried creating a bit more discipline for myself that I wouldn’t open my inbox until I’d opened my business plan.

I had a friend help me set up my Google Chrome so that whenever I went to open my browser, it would open my business plan and remind me what was on my business plan. But often, there’s a lot going on with my quarterly business plan, so I don’t need to look at that every single day. I did have a day planner, but I just never really got to it.

Another thing happened, and that was that my laptop crashed halfway through recording some modules for one of my group programs.

When my laptop crashed, David (my partner who’s very techy) had a look at it, and something that we noticed was that there was a lot of temporary memory usage (ie. I wasn’t shutting down and restarting my computer often enough, and my poor laptop was just overloaded and overwhelmed).

In looking at that, I realised that there were two things going on at the same time:

1. My laptop was a little overwhelmed and overloaded, and it wasn’t getting a restart at the end of each day.
2. My brain was feeling the same!

At the end of each day, I was trying to carry in my brain some things I had to remember for the next day. The habit that I started doing, which I’ve talked about in previous podcast episodes, was that at the end of each day, I open up my planner for the next day and I write down what the key tasks that I’m going to be doing tomorrow are. That’s part of my end-of-day routine.

Then I shut down my computer, I close the laptop lid, and I put my planner on top of my laptop.

It’s a very physical change to the way that I operate and the way that I end and start my day.

Every day when I sit down at my desk to start work, I pick up my planner first.

Every day I pick up my planner, open it up to today’s date, look at what my top tasks are for today, and if I didn’t know what they were yesterday (or I only had a couple of them and needed to think about them fresh the next day) then I might write a couple extra tasks down.

Usually, I’ll have three or four tasks each day. I try to keep it to three as much as I can. Then I work on those tasks.

Because I physically have to pick up the planner, open it and see what those tasks are, most days, I work on those tasks before I open my emails, Facebook or Slack.

Because of that little, tiny change in the way that I operate things, I don’t leave tabs open overnights, so I’m not leaving tabs open in my brain either, AND I’m far more productive and get so much more done each day.

It also means that when I then go to look at emails, answer people’s questions and engage on social media, I do it having already nailed my top tasks for the day. This means I’m doing it with a lot less anxiety or time-restrictive stress.

It was changing the physical way that I shut down at the end of each day that actually changed the way that I engaged with my business plan.

That’s the third and final planning and productivity rule – don’t give up trying.

If all of this talk about planning and productivity has got you curious to experiment with some new strategies and tools, I have two fabulous resources.

1. My free Quarterly Planning Template

That quarterly planning process and template can be used regardless of when it is. You don’t need to start on the very first of each quarter. It’s your opportunity to engage with your business strategy in a way that you are prioritising and understanding where you need to focus your energy and attention to maximise the chance that you achieve your goals.

You can grab that free template here: tashcorbin.com/qplan

2. The Heart-Centred Business Planning System

If doors are open when you’re reading this, you’ll be able to join us for next year. If it’s waitlist time, you’ll be able to jump on the waitlist.

The Heart-Centred Business Planning System is a year-long program in which we set your goals and focus for the year together, and then we set about going and achieving those goals in implementable, highly effective short bursts.

Think of them like quarterly sprints.

We break up your year into these four quarters, and we maximise the effectiveness, productivity and lifestyle that you get to experience in each of those four quarters.

The Heart-Centred Business Planning System was established in 2014 (this is our 10th year using the system!). I hope you can come and join us.

You can find out more at: tashcorbin.com/planner

Thank you so much for joining me for this planning and productivity episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.

Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.