TL;DR: Ask yourself “The ONE Question”, then commit to a time-span that’s not too long.
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When I am feeling in the zone it’s usually because of deep focus. I haven’t had this feeling since my 90-day sprint ended.
What is a 90 Day Sprint?
Inspired by Todd Herman’s 90 Day year. (I can’t wait till it opens up again, I am going to try to join the next enrollment) (Also other things like Brian Moran’s 12-week year and The Freedom Journal – 100 days)
Its premise is that a year is too long. So make it 90days (1 Quarter) instead.
This worked fine for me Q1 of 2017. My goal was to work on development of OrgNote and get it to a personal satisfaction score of 8 out of 10. (I think my end point was just 4 though, so not yet ready for release)
But I was on fire for that Quarter.
However this quarter is sucking major butt.
I think the reason being is that I haven’t decided on what my 90-day focus was going to be.
While watching Fizzle’s Journal Webinar, I came to the realization that, having structure in my day/week/month is super important. Also knowing that my daily action is leading towards a bigger goal is crucial.
What is my One Goal?
So I can’t decide. Juggling with personal goals vs business goals. I changed my #1 goal for the quarter a few times, which kind of defeats the whole point of intensive focus for 90 days.
“The ONE Thing” Comes to the Rescue
Gary Keller’s “The ONE Thing“, I love this concept.
“What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
So to rephrase it for the 90 days:
“What’s the ONE Thing you can do in the next 90 days, such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
The answer became obvious to me. Have a clean house, based on the KonMari Method.
But dang I thought, 90 days of cleaning the house is long. I felt the tug of my other obligations, like my business, OrgNote etc.
What’s wrong with 90 Days?
It’s too long. It gave me commitment anxiety. 90 days is long enough that I felt if I picked the wrong thing, I would lose too much time. I was unsure of my 90-day focus, which made me question if I was working on the right thing every day.
Screw 90 Days.
Eureka moment, why does it have to be 90 Days? What if it was 45 days?
I instantly felt much better.
Cleaning the house for 6 weeks seems pretty achievable. How about 3 weeks? Hmm, that could work as well.
I finally decided to half that again, to 10 days, or 2 weeks.
The Dynamic One Focus Method
- Ask yourself the revised “ONE Thing” Question: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do in the next 90 days, such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
- Is 90 days two long? Keep halfing it till you feel that it’s:
- Long enough to achieve the goal.
- Short enough that you can fully commit.
| Start: |
90 Days |
(1 Quarter) |
|
45 Days |
(6 weeks) |
|
3 Weeks |
|
|
1.5 Weeks |
10 Days |
2 work weeks |
|
1 week |
|
|
|
3 days |
|
|
|
2 days |
|
|
|
1 day |
|
|
|
2/3 Day |
2 Pomodoro Sets |
|
|
1/3 Day |
1 Pomodoro Set |
|
|
1 Pomodoro |
(25 mins) |
|
|
5 minutes |
|
|
Start with 90 days, then figure out a better time span. I’d error on the side of lesser time, because then you let the Parkinson’s Law of “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” do it’s magic. It also gives you a sense of urgency.
This way you can be productive, fully commit, Get sh*t done and feel good about it.
