Reverse engineer your way to the finish line
Goal planning can feel like throwing spaghetti at the wall. Let’s address your real issue with time and how to make a plan that works!
Getting to the finish line on a goal sometimes seems impossible. If you’re anything like me you set yourself “deadlines” and those deadlines just seem to keep on moving further along in the future. So what do we do about it?
In the previous blog in this series I asked you to decide what’s most important in this stage and season in your life and there’s this saying that “if it’s important enough you will find the time for it” — and my brain immediately goes to, “oh, so it must not be important enough then”.
Before you go down THAR inevitable spiraling rabbit hole, just wait a sec… just because you’re not finding the time, or you struggling to make progress towards a goal does not mean that it’s not important enough — yes when something is really a priority we will do what it takes to make it a priority, but sometimes we just don’t have the tools to do what needs to get done and that’s okay!
A lot of people are stuck in a crippling cycle of procrastination, overwhelm, overcommitment, and other bad habits when it comes to being intentional with their time & energy. So then sticking to your own “deadlines” becomes like getting water from a rock — a miracle — instead of a consistent experience.
Remember, I’m in the trenches with you — I don’t have all of this mastered yet, but I have seen some of the fruit of doing things a little bit differently — and sjoe, they are sweet!
So here’s the low-down on how to reverse engineer your progress to make sure you get that most important thing done starting today!
Know where your time goes
Our first problem is that we think we know how long things take us or how much time we spend on certain tasks or activities. And you might be rolling your eyes at me right now thinking ~seriously~ this is NOT solving my problem, but stick with me — this is one of the biggest pitfalls people have when it comes to stress around time and feelings of overwhelm.
There’s this thing called the Planning Fallacy (Google it if you don’t believe me). It basically refers to how we grossly underestimate the time it will take to complete a project or task, even if we’ve done the same task in the past and we know it usually takes us longer.
In order for us to start improving, we need to find out where our snags are — where we normally waste time, which tasks take up a big amount of time but don’t have a big return or high value, which tasks can rather be grouped together to not lose time context switching the whole day — you need to become like a journalist and uncover the good, bad & ugly of the way you spend your time so you can actually make a lasting change.
Action → Deep-dive into your time habits
Download an app like Toggl Track or simply download the freebie I created for you to track (without judgement, or without trying to “be better”) what you do throughout a full week, the weekend included.
In addition to this, I want you to open up your phone settings and go check your screen time, how many times a day you pick up your phone, how much time you spend on social media, etc.
Calculate your opportunity cost. Spending half an hour on Instagram every day that adds up to 3.5 hours per week which seems okay. But did you realise that’s 182 hours per year which equates to 22 full 8-hour working days? That’s a month of work days… what would you be able to accomplish in 22 dedicated, focused days?
Work Backwards
Now you have a better idea of how much time you spend (*cough cough WASTE) throughout a week and you have a better idea of the pockets of opportunity you can create within your day or week in order to work toward your goal. I hope this is giving you a sense of relief!
Working Backward means we’ll start with the end in mind. Let’s first start by outlining your goal (*your most important thing) so you know exactly what needs to get done and how long you estimate it will take you. Let’s use the example of redoing your website.
You want to make sure your goal is very specific, — detail will bring clarity and that will lead to higher productivity. When do you want to launch your new website, why is this important to you, what are all the small milestones you need to hit and how long do you think each of those will take you to complete?
Here’s an example if you want to redo your website: (this is oversimplified, a website is A LOT of work!)
outline the site (~1 day)
write the copy for each page (~3 weeks)
prepare all the images (~3 days)
build & design each page (~3 weeks)
connect the domain & make the site live (~1 day)
Now you have a plan!
Let’s say you want to launch your website on the 1st of February, you can now work backward & figure out realistic deadlines for yourself for each of the milestones you need to hit (and to be honest if I were you I would start about a week earlier, just to give myself that extra little padding). So in total, it will take you 7 weeks to complete, we’ll make it 8, so you’ll have to start working on it during the first week of December!
Now when you do your weekly planning, you have to make sure to slot in enough time each week to work towards your goal, block out 2-hour focus chunks during your peak productivity times and go knock it out the park!
*DISCLAIMER: This type of plan ONLY works if you make it realistic — don’t overcommit, and don’t burn yourself. Show a trusted friend or partner your plan and ask them whether they think you’re being too aggressive or if you’re adding in waaay too much margin because you’re scared of failure. Remember, no one is exempt from the ish hitting the fan at some point in our lives. We need to build in the necessary grace for ourselves to complete something without overburdening ourselves. If you get it done faster, imagine what else you could do with the extra time!
Remember friend, there’s always enough time for what’s most important — but everything can’t be equally important. Choose one big thing to focus on for a set time and you’ll really see the magic of actually being able to finish things.
Take action now! Download the freebie, do your time audit and plan your goal in reverse and if you need any help to take things up a notch I’m here to help you — just reach out.