It’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of running a business. Between meetings, emails, and other daily tasks, it can be difficult to prioritize and focus on the tasks that will move the needle for your business.
That’s where the saying “if it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t exist” comes in. By using a structured approach to prioritize and schedule our tasks, we can ensure we’re making progress towards our most important business goals.
It begins with setting a big, hairy, audacious business goal (BHAG) that aligns with your company’s mission and vision. This is a long-term goal that will take years to achieve.
Once you’ve identified your BHAG, we then break it down into smaller 90-day priorities. These are the tasks that you need to accomplish in the next 90 days in order to move closer to your BHAG.
Next, we break down your 90-day priorities into 30-day milestones. These are the specific goals that you need to achieve in the next 30 days in order to reach your 90-day priorities.
Once you’ve identified your 30-day milestones per priority, it’s time to break them down even further into weekly to-dos. These are the specific tasks that you need to complete each week in order to reach your 30-day milestones.
Finally, we break your weekly to-do’s down into daily tasks which are scheduled on the calendar based on your energy and performance levels.
This means that we schedule your most challenging tasks for the time of day when you’re most alert and focused. If you’re a morning person, for example, you might want to schedule your most important tasks for the early hours of the day.
The key to this framework is to get up every day and work off your calendar, knowing that your daily tasks are driving you towards your BHAG.
By doing this, you can be sure that you’re always making progress towards your business goals, and that you’re not letting your inbox, social media, or the tyranny of the urgent drive your day.
So, why do we say that if it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t exist?
Because as a business owner, your time and the energy you bring to your time is one of your most valuable resources.
By actively scheduling and prioritizing your tasks, we can ensure that you’re making the most of your time and resources, and that you’re making meaningful progress towards your BHAG without letting anything fall through the cracks.
In conclusion, if you want to achieve business success, it’s essential to prioritize and schedule your tasks.
Use this framework to break down your BHAG into manageable 90-day priorities, 30-day milestones, weekly to-dos, and daily tasks.
By doing this, you’ll be able to work off your calendar each day, knowing that you’re making progress towards your business goals.
Remember: if it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t exist. So, start scheduling and start achieving your business goals today!
Staci Gray has over two decades of experience organizing real-world businesses to scale. She puts an emphasis on quickly collapsing the gap between ideas and profits by persistently executing for progress and results. Staci envisions a world where innovative leaders are no longer trapped by operational chaos and instead are empowered to efficiently and effectively solve real-world problems, impact real-people on a human level and generate profits quickly. Staci loves coming alongside mission-driven leaders who are using their ideas, influence and intellect to build successful businesses and empowering them to scale without losing their sanity, compromising their values, sacrificing their relationships, and drowning in operational chaos. Supporting leaders one business at a time!
