How to Capitalize on Your Inner Visionary
Recently, I had a conversation with my son, Gabe, who was excited to tell me about his latest business venture, the Nexus Exchange. He’s a freshman in high school, launching a side-hustle business with a friend.
When he first told me about the idea, he was beaming with excitement. I love seeing that moment – you know what I’m talking about. When someone is building something, and experiencing it for the first time, like Gabe was, and there is so much energy.
[As a side note, I love writing down what someone is experiencing, in their own words, when they are first creating the brand. The takeaways are really authentic, and instructive for future iterations towards product market fit. Those takeaways serve you well in the future when you’re trying to expose others to the aha moment.]
I was thrilled to see Gabe's energy and enthusiasm, but I also realized that he needed to learn some skills to bring at least one of his many visions to life. This was the fifth or sixth entrepreneurial idea he’d mentioned to me over the last few months that hadn’t made it past the passion stage. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not super sustainable or accretive.
I’ve seen entrepreneurs stall out, and burn out, over this issue. When I adopted solid planning skills, my personal vision started to take shape in the real world, and my career really started to take off.
In his book, Getting Things Done, David Allen defines three types of work: unplanned, planning, and planned.
Let's review these for a minute, and give you a tip that has worked for me about each one. I think you'll find that thinking about and tracking your day using these three types of work can be really transformative. Both as you think about it, and as you seek guidance from other professionals.
No. 1: Unplanned Work
This type of work can be really frustrating, like putting out a fire, or handling a difficult client. It can also be super motivating and energetic, like coming up with a new idea. You need to block out time for unplanned work—both the thinking time and the reacting time that you need. In my experience if I don't have at least one third of my day open for unplanned work, I will end up feeling stressed and working after hours to get everything else done.
My Personal Goal: Leave at least 30% of my working day open, unscheduled, for the unplanned work. Don’t feel guilty about it, this is a really critical part of success.
No. 2: Planning Work
If you’ve never mastered a productivity framework before, I suggest starting with David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” (GTD) methodology. I’m not a purist here, but this one is pretty simple. As an artistic entrepreneur, this framework has helped me feel in control of my day, week, and month. This rigor helps me put my inspiration to work in a more productive way that helps me grow my career and the enterprises I’m involved with.
Ultimately, entrepreneurship is all about bringing new ideas to life. Without a solid planning methodology, you’ll be inefficient. I believe that planning and project management skills are some of the most important skills that any entrepreneur can develop, but especially those like me who are deeply creative. You need structure.
My Personal Goal: To have a trusted system where all next actions, agendas, projects, and ideas are stored so I can prioritize, organize, and execute upon my priorities effectively. Each Sunday, I sit down and make sure I like what I see in my system. I currently use a simple software called “Things.” There are a bunch of options. Just find something that feels good to you. You can implement GTD on any platform.
No. 3: Planned Work
One of the hardest things to do for busy people is to sit down and execute on the planned work. The more I can stick to a predetermined list of projects and actions the better off I am. The emotions of my day, if unchecked, can really undermine the priorities I need to execute on. Some people, like me, tend to live a bit too far in the future. Others might live in the past, completing projects, but they aren’t completing the right projects. I don’t know your shadow here, but I do know that you need to execute upon planned work, not only unplanned work. As you might expect, planning is the prerequisite for executing on planned work. If you don’t plan consistently, then you’re just doing unplanned work all the time.
My Personal Goal: Plan 1x weekly for projects, and 1x daily to prioritize next actions. I consider my weekly plan to be one of the most important things I do, and I also like to spend time each morning making sure that I execute upon the 1:1’s, email, tasks, and projects that I have prioritized from the weekly planning session. Make sure all of your prioritized actions are sitting in the same place. Knock stuff out, even though it might not feel as energetic as the other shiny thing staring at you today. You should always have a list of planned work that is longer than what you can get to. Then when you’re done with your “day,” just stop. .
For Gabe, this is something we’re working on together. It’s hard work, and for him, not super fun. I’m patient, because it’s been really hard for me to incorporate as well. But it’s amazing to see how much you can accomplish towards your vision when you learn to step up your planning game.
I’m proud of you, Gabe — you’re way ahead of where your old man was at your age.