Plan with Me: The Simple Grid to Prioritize Your Goals & Stop Overwhelm

We surveyed over 7,000 business owners asking what their top concerns or frustrations were related to bringing their annual goals for their business to life. And the number one concern that was raised is, how do I focus and know what to do first, second, third. And this is a very real concern. As you look at the goals that you have in place for your business, there are a lot of ways that you could get where you want to be going. First of all, we're in a good place because if you watched the first episode in this series, you set your goal and you got clarity on where you want to be going. So you're going to start on this road trip knowing your destination, but there are a lot of ways that you could get there, and some are going to be straight and fast, and some are going to take you the long, scenic route. But you have a decision to make now. Which path do you want to drive on? Do we want to go more direct, or do you have more time to take to get to this destination? Because you have other priorities right now, so you need to balance things. So we're going to take a longer route. We know it's going to be longer, but we're strategic and we're focused and we're intentional about that. Or is there another path entirely? Do you want to do some detours? You want to stop and see some people on your way on this road trip? Let's plan this out so that you can get to your destination in the time frame that you desire. So how do you know what to focus on? First, second, third, where to spend your time and your energy to reach your destination? Well, I have a simple model to share with you to help you identify what your focus may need to be and where you want to prioritize your time and attention to maximize your efforts and get the best out of the time and energy and financial investments that you make in these projects and and in these goals. This model can be aligned to your values and your priorities. It can be used whether you're starting out in business or you're further along in business. This can be adapted to any situation that you have, and it is unbelievably simple. And it's going to help you clarify where you should spend your time so that you're focused on the most important things, what we call the $100 bills. Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important. And we want to move you into that important category because that's what's going to move you to your goals versus reacting to all of those things that pop up periodically and randomly throughout the day. So what is it that is a priority for you? This model and this matrix that I'm going to share with you to help you identify that focus that you should be spending time and attention on right now is called the prioritize everything model. I use this with friends. I use this for personal reasons. I absolutely use this with clients. And I use this in my own head when I am mapping out decisions that I need to make quickly in the business. So let's take a look. All right, here we go. In this simple prioritize everything model, we're going to draw a basic box. Now, of course, if you want to get a printable version of this and you want to get a guide that walks you through this, go to Amber McHugh.com forward slash, goals, done. And we'll give you a download of all of this. You can walk through it there as well. But we're going to draw that simple four box script. Then we're going to identify what our goal is. Let's say that your goal is the fastest path to cash. All right, we got it. So maybe you want something to take to market, maybe you've got the offer in mind, but you need your marketing strategy to marry up with it with your fastest path to cash. And you want it to be high impact, right? And you want it to be kind of easy because we want to move fast here. So I want fast and I want cash and I want it to be easy and I want it to be high impact. So this is what I call variable one, and this is what I call variable two. Nice and easy. Now, if this isn't your goal, identify what your goal is and then match up the appropriate variables. Maybe you're determining what your side hustle is going to be and you need to do it around a career. So it needs to take not a lot of time. And you want it to be something that you can do based on your expertise. So that's going to help you start narrowing things down. But in this case, fastest path to cash, ease and high impact. Well, there are a lot of things you could do to take this offer to market to meet this goal. You could do webinars. You could run ads direct to the offer. You could have calls and conversations with people. You could direct email or message people. You could map out a social media campaign and strategy to invite people to work with you through social media, plus many chat campaigns, et cetera, et cetera, et Cetera, et cetera. There are a lot of possibilities. So it makes sense that you might be confused and wondering where should I start, what should I do first? Right. Whatever your goal is, there are a lot of ways to get to that destination. So then I want you to start plotting these because what's easy for me is potentially different than what is easy to you. You have a different skillset, you have different expertise or maybe we have similar expertise. And in that case, pull from this, use this and you want it to be high impact. Now we may all define high impact differently, but for me that means I don't. I want, I want there to be a. I want this to not take a lot of time. Right. I want it to be ease filled and I want it to be high impact in that I'm going to get results quickly and this isn't something I have to do over a long period of time, et cetera. So let's start breaking some of this down. Ease filled and high impact. Yeah. Hosting a live workshop or webinar fits that category for me. Running ads. Yeah. Also with a combination of something makes sense for me. Starting to call people directly may be high impact but it doesn't feel super ease filled for me. It may feel ease filled for you. So this is why this is personal. And so I'm going to put calls down here. How high impact but not super ease filled for me. Direct messaging, DMing people, personalized emails, actually I would split those up. Emailing feels a little bit more ease filled and high impact for me than direct messaging people on LinkedIn, on social media, et cetera based on the offer and the product or service that I have in mind. So direct I'm going to put pie in the upper. I don't want to put your DM and then I'm going to put email over here and then there's so many other things. Social media. Yeah, okay. I think that's going to take some time. It's, it's somewhat ease filled but I don't think it's going to be high impact in terms of the time and the return on investment of my time and then many chat I wouldn't do alone that would be paired with something. So I'm just going to add that to the social media and again we could keep going, going, going, going, going with this. Now you could see something bubble to the top. There's something down low that's out for me. These are out. They're in the middle of the range. They're out. I might pair Something. But what you want to do with this prioritize everything grid is identify what bubbles up to the top corner here. And that's where you want to start to think about focusing first. Let's do one more example. Next example. Let's say you are deciding what social media channels to spend your time on, and you want it to be somewhere where you like to hang out and somewhere where your clients are actually hanging out. Because it doesn't make a lot of sense to do your marketing on LinkedIn if even if you like it, right? Yeah, I like hanging out there. But if your clients aren't spending time there, maybe your clients are all hanging out on Pinterest. You know they're there and heck, you're there all the time, too. Okay, now we're gonna start to see what bubbles to the top and we'll get our time and attention. Maybe your clients are on Instagram also, but you're not. Oh, okay. That's gonna cause some lift for me. So as you think about where you're gonna start. First, first. Second. Right. This will start to help you prioritize where you should spend your time and energy. So with that, I want you to think through. All right, what am I going to do? Get clarity on anything where you're still unsure on what your path should be or where you should be spending your time and attention. And in the next video in this series, you can hop on over and dive in. Now we're going to map out and I'm going to show you a framework to get clear action steps. In this case, I'm not going to recommend that you plan out your entire year at once. We want to break this down into different way so we can maximize your results and start getting feedback and some data so you can get some results sooner rather than later. So again, if you want the framework workbook that we've put together for you, you can go to amber mckee.com goals with an S done. And zip on over to the next video so we can continue with your business planning.