Best Of - Think Week

John Maxwell is internationally acclaimed and sought after for his gifting in the instruction of leadership development. He has spawned thousands of leaders through his system. I may never physically meet him in person, but his books and talks have mentored me for over a decade. There is one specific annual exercise that I would like to wrap up 2019 and I hope you'll join me. Check out John's blog article first.

Here's what John is doing right now and I'll quote him directly from the blog.

"I steal off to my study while everyone else is watching television or napping. There on my desk waiting for me is my appointment calendar from the preceding year and a yellow legal pad. Starting that afternoon and continuing that week up until New Year’s Eve, I spend time reviewing my calendar. I review every appointment, meeting, commitment, and activity—hour by hour—from the previous 359 days. And I evaluate each of them.
Right now, I’m in the midst of this process. 

1. I’m looking carefully at my speaking engagements and considering what I should do more of, what I should do less of, and what I should eliminate altogether.
2. I’m looking at the growth opportunities I pursued and judging which gave a high return and which didn’t.
3. I’m looking at all the meetings and appointments I had, to determine which ones I should do more of and which I should eliminate.
4. This week, I’ll also consider how much time I spent doing things that I should have delegated to someone else. (I’ll also look at what I delegated and reconsider whether I should pick anything back up or delegate it to someone different.).
5. I’ll evaluate whether I spent enough time with my family.
6. I’ll also make a list of all the things Margaret and I did together this year, and take her out to dinner one night so we can reminisce and enjoy them once again.

With this annual process, I try to account for every waking hour I had the previous year. What’s the value of that? It helps me to develop strategies for the coming year. Because I do this every year (and have for decades), I’m continually becoming more focused, strategic, and effective. Even if I have a difficult time or relatively unproductive year compared to what I desired, it’s never a loss, because I learn from it and improve upon it in the coming year."

Most people allow their lives to simply happen to them. They float along. They wait. They react. And by the time a large portion of their life is behind them, they realize they should have been more proactive and strategic. My yearly process is just one method that I use to be strategic and intentional.
I’ve found that this is a perfect time of year for reflecting and setting goals."

Here's John's advice for us for 2020 - 

"Start by sitting down with your calendar for 2019, along with any to-do lists or journals from the past 12 months. Make note of each event, appointment, and activity. Then evaluate every item on your list.

1. What did you enjoy?
2. What were some of your proudest moments?
3. What did you spend too much time on?
4. What didn’t get enough of your time?
5. In what areas were you especially effective?
6. Where did you fail?
7. What can you learn from your mistakes?

The key to this exercise is to use what you discover about your past year to inform and guide you in the coming year. This type of reflective thinking can help you discover what worked and what didn’t, and what needs to change for you to become more effective."

Here's my conclusion. Modify this process for YOU. The goal is to start a new discipline in your life. That discipline is called "THINKING". Invest a whole week doing it so you can audit your 2019 and purposely plan 2020 to be a breakthrough year. Lastly, I recommend listing out all of your daily tasks, projects, clients, commitments. Run them through John's questionnaire and place them into 4 boxes! BONE

1. Batch - You need to continue, but need to gather like tasks and do it in one planned time interval.
2. Outsource
   • Automate - You need to continue this work, but need to outsource it to technology. Courtney Wisely from Rescue My Maid Service is the expert here.
   • Delegate - You need to continue this work, but need to outsource it to people (employees, admins, VAs). Again Courtney,
3. No Change - These are items, meetings, projects that you continue to do exactly as you did in 2019 because they worked and you enjoyed doing them.
4. Eliminate - It was a task that you just never got to and frankly, you don't need it in 2020. It will be too heavy to keep. Or, it is something you're doing that is getting no return. Share the newsletter story from the manager.

Use John's model and my suggestions to make 2020 an incredible year!