Hi, this is Garry from Next Actions
How many times have you thought to yourself “I can’t be bothered with this”
You have spent the time working through the tips from previous episodes
You’ve broken the work down
Prioritised it with the Eisenhower matrix
You’ve picked the top 3 tasks to work on
You’ve even made sure that you’ve prepared everything you need
And you’re still thinking to yourself, “I cannot be bothered”
The question then comes up
“Are you working on the right things”
Join me now to explore this question and see how working on the right things can improve your results
Do you have one or more of these
You don’t feel challenged
You’re not learning
You don’t feel engaged by what you are doing
You don’t think the work you are doing delivers a meaningful impact
You don’t know where you or your work fits into the big picture
You feel what you are doing brings value to others
You just can’t get motivated to continue
If you’re feeling any of these you need to be asking yourself
“Am I working on the right things”
Before we jump into the question it’s important to remember that sometimes you have to do the boring work
You have to do your tax returns, and yes it’s boring but it needs to be done
You have to pay the bills
You have to document what you’ve done and why you’ve done it
For things like this, the things you have to do, well, to be honest, the only thing you can do is suck it up and get on with it
For the non-mandatory things, this is where you have the opportunity to explore whether you are working on the right things
So what is the right thing?
It seems such a simple statement, but when you start to dig into it a whole can or worms is opened
Generally, if you are working on the right thing you get the following feelings
You feel challenged
You are learning
You are engaged
You feel you and your work have a meaningful impact
You know where you fit in the big picture
You think you are bringing value to others
And you’re motivated to continue
If these are missing then you are likely to start questioning what you are doing
You feel like its not worth doing anything
You start to wonder “am I working on the right things”
At times like this its when you may want to stop, take a step back and assess what you are doing
Look at the big picture
A good place to start is by taking a step back to see where you and your work fit into the big picture
This is where my life planning model comes in
There are 5 levels to this
At the top is your Life Purpose Statement
This is the “why” of your life
Why you are here
What are your core beliefs
Everything you do should be coming from this
Everything you do should be aimed at meeting your Life Purpose statement
Below this is your 3 – 5-year goals
These are long term challenging goals
Each one is designed to move you a step closer to meeting your Life Purpose
The next level down is your 1-year goals
These are medium-term and achievable goals
Each one should be moving you towards one of those longer-term goals
And each long term goals should have at least one 1 year goal
Next down are Projects
Don’t get over-worried by the word project
In my model, a project is just something that takes more than 1 step to complete
Your projects are discrete pieces of work that are there to help you move towards your 1-year goal
The finally at the bottom is your Actions.
An action is a single step that you can make that moves you towards completing a project
The idea is that every step moves you to complete a project
Every project comes you towards a 1-year goal
Every 1-year goal moves you towards a 3 – 5-year goals
And every 3 – 5-year goal moves you towards your life purpose statement
When you are doing things that do not fit into this, this is where you get the feeling that you are not working on the right thing
Let’s look at an example
You have a Life purpose statement of “Be a successful member of society”
A 3 – 5-year goal is “Own a successful business with $1,000,000 profit per year”
A 1-year goal is “Earn $200,000 revenue this year”
A project is “Launch an online store selling my products”
And then you have a whole series of actions that allow you to build that online store
This is good
You can see where each of the actions you are taking is moving you forwards
But you then find yourself spending time responding to comments on your Facebook page
And you are thinking to yourself “am I doing the right thing here?”
So you take a step back and look at your life planning model
Responding to Facebook comments is not on there
It is taking you away from doing actions that will move you towards your projects
It is taking you away from doing the things that are needed to allow you to move forward
By using this you are then able to see that you don’t need to spend time on those Facebook comments
You need to spend time doing the actions that move you towards your project
And yes this example is overly simple.
Everyone has more than 1 project
And in most likely responding to those Facebook comments would be useful in developing an excellent customer service
This is just an example!
So what can you do about those things that you decide you are no longer going to do
Some of them you can just ignore
If you’re like me you started doing them because you went down a rat-hole
Just decide that you’re going to stop them then stop them
Other things may well need to be done
For these, you would go back to your life planning
Where does the action fit into your life plan
If there is no home for it then you need to look at the bigger picture
Do you need a new project for the action to belong to?
Do you need a new 1-year goal for that project?
And carry on up the tree
With our example, resounding to Facebook comments
You decide you need a new Project for “Customer Service”
This, in turn, belongs to a new 1-year goal of “Build on Customer Service for 90% client satisfaction”
And this new 1year goal becomes a new child goal of that existing 3 – 5-year goals
Bu that still dent help you with getting that done as well as working on the other projects
This leads us into one possible solution
You decide that you need someone to help you
Once you decide to grow your team it opens up an entire minefield
Do you employ someone?
Do you earn enough to pay them?
How do you know they are the right fit?
Should it be a family member or friend?
How do you recruit them?
This list of questions it goes on and on
A very easy way to fix this is to look at the use of a Virtual Assistant, or VA
This is someone you can bring in to do specific tasks
Don’t like doing admin – use a VA
Don’t like producing and chasing invoices – use a VA
Don’t like marketing – use a VA
I could go one with different examples, but I think you are getting the idea
And there’s nothing to say you can only have 1 VA
You could use one for admin and then a different one for marketing
Many VAs have skills in a specialist area
Skills that you don’t have
Why not use someone else with the right skills to do that work
That then frees you up to concentrate on what you are good at
Think of it this way
If you are able to earn $100 per hour that you work
You are spending 8 hours a week doing admin work
You can use a VA to do the admin work
They charge $50 per hour
But, because they are a specialist in the admin they can do that work in 5 hours a week
To use the VA will cost you $250 per week
You can then use your 8 hours to do client work
That’s $800 per week in additional revenue
Take off that the cost of the VA
You are now making an additional $550 per week
That’s potentially over $24,000 additional profit each year
What could you do with $24,000 in a years time
Do you have something that makes you think “am I working on the right thing”
Do you have some work that someone else could do for you
If you do then put a comment below
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To summarise
We often have to do things that make us think “am I working on the right thing”
What we want to have is things that make
You feel challenged
You are learning
You are engaged
You feel you and your work have a meaningful impact
You know where you fit in the big picture
You think you are bringing value to others
And you’re motivated to continue
When you’re not working on the right thing its best to Stop
Then take a step back to look at the big picture
Look at your life plans and see where it fits in
If it doesn’t fit in then can you just stop doing it
For this those that still need to be done look at using other people to do that for you
A good place to start is to look at virtual assistants who can use their specialised knowledge to do those actions
If you’re struggling with what’s going on in your work and life then give me a call
We can work through my life planning process so you can see where everything fits
You will be able to see what you need to be working on, what others can do for you and what you need to stop doing this
Knowing this lets you work on the rights things and deliver the results you deserve
Please reach out to me on 0415 591672
I am based in Australia so please use the international dialling code +61 if calling from another Country
You can also email me on garry@nextactions.com.au
or visit nextactions.com.au where you will find a link to book a free short introductory call
Do you have any topics you’d like me to cover
If you do please drop a comment below
And I’ll add to the list of upcoming videos
Don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to my channel so you get new videos as they come out
I’ll talk to you again soon
