Strategic Mindset : A 7-Day Plan to Identify What Matters and Create a Strategy that Works (Productivity Series Book 4)

by Thibaut Meurisse

People like Benjamin Franklin or Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t have all the productivity tools we now have, yet they were far more productive than most people today. What does this say about productivity as we see it these days?

Use the power of long-term thinking to achieve more than you can imagine, Learn the right skills and develop your talents the correct way, Plan your year for maximum effectiveness, Stop being efficient and become effective instead (and why it matters), Think smartly to make every action you take impactful, and Find the right information and learn faster and better than everybody around you.

Strategic productivity means using your time in a way that enables you to achieve maximum results with minimum effort.

The management consultant, Peter Drucker, once said that efficiency is doing things right while effectiveness is doing the right things. There is no point doing things right if those things don’t move you closer to your goals.

Strategic productivity is not about doing more, it’s about doing less of the things that bring little results.

The power of long-term thinking Your ability to think long term is one of the best predictors of success. Why? Because setting long-term goals means saying no to an infinite number of possibilities. By removing options, you can direct all your energy toward achieving your goals. Once you know where you want to go, you can reverse-engineer the steps you need to take to reach your destination.

The power of compounding Another benefit of strategic productivity is that it unleashes the power of compounding. When you keep making progress toward your goals each day, you build momentum. You accumulate small wins, which boost your confidence and increase your motivation.

The bottom line is, to build momentum and activate the power of compounding, you need to focus on a very few things consistently over a long enough period of time.

“Focus acts like an ax. If you try to cut down a tree by hitting it in thousands of different spots, you’ll never succeed. But when you focus and hit the same spot over and over, you can cut down even the biggest tree. With laser-sharp focus you can achieve almost anything you desire.”

What would make the next twelve months truly valuable? Spend five to ten minutes writing down answers to this question. Then, to further help you, visualize yourself exactly twelve months from today. Now, write down what you would have accomplished by filling in the prompt below using your action guide: The last twelve months were truly amazing because…

If I can achieve one thing this year, which one would make me the proudest? If I can achieve one thing this year, which one would make the biggest positive difference in my life? What’s the one thing I’ve always wanted to do (but haven’t)? What do I really, really want in life? What’s the one thing that scares me the most? (The thing that scares you is often the thing you need to do the most.)

Here are some characteristics of the right dominos: They help you build momentum and activate the power of compounding, They entail a paradigm shift that changes your reality immediately and improves your results, They allow you to make significant progress toward your goals, and/or They dramatically reduce your options, eliminating most of the irrelevant actions you could be taking to reach your goal.

A paradigm shift can be defined as a change of perception. A paradigm shift occurs when you ask yourself different questions and gain new insights and change your behavior as a result.

While there is nothing wrong with working hard, you may learn that hustling is not the most effective way to reach your goals. In many cases, you will obtain better results by zeroing in on key tasks, while eliminating non-critical ones.

you try to do everything, it means you have no clear strategy. It means you aren’t thinking hard enough. Anybody can hustle, but not everybody can think hard enough to make sure they tackle the right tasks. Or, as I like to say, “Busyness is laziness in thinking” (although, I’m pretty sure I read it somewhere).

The point is, some strategies, when executed successfully, can greatly accelerate your success.

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Why 90 days? Because 90 days is the perfect length of time to make tremendous progress toward your goals. At the same time, it’s not so far in the future that it makes your goals too distant or too vague. Conversely, you can almost see the finish line.

We can summarize the benefits of setting 90-day goals as follows: They make your goals more tangible. Having implemented specific milestones, your goals will become much more real. You can see them more vividly, which motivates you to take the necessary action. They force you to create a more detailed blueprint. Having little time to reach your goals, you have to refine your plan and identify the key tasks more precisely. They create a sense of urgency. You don’t have much time and must ensure you’re making progress toward these goals every day. You have no time to slack off. They encourage you to measure your progress more consistently. You have to check that you’re on track to hit each milestone more often.

Now, you don’t necessarily need to set overly challenging 90-day goals. Just setting 90-day goals will ensure you move toward your biggest ambitions or dreams, because 90 days is always enough time to make tremendous progress toward any of your endeavors.

Before you even start doing anything, ask yourself the following questions: If I could complete only one thing today, which task would have the most impact? Is this task moving me closer to my main goal? Do I really need to do this right now, or can I do it later? You want to train yourself to think in terms of priorities and keep an eye on the bigger picture. Losing perspective and forgetting your overall strategy is the fastest way to waste time on unimportant tasks.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

Step 7. Automate your task Finally, you should look for ways to automate your task, especially if it’s a repetitive one. Ask yourself: Can I create templates to reuse every time I work on this or similar tasks? (For instance, you could design templates for the specific emails, presentations, or documents you need to create repeatedly.) Can I create a checklist? (Checklists provide you with specific steps to follow, making it less likely you’ll forget a step or become distracted.) Practice this 7-Step Method on a regular basis until it becomes second nature and you’ll be able to use your time much more strategically.

Using your action guide, practice asking yourself the following questions at the start of each day: CEO: Exactly what tasks do I need to complete today? Employee: Do I know how to complete the tasks? Do I have the skills or tools to complete them? Do I know why I need to do these tasks? Am I on board? Am I committed to doing them? If I feel inner resistance, what can I do to overcome it? COO: What did I do well today? What could I have done better? What could be improved and exactly how? Then, take a pen and a sheet of paper and write down the three main tasks you’d like to complete today and start work.

Smart questions —> effective thinking —> intelligent actions —> tangible results.

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers. TONY ROBBINS, LIFE COACH AND MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER.

Note that the more specific your questions are, the more detailed solutions you’ll be able to create. The broader your questions are, the more creative ideas you might produce. Therefore, make sure you alternate between these two types of questions to get the best of both worlds.

In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply. JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, POET AND PLAYWRIGHT.

I believe there are two things you must do to reach almost any goal you desire. They are: Being able to find the right information, and Being able to implement the information to achieve tangible results.

Let’s review the five mistakes that people make when trying to learn a new skill or when trying to achieve a challenging goal. These are: A. Overlearning, B. Analysis paralysis, C. Illusion of competence, D. Shiny Object Syndrome, and E. Poor planning skills.

As you look for more data, you’ll encounter pieces of information that directly contradict each other. The more you come across such information, the harder it will become to make a decision—and the less likely you are to take action (analysis paralysis).

What you’re trying to learn, which will help you identify the type of information you need to gather and how deep you need to delve. Why you need to learn it, which will help to ensure what you’re learning is in line with your overall strategy. What the final result will look like. Getting a clear picture of the final output will help you refine your approach. You’ll be able to ask the right people, read the right books, and study more intelligently. The best way to learn it. Once you’ve identified the best approach, you’ll be able to design an effective plan of action.

I encourage you to ask the following questions: What was your learning strategy? What was the single most effective activity for you? What did you struggle with the most and how did you overcome it? If you needed to learn that skill all over again, what would you do differently? If you were in my shoes, how would you go about learning it? Is there anything else I should know? Once you have “interviewed” your friend or acquaintance, you should have a better idea of the best way to approach your learning goal.

Not every skill carries the same weight. Some skills are more important than others. The most valuable ones are what I would call “meta-skills”. Meta-skills can spread across several areas of your life and/or make the acquisition of other skills easier.

The bottom line is this. Work on your weaknesses when they’re clearly an obstacle or when they affect your sense of self-worth. Otherwise, consider ignoring them or have someone help you out by delegating or outsourcing these tasks whenever possible.

Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. SARAH BERNHARDT, ACTRESS.

The more energy you have, the more productive you will become.

While we’re all different, for many of us, our peak hours occur during the morning. If you’re unsure when you have the most energy during the day, run the following simple experiment: Select a challenging task that requires a lot of energy. Then, work on it in the morning one day, in the afternoon the next day, and the evening the day after that. See when you have the most energy and mental clarity and note when you produce the best output.

In truth, you can only focus for a few hours each day. To be productive you must alternate between “push” and “pull” periods. During push periods, you remain focused on your main work trying to get as much done as possible. However, during “pull periods”, you let go and relax. You stop trying so hard and let your subconscious do the work.

While skipping breaks may sound like a good idea, it usually isn’t. To become a strategic producer, you must take rest breaks between focused work sessions.

You can be busy, or you can be productive. The choice is yours. In a world where we have access to more information than we can possibly absorb, our ability to craft a crystal-clear strategy, find the right information, and take effective action until we reach our goals, is our superpower.

take a step back and look at the forest—not the trees. Refine your overall strategy, refocus and take consistent daily action to move you toward the vision you want to create.