Matt Ragland walks through the GAP Method: pick three weekly goals, break each into actions, then block calendar time to do them. He shows the system in a bullet journal with a real week (August 12-18, 2024) and explains how to handle when goals don't fit.
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In this video, I'm going to show you a simple, effective weekly planning system I call the GAP Method. This is the system I've used since 2020 to achieve my goals. I help run a marketing agency, host a community for content creators, and have 4 kids. So life is pretty busy, and this helps me stay productive and focused. One thing you should know from the beginning: I like to use a bullet journal to plan my week and track my tasks, but you can use the GAP Method with any task manager or software you want. GAPP stands for Goals, Actions, and Protection. Now let's see how it works in real life. This week is August 12th through 18th, 2024, and I have 3 big goals to accomplish. These are often smaller sub-goals of larger projects that I'm working on over several weeks. I love breaking down big goals into smaller chunks to stay on track and motivated. My 3 goals for this week are: 1. Complete all the prompts for the social writing challenge in my community group. 2. Finish a client's launch playbook and promotional calendar. And 3. Finish the new trailer video for this channel. Next are the actions. Often the weekly goals still have a few smaller tasks or reminders that have to be done in order to mark as complete. I add these action tasks below the goal so I can see everything in a single column of the Bullet Journal. For the community challenge, I still need to write a handful of prompts, schedule all 21 of them, and then add a few of my own posts in as examples and proof of concept for the challenge. I'll cover this more in another video, but it's important to realize that if there are several action items to a goal, there's a good chance that goal may stretch over 2 weeks, or one of the other goals of the week may need to be pushed into the next week. Be mindful of your time and actual capacity. Next is protection, and by that I mean protecting or blocking time in your schedule to do these things you've decided are the most important goals of the week. When I look at my calendar, I see that Monday and Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon are my best times to work on these goals. I write this all down on the GAP page and then into my daily log, and I also schedule it into my digital calendar. I do that because I have call availability for work, and this ensures time for the goal is protected. Define your goals, list the actions, and protect your time. Simple as that. When the week starts, the system kind of works in reverse. When I have a block of protected time, I like to start on the action tasks, and by completing each one, I achieve my goal. After I've made my gap plan for the week, I lay out the days of the week in my bullet journal. Some days I'll also use a Field Notes notebook, and some days I use the analog to-do cards from my friend Jeff at Ugmonk. My daily BuJo log is 2 to 3 days per page and 3 to 4 pages per week. Each week I also have a dedicated page for additional notes or action tasks that I don't want to forget, but aren't assigned to a specific goal or day. I write down appointments, meetings, and events for each day and add action tasks that I complete, especially if they are a part of the weekly goals. My intention is to write down everything I need and want to do in a day before the day begins. This keeps me on track and focused for what my priorities are and not be distracted. If something really needs to be done, then it goes on the action task page. This is what I do every week and have done for the past 4 years. It's a combination of a bunch of different styles and inspiration I've drawn from over the years. I hope that it's helpful as you pursue the big goals and dreams you have for your own life. I love getting questions or ideas in the comments. In fact, most of my videos start as answers to questions that viewers have about the videos. So please ask and say hey. I'd love to hear from you. Have a great week.
