make it happen

To achieve goals and be someone who constantly gets things done, you’ve got to make it habit. If you want that habit to grow across your team and become the norm, then you’ve got to put a system in place to make the habit your standard way of operating.

1. Stop Wondering and start Knowing

We use PlanHQ as a team to get things done across every venture I’m involved in, and we’ve been doing this for many months now, so we’re all hooked into the same common way of getting things done.

I don’t spend much time wondering what will get done when, I just flick over to PlanHQ, jump into the business I’m working on, checkout the goals and see what who’s delivering what when. If I want something to get done, I throw in actions for the people who need to do them, and I checkout their plate to see what their existing commitments and priorities are so I can see what they’re planning on getting done. We still have lots of chats, and often a phone call discussing the actions, but we all know that unless its an action in the plan, it’s not expected to get done.

2. Change Priorities Clearly

One of the hardest things with a team is changing priorities. Sometimes things just need to change, an opportunity arises and you need to move fast. But people are already driving in a certain direction, and having to change can be a real pain. But one of the big pains is that smart people have to use their brains for doing the work, and don’t want to have to use it for managing what has to be done when.

When we want to adjust priorities, rather than have meetings and discussions and express urgency, I re-shedule someones actions with them or do it myself while on the couch or on the move and then the new priorities are all laid out on everyones personal dashboard - and the new priorities are everyones priorities. We still catchup in person or on the phone, bt this is to re-enforce the new priorities and answer any holes, not to set them.

3. Turn all discussions into action

A lot of discussions happen, and discussions often include a mix of ideas, analysis, potential, strategy, decisions and some immediate actions. So because of this discussions don’t always lead to action, and with so many things being said, I don’t expect anyone to walk away from a discussion with concrete moves to make with their time unless we make Goals and actions in PlanHQ. You have to respect that we’re all juggling a lot in our heads, so knowing what to actually get done each day needs to be laid out in a system where anyone can refer back to and act on when things get noisy. Every meeting should lead to either adding or reshuffling some actions or Goals.