Achieve Laser FOCUS + PRODUCTIVITY With The System Legendary Fastlaners Use...

[The-J]

2 weeks in, still using it, still really liking it.

I think I just found my legal pad + Google Calendar combination a little too disorganized. It required a lot of manual input day-to-day. Now the input happens every few days, which is nice. Not only that, it allows me to focus on my tasks.

I'm pretty bad at organizing in general, but this system has helped a lot.

 

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[Shades]

You may already be aware of this, but here is a simple way of syncing Trello with your google calendar for anyone interested.

 

[amp0193]

I'm sure @LightHouse will give you his answer. However, I find it interesting that you should ask this question, as I have been thinking about writing some articles around how Agile software development methodology parallels and can enhance your business management processes. (I believe Trello got its start in life as an Agile tool.)

In Agile, there is a Backlog, a Release (sometimes), and a Sprint. Plus there are daily Scrums.

The Backlog

The Backlog is that list that you refer to, and how I think many people may be using their Inbox. The Backlog is basically a dumping ground - the whole shebang - big items, little items, important items, unimportant items. Everything that needs to get done. As you noticed, they can vary quite a bit in how much time they take to complete as well as the type of work to be done (similar to the task switching that Lighthouse refers to).

In Agile, there is a process to go through to actually size the work to be done. I'll skip Releases for now and just talk about Sprints. A Sprint is 2-4 weeks of work with a small team. Your goal is to release a usable feature at the end of the sprint, no matter how small that feature/functionality may be. This helps the team think in terms of value to the business - if we work on this for 3 weeks, what will it do for the business? You should be asking the same question. What do I want to accomplish in my business over the next X weeks? If I do x, y, and z, what is the impact going to be to my business?

I'll use a landscaping business as an example.

Your Backlog might have:

• Come up with a plan to increase sales by 20%
• Go prune Mr. Smith's gardenia bush that got missed
• File the business taxes
• Fix that typo on the website
• Fire Brenda, who was pruning
• Find a replacement for Brenda
• Cold call 5 new potential customers
• Find a VA
• Answer today's emails/customer service
• Check accounts receivables for outstanding balances
• Send second invoices to unpaid customers
• Figure out how to break into commercial landscaping
• Write a new landing page
• Split test the new landing page
• Research billing automation solutions
• Create a 1 hour training on pruning
• etc.

Sprint Planning

When you create the Sprint, you first spend a few hours doing Sprint Planning. During the planning, you choose the most important items from the backlog together, in a collection that makes sense to deliver a usable feature. So you wouldn't necessarily, for example, put firing and hiring in the same sprint with growing sales. You might, for example, choose to build a sprint out of cold calling, increasing sales, and breaking into the commercial business (from our backlog example, above) since those are all related to increasing sales. However, as you do the sprint planning, you will decide whether to add more backlog items to the sprint or take some out of the sprint and return them to the backlog.

One of the ways you figure this out is, during planning, you create tasks for each of the backlog items that you chose as potentials for this sprint. And then you estimate the time/effort it will take to get those tasks done. Now you have a list of potential backlog items for this sprint, a list of tasks, and time/effort for each task. I'll walk you through this.

In the landscape business example:

• You decide a sprint should last 3 weeks.
• You set aside 4 hours for planning at the beginning of the next sprint.
• You look at the backlog and decide you want this sprint to deliver business growth. So you eyeball what's on the backlog and think you may be able to get cold calling, growing sales, and commercial business done in the next 3 weeks.
  • Note that your next sprint may be about, say, improving customer service, which includes replacing some personnel who are not delivering that - but for this sprint, your focus will be increasing sales.
• You make a list of tasks for all 3 of those backlog items.
  • Backlog item #1: cold calling
    • Use internet search to identify 5 potential new customers
    • Copy their contact information into the database/spreadsheet
    • Call each contact and use the prepared sales pitch
    • Create a form letter to use for follow up, that is easily customized with a sentence or two.
    • Send each contact a follow-up letter
  • ...and so on
• For each task, you estimate the effort. You can do this in hours or what's called fibonacci sequences, but I won't get into that. Just estimate it. Guess, if you have to. You may also identify certain team members who must work on certain tasks due to their skills. Maybe you suck at writing, so you put a VA's name or a friend who's going to help you out, on the task for creating a form letter.
  • Cold calling
    • Internet search - 30 minutes
    • Add to database - 15 minutes
    • Call 5 prospects - 90 minutes
    • Create form letter - 60 minutes, assign to Allen
    • Send letter - 60 minutes
    • ...and so on

Next, you look at the team members and decide how much time each can dedicate to the sprint. If it's just you, do it for you. Subtract planned time off. Also take into consideration the amount of time each person must dedicate to ongoing support of the business. For you, this may mean handling customer service or managing employees - whatever you must do to keep the daily business going. Subtract that time. The time left is what you have to spend on your sprint. (In software development, this ongoing support consists of things like handling urgent production support, such as bugs that must be fixed right away.)

Now you can match available time with the tasks you had listed for your sprint items. Are you over or short? If you don't have enough hours, then you must remove a sprint item or break it into pieces and do a smaller piece. Let's say in this example, you don't have time to do all 3 sprint items, so you decide to drop the commercial business item and focus on the 20% growth and cold calling. You put commercial sales back into the backlog.

If, on the other hand, you have more hours to spend, then select another item from the backlog, estimate the tasks and hours, and add it into the sprint.

When Sprint planning is done, you have a list of what used to be backlog items and are now sprint items that will be completed during the sprint, a list of tasks to get each sprint item done, and some estimate of how long each task will take.

Sprint Execution

Now the sprint begins. At the beginning of the sprint, all tasks are in a Planned list.

At the beginning of each day, select a single task to work on and either assign or let your team members chose their tasks. Those task(s) are moved from Planned to In Progress.

You work on that task and only that task until it's done. Once it's done, you can pick up another task. If you have sprint hours left for that day, go ahead and start on the second task. Completed tasks are moved from In Progress to Done (or, for software development, into quality assurance testing).

There are tracking methods for this - which is what tools like Trello were design to assist with - including a burndown chart, which I won't get into right now. Some teams use online tools like Trello, and some use whiteboards to track the movement of tasks from Planned to In Progress to Done and who is working on which task.

Meanwhile, as other items are coming to your attention that have nothing to do with the current sprint, simply keep adding them to the backlog.

Daily Scrums

Each day, first thing, hold a daily Scrum meeting with the team. If it's just you, it can still be useful. Ask yourself 3 things:

1. What did I accomplish yesterday?
2. What got in the way (if anything)?
3. What will I work on today?

The daily scrum helps you stay on track so that you don't get to the end of the sprint and go, holy cow, I got nothing done. In Agile, there is a Scrum Master who takes away the answers from #2 and helps remove roadblocks. If it's just you, this process will help you understand what is interfering with progress on your business, so you can decide whether you need to make some adjustments.

When teams are involved, the daily scrum meeting is held standing up to ensure it doesn't last more than about 15 minutes. You don't do problem solving during this meeting - only identifying and reporting out to the group. It also serves as accountability to ensure progress is being made.

Sprint Review

At the end of each Sprint, you take a little time to review. What value did you deliver to the business, how well did you execute against what you'd planned, what got in the way, how did your estimates stack up against reality, etc. Over time, your estimates get better and better, so that you are able to understand how much you can really get done in one sprint.

So basically, set aside time every day to work on business development, taking into account the minimum time you will need for every day business support. Then plan your sprints around where you want to take your business next with your sprint hours.

Conclusion

So that's a very long answer to your question - but you could essentially add in one new list - the sprint plan. If you'll actually do the sprint planning, explode items into tasks, and separate your backlog into ongoing business support v. business development/improvement, it will help you get away from doing the easy, quick items, and focus on what you really want to accomplish.

The items would move from Inbox (your backlog) to exploded tasks in Planned (your sprint focus for the next x weeks) to Today (your 3 things) to Done. That was a lot of text to read through, and it may sound complicated at first to those who are new to it; but like any system, it's in the doing and trying that you will learn the power of it. If you currently own a business, it may be helpful to separate your ongoing support tasks v. your business development tasks.

Incidentally, I used to coach small business owners. This was among the most frequent problems I saw. If you never take time to work ON your business, you will be stuck forever working IN your business; and it very often leads to massive overtime, massive burnout, and business failure. Also, it is "creating your own job" as MJ describes in his book. It comes from a) not implementing systems and b) unwillingness to take the next step into delegation.​

Do I use it? Yes, I do. You can see some of this in my progress thread in the form of a sort of weekly Scrum. I keep my planning in One Note, broken into phases (which you can see in the first post of my thread). Each week, I am deciding an area of focus (my own 1 week sprint), keeping in mind that my first goal is launch. I refuse to work on anything that is listed in a phase later than Launch, even though many of them would be easier or more fun - all my activity comes from tasks I've listed in the Launch phase. As I add tasks, I carefully consider whether it's really critical for Launch or whether it goes in another phase. (These phases are really like Releases, which I didn't get into.)

There are other nuances I won't get into, such as how to use a burndown chart, how to add in missed tasks you realize are necessary to accomplish the sprint items, and the role of business (i.e., your) signoff. I'm really just throwing this down on paper, so ask questions if I can clarify anything. Also, I'm sure others here have plenty of experience with Agile as well and can chime in.

I'm stuck at work while software is being installed, so I had the time to devote to this. And I'm a fast writer. I hope it's helpful!

Great post, I'm going to implement my daily personal scrum tomorrow morning.

I think what you're getting at with the planned sprints is kind of what @LightHouse was going for with the goals column on the left. You couldn't include a checklist of tasks inside of the goal cards, and wouldn't have to really modify his system that much.

 

[Captain Jack]

I started using this system a few weeks ago and, quite frankly, the results have been life changing.

I'm working a full-time, high stress job. In addition to this, I'm trading options (as a total newbie), am in the process of creating two eCommerce businesses (without any experience), and planning my move to Scottsdale (which is proving to be complicated in my current situation).

Despite all of this on my plate, I'm finishing everything on time and things are moving quickly because of Trello and this thread.

It's to the point that I'm so productive that I have a ton of free time....because I complete tasks very quickly.

Thanks LightHouse!

 

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[Drive2Riches]

Hello all.

I am offering an example because I think this is a great variation to Get Stuff Done using Trello as described in this thread.

I HAVE ONE BOARD

I have five categories all different colors - the "KEY"

- These cards don't move.
- These are for reference only.
- Here is where I have my "Main Thing" CATEGORIES
- Everything in my life can be separated accordingly
- Trello's sixth color is used to identify distinctions where cards share something in common




I USE FOUR ACTIVE LISTS



1. "Main Thing - 5 colors"

This is an inbox with a specific and crucial purpose
I am visual so colors are important to me
I keep ONE card of EACH color here
MOST important Main Thing goes here
These are not usually quick things to finish
In a glance what I'm focusing on that day
Always has 5 colors in it on five cards to begin

2. "Inbox"

Absolutely everything goes into this*
What's on top of the stack gets done first
Rearrange them any time. I like sorting.
*The "Main Thing" holds the most important of THESE cards

3. "Pending"

Waiting for a date on the calendar
Waiting for someone else to do something
Something I'd like to try doing someday

4. "Done / archive / repeats"

Feels GREAT sliding the cards over to this stack.
These are reusable cards. Done and Inbox
Hover and hit "c" for archiving daily
I placed it between Inbox and Pending because it's easier to slide


Add: The Android App works great. Nice combo with browser. Changes made to either one will show up right away. Android has one list width, which is fine for me because I'm usually just sorting things in the Inbox. I use the browser to archive and do some editing. Cards can easily be added and moved around on the App.

~

 

[LightHouse]

2 weeks in, still using it, still really liking it.

I think I just found my legal pad + Google Calendar combination a little too disorganized. It required a lot of manual input day-to-day. Now the input happens every few days, which is nice. Not only that, it allows me to focus on my tasks.

I'm pretty bad at organizing in general, but this system has helped a lot.

Awesome, glad to hear it is still working for you.

I started using this system a few weeks ago and, quite frankly, the results have been life changing.

I'm working a full-time, high stress job. In addition to this, I'm trading options (as a total newbie), am in the process of creating two eCommerce businesses (without any experience), and planning my move to Scottsdale (which is proving to be complicated in my current situation).

Despite all of this on my plate, I'm finishing everything on time and things are moving quickly because of Trello and this thread.

It's to the point that I'm so productive that I have a ton of free time....because I complete tasks very quickly.

Thanks LightHouse!

Great to hear, I am just the same. Several very stressful angles day to day in my life, having this really helped keep things moving forward. I am glad to see it is helping others as well.

 

[petkovic]

I have five categories all different colors - the "KEY"

- These cards don't move.
- These are for reference only.
- Here is where I have my "Main Thing" CATEGORIES
- Everything in my life can be separated accordingly
- Trello's sixth color is used to identify distinctions where cards share something in common

This is simple but brilliant advice for every Trello user!

 

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[LibertyForMe]

I've been using this for a while, and while it has been helping I felt it was too jumbled. So I decided that I needed two boards, one for my day job and one for everything else. That way when I am at work I can look at a board focused completely on work, and then everything else is on another board.

This allows me to get more detailed with my labels, and helps me compartmentalize a bit better.

 

[amp0193]

Do you constantly struggle to stay on task throughout the day?

Are you overwhelmed by the amount of things you need to do with your business or the launch process?

Have you tried "productivity" systems but fail to keep up with them or use them over time?

*Note: I am not selling you shit, so don't hit the back button yet; you WILL regret it.*


PREFACE:
Background: You are a producer. You are working on creating something amazing through a business you have or are building. The problem with your typical list based systems is you can not map the copious amounts of things that need to get done. Most current systems are not structured to pick things from different areas of business to prioritize because they are made for specialists, or folks that focus on one area of things so their task list is related.

*Note: I implemented this system shortly after FLSummit 2016 and it has done wonders for my productivity. I shared it with a few other Legendary Fastlaners who adopted the system and have seen similar results. Thus I am sharing it publicly to help create even more legendary fastlaners.


The SOLUTION: The Get Shit Done (GSD) System** Using Trello.com

The list titles are as follows -

Goals / Projects / Top | Inbox | Today (MAX 3) | Wait / In-Progress (TEMP) | Finished [Archive] | Someday/Maybe



Single Point System:

Your GSD "Inbox" List will become the center of your productivity. I want you to enter everything into your inbox. This is a single stream coming into your mental ecosystem. If something takes more than 10 seconds to do, or comes in during your focus time, it goes to the inbox. PERIOD. You are working on removing distraction, so let GSD be your gatekeeper. (this works great paired with a well-trained VA as well.) You can also get apps that give you a quick add on Chrome, Desktops, and You can even integrate it into Google now (Link here). Additiaonl resources can be found here

You will work things out from here. If it is something for another project management board on trello (hit "B" to switch between trello boards) then you will do that during an organization period. You can set up a direct email to your trello inbox as well to forward emails that have tasks or things to do, right into your inbox as well (info here)

You can label them with colors if you want. I personally grade mine from hot to cold for priority. Red is HOT, orange, yellow, Blue is COLD. Fairly simple.

You can also expand the cards if the task needs a bit more info. Don't load this with data you want to reference, more so just notes. Like an email that needs to be sent to several people, make a list of the people inside the card, You can postfox the card title with "(details)" like i do to remind you there is addt'l data.



Visualize Your Projects and Goals:

This is straight forward. Have your goals outlines and actionable. You will not interact with this much, this serves as a constant reminder of the direction your are working towords. Make sure you use the same card pre-fixes to keep everything easy. You can add additional sections for other things like Habits, or events as well if you need.


What you are doing TODAY - The idea of Kanban + The One Thing:

This section is taken from the kanban system. The idea is that you are limiting what you are working on to three things. PERIOD. You can not add anything until something moves from the list. This keeps your mind focused on what is important. Rather than spreading brain power across 10 things, you have an option of 1 of 3.

The Trick: Whatever cards are above the line (has to be at least 1 every day) are things that move you towards your bigger goal. This idea is taken from "The One Thing". It insures that no matter what you are doing day to day, you are working at least on one thing moving you towards your large goal.


Things Waiting - Don't Stop Your Flow:

This is simple, you do not want to waste time waiting on people or things. If something isnt coming back around for a period of time. Re-label it with the reason/action and move it to waiting to not hold yourself up. Typically things you do not know if the turn around time is going to be less than 24 hours or not (emails, account approvals, etc)

Satisfaction of Completion:

This is where you want to be. You will find an easy addiction to moving cards right and this col being 10x your inbox. It is an easy constant visual reminder that you are actually "Getting Shit Done" and moving towards your goals every day.



FINAL NOTES: This is how the system works for me, this will work for you two but make sure you adapt it to anything specific to you as needed.

I promise you if you spend a day putting everything you have to do into this system, and remove it all from your mind. by day two and three you will not look back. This system will work like your task memory in your brain. So add everything and look at it often. I made it an app shortcut on my taskbar to lauch and keep in an app window all the time.

Proof is in the Fastlaner: I'll invite a few friends here to share their experience and any additional notes. @AllenCrawley @JasonR @Eskil @Iwokeup


(** This is a modified version of what i started with from Victor Savkin, link here)

@LightHouse It looked like the images from the OP went missing. Can you get that fixed when you have a chance? I want to share the OP with a friend.

Thanks!

 

[LightHouse]

@LightHouse It looked like the images from the OP went missing. Can you get that fixed when you have a chance? I want to share the OP with a friend.

Thanks!

Odd, are you sure you aren't blocked from Imgur for some reason? The images still show for me, not cached.

http://i.imgur.com/bJdjijf.png

 

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[amp0193]

Odd, are you sure you aren't blocked from Imgur for some reason? The images still show for me, not cached.

http://i.imgur.com/bJdjijf.png

Ahh... apparently my school's IP has imgur blocked. I'm sure it's fine then.

 

[#nowhere]

Can confirm everything said up to this point:

First I had to force myself against using Notepad and calendar on whiteboard every morning.
4 days in, since I follow the rule straight to insert everything taking longer than 10 seconds to accomplish, into the inbox, I'm a bit "addicted"?
I think it's the false word but it described it the best. Have one list for my master's thesis and one for my development/business goals.

Great great value delivered here by lighthouse and that for nada, zilch and so on and so on. Can't thank you enough for GSD.
I'll introduce the system to a highly unorganized family member who is, at the same time, leader of a company with 100 workers.
I'll come back and tell what happened!

THANK YOU SO MUCH! @LightHouse

Small remark: never violate the rule of putting more than 3 tasks for today. It's just dumb and get's overwhelming. The 3 tasks are there for a reason. Not to say that you're not allowed to pull a new task from the inbox (thats my opinion).

 

[amp0193]

Small remark: never violate the rule of putting more than 3 tasks for today. It's just dumb and get's overwhelming. The 3 tasks are there for a reason. Not to say that you're not allowed to pull a new task from the inbox (thats my opinion).

At first, I thought... surely I can add a 4th one. Then I'd put a 5th sometimes.

Doesn't really work at all. It starts to feel like my old scratchpad to do list at that point.

 

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[RHL]

I've given it another shot and still really don't see any improvement over my trusty combination of Paper/Pen + Wunderlist.

Still gonna give it a go for the rest of the week.

Can I offer an analogy? Two guys go on a diet. One has been lifting and working out his whole life. The other isn't obese, but is pudgy and out of shape.

The fit guy is brutally hungry all the time, he's had to cut out almost all refined sugars, every beverage but water, and the cravings are terrible.

The pudgy guy stops eating candy, alcohol, and soda. He misses it a bit but hardly notices.

After 30 days, the fit guy loses 6 pounds The pudgy guy loses 20.

Any time you make a positive change, the results are going to seem way more dramatic when you go from zero to something they they will when you go from something to a slightly more refined something. A $50 bottle of wine tastes way better than a $6 bottle. But a $200 bottle probably isn't that much different than a $50.

 

[LightHouse]

Can confirm everything said up to this point:

First I had to force myself against using Notepad and calendar on whiteboard every morning.
4 days in, since I follow the rule straight to insert everything taking longer than 10 seconds to accomplish, into the inbox, I'm a bit "addicted"?
I think it's the false word but it described it the best. Have one list for my master's thesis and one for my development/business goals.

Great great value delivered here by lighthouse and that for nada, zilch and so on and so on. Can't thank you enough for GSD.
I'll introduce the system to a highly unorganized family member who is, at the same time, leader of a company with 100 workers.
I'll come back and tell what happened!

THANK YOU SO MUCH! @LightHouse

Small remark: never violate the rule of putting more than 3 tasks for today. It's just dumb and get's overwhelming. The 3 tasks are there for a reason. Not to say that you're not allowed to pull a new task from the inbox (thats my opinion).

Excellent, I am glad it has made a change for you. Let us know how it works for your relative.

At first, I thought... surely I can add a 4th one. Then I'd put a 5th sometimes.

Doesn't really work at all. It starts to feel like my old scratchpad to do list at that point.

Yes, this is really critical, your inbox is for tasks. Your today list is for what you are working on, this is a critical point of focus. If anything i take things off and put them back in the inbox if something more important comes up or things change, or put them in wait if somethings happened and is going to take too much time.

Can I offer an analogy? Two guys go on a diet. One has been lifting and working out his whole life. The other isn't obese, but is pudgy and out of shape.

The fit guy is brutally hungry all the time, he's had to cut out almost all refined sugars, every beverage but water, and the cravings are terrible.

The pudgy guy stops eating candy, alcohol, and soda. He misses it a bit but hardly notices.

After 30 days, the fit guy loses 6 pounds The pudgy guy loses 20.

Any time you make a positive change, the results are going to seem way more dramatic when you go from zero to something they they will when you go from something to a slightly more refined something. A $50 bottle of wine tastes way better than a $6 bottle. But a $200 bottle probably isn't that much different than a $50.

Great analogy Ross!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I was going to post this in its separate thread but I'm not sure if it warrants it. (If it does Ill move it)

A productivity tool I found incredibly helpful is SizeUp -- it splits your monitor into areas so windows can automatically resized to fit.

http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/
(There is similar software as well -- size up can be demo'd and its license is just a few bucks -- well worth it.)

I work with 3 monitors, but even I feel that isn't enough.

With Size up, I feel I can manage the monitor real estate with ease. I used to flip thru various windows, have to move browsers and around, etc -- this fixed that issue and really helped productivity.

This is my right side monitor -- it holds a thesaurus, my iTunes, Google search, and the forum. Of course you can make the windows whatever you want.

 

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[gostorm21]

I read the thread and didn't see anything about it yet, but if you're in "enter lots of stuff" mode, typing "#" and then the first letter of the color you want to label it as automatically brings it up. So I'd write the task type "#y" at the end (because I want yellow) and press enter and it would be labeled. Just a another small time saver! Thanks so much @LightHouse...it's incredibly helpful already!

 

[Exuberant]

View attachment 12185

Thanks for sharing your screenshot @MJ DeMarco . Glad I googled Two Steps from Hell and audiomachine. Both are great so I've added them to my playlist.

 

[wilddog]

Was getting seriously frustrated with dragging cards into the wrong columns by accident since they all look the same.

Found this online. Create a script to color code your lists.
https://stawebteam.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/coloured-lists-in-trello/
I HIGHLY recommend using this script. Visually differentiated lists is great.

I'm finding that Trello isn't fervently listening to their users' pain points, making it just Good.
It's users themselves that make Trello Fantastic by creating value with great Chrome extensions, Widgets and Scripts.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I'm finding that Trello isn't fervently listening to their users' pain points, making it just Good.

Yea, I stopped using it... AGAIN. There were so many things that irked me -- it really is an opportunity for someone to make it better -- the extensions are kinda proof of that.

 

[Eos]

Using this system and I have been more productive in the past 2 week than in the past 2 months combined.
Cheers.

 

[germandude]

Have been using Trello for quite a while without this system thought. Now that I use it, productivity has skyrocketed and my ADD is quieter.

To increase the importance of doing a maximum of 3 things/day at most, let me show you an example from Richard Branson. When he was invited over and over to give a speech to some company for something like $500,000 and refused, when asked why, his secretary said that Mr. Branson allows us to only allocate things to his calendar that will significantly contribute to reaching any of the only 3 strategic goals for his company.

You can see it here much better (watch the whole speech if you can):

(watch until 47:29)

 

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[StompingAcorns]

You can see it here much better (watch the whole speech if you can):

Thanks for this video. I watched the whole thing and got quite a bit from it, including that ever-present message to pick 1-3 things only. (*sigh) I feel like I focus very well, but I can see that productivity intervals would help me even more. I really like the way he approaches skill building - and boxes it. It's easy to let that stuff take over (for me). And I view rest in a whole new light now.

 

[germandude]

Thanks for this video. I watched the whole thing and got quite a bit from it, including that ever-present message to pick 1-3 things only. (*sigh) I feel like I focus very well, but I can see that productivity intervals would help me even more. I really like the way he approaches skill building - and boxes it. It's easy to let that stuff take over (for me). And I view rest in a whole new light now.

yep, the firs time I watched the video I gave attention to his skill building, which got me to creating 4 folders full of books and courses which will let me improve that one skill significantly. I went on to separate the folders like this:

Inside of each of them there is at least 5 books and a couple of udemy courses. So far I have read 22 books and watched 3 Udemy courses.

This is how my Trello looks like today:

 

[ejames]

hmm thanks for this, im going to try this for my startup. BOOKMARKED!

 

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[Bobby-H]

Thanks For this @LightHouse. I've had a similar set up in place, just refined it more with your ideas and some ideas from others here.

Make Trello into an "app" on your mac -->

One thing that was mentioned before is about no dedicated Mac app for this. I use something called Epichrome to make a "dedicated" "app" that i can search and open through alfred/spotlight.

I have an app for Trello, Instapaper, Inbox, Hangouts (for phone calls) and more.

I like the "app" idea because it allows me to open something thats very specific and won't be left open in a tab somewhere.

I keep Trello fullscreen on my 15' mac in epichrome.


Manage reminders and calendar from alfred and 1 tool -->

Until iPhone has some way to get voice notes into Trello's Inbox list, I use Fantastical and Siri to load up my reminders on the go. Fantastical also shows all my reminders and easily lets me add reminders from alfred using a workflow.


Add cards to trello with keyboard short cut -->

Another workflow if you are a alfred fan is adding tasks to Trello via a workflow - this allows me to add a task to my left most box (currently Inbox to make the chrome app and alfred app default to inbox).


Google Drive Hack For Opening google docs/sheets/etc files in 2 seconds--->

One more hack thats related to alfred that I may create a whole course and post on is using alfred to search through my google docs, sheets, presentations and more. The worse thing about google drive is opening any document, it just sucks. You can open it from your keyboard through alfred and a few keys.

I mostly replaced evernote for storing all my email swipe and project templates (googles outline view allows me to condense 90 different swipes for 5 different parts of funnels into one and easily open it with my keyboard onto my browser).


Evernote usage that works -->

I use evernote to dump emails and scattered notes to reference later (clip sales letters, automatically send emails, label them and use them as reference as I launch campaigns etc). I use tags like Email Swipe or Sales Letter Swipe - so i can find stuff later quickly.

As mentioned before, evernote becomes hard to find anything so in terms of not remembering that specific note about that specific item, I type a few related tags that make it easy to find most anything.

 

[The-J]

A month and a half or so in: still using it.

It really does help. I add new tasks when they come up, comment a due date, and look at it in the morning.

However, keep in mind (for those who want to pick it up), it's still as limited as you are.

If you don't have a plan for what you're going to be doing, it's not that helpful. If you can't break up a goal into tasks that you need to do, then it's not that helpful.

If you don't have a goal you're working toward, it's not that helpful.

I only made one change to it so far: I made the background purple.

 

[Raoul Duke]

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/deep-work-the-secret-to-achieving-peak-productivity/

High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus).

 

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[nichiseven]

Before today I preferred to lug around notepads and file away bits of paper. I tried Evernote, but wasn't a huge fan. This is very easy and satisfying to use. Thank you for going to the trouble of explaining it. Grateful

 

[Sanj Modha]

I've been using Trello for a while and it really works. I have an additional bin for "Daily / Weekly Tasks". My VA runs these and they are color-coded in order of priority too.

If you're using Slack then you can integrate all this via the API. Shit gets real quickly!

@LightHouse - do you have a follow up process for all tasks in the "Wait / In-Progress" bin? At the moment, I rely on my VA to get into a routine but I need something a bit more robust.

Thanks.