Episode 17: My Productivity Hack for Getting Everything Done Without Overwhelm
Ready to ignite your productivity and feel accomplished AF? Tired of working all day but never getting anything done? Learn how I schedule my week and tasks to get everything done without feeling overwhelmed in today’s episode of The Ashly Locklin Show.
Download your free productivity planner here: Free Productivity Planner
Check out Business Breakthrough Accelerator here: ashlylocklin.com/business-breakthrough-accelerator
Here’s a preview of what you’ll learn in this episode:
How to prioritize your to-do list to be more productive and less stressed
The mistake to avoid when writing your to-do list and planning your week
How to cross big projects off your list without overwhelm and have time for a social life outside your business
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Show Notes:
Hey friend, welcome to this episode!
Today I wanted to share my productivity hack for getting everything done without overwhelm. And you’ll be able to snag my free planner in this episode too!
I used to be someone who created long to-do lists each day with tons of big projects only to feel super defeated each night when I wasn’t able to cross any of them off my list. I was always overwhelmed, my mind would never calm down, I was always thinking of ALL the things I had to do, and I was literally pulling all-nighters or sleeping a few hours a night just to get ahead...which spoiler alert, never happened.
Because I had no plan for execution. I was just spinning my wheels, jumping from task to task in no clear order. In previous episodes I’ve talked about how time is money. The more productive you can be, the more money you can make.
I was recently talking to a friend who operates a railroad construction company and he was telling me about a billion dollar project that went awry because there was no engineer. So the project managers had the crew jumping around instead of working in a straight line. So it took years longer to complete the project and millions more in costs.
And I realized that was also a great analogy for productivity in any business. If you have no clear plan for productivity, if you don’t have an engineer telling you exactly how to do things, in what order, you waste a lot of time and resources bouncing around.
So one day I learned about the Rocks, Pebbles, Sand story...
Imagine you were given a big glass jar, a bunch of rocks, a bunch of pebbles, and a bag of sand and you were asked to place them all into the jar.
In what order would you place them in the jar?
Most people would fill the jar with sand, then throw in the pebbles, but then there’s no room for the rocks.
Now here’s the metaphor: each of these things represents something in your life.
The rocks represent the most important things, such as your health or spending time with your family. So if you lost the pebbles and the sand, your life would still be filled with the things that mattered most.
The pebbles are the things that matter, but not nearly as much. Things you could, if you had to, live without, such as your house, your job, your hobbies, your friendships.
And the sand is just filler, things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, such as watching television, scrolling social media, etc.
So if you fill the jar with the sand (the least important things) and then the pebbles (the somewhat important things), there’s no room for the most important things in your life - the rocks.
Therefore, the goal is to fill the jar with the rocks first. Then pour the pebbles in so they fall through the cracks of the rocks. Then dump in the sand, so that every crevice is taken.
That’s the only way to fill the jar and it ensures that the most important things in your life are taken care of first, followed by the things that are somewhat important, and then, lastly, the least important things fall into the cracks.
So right now, do a little gut check on what you’ve been filling your jar with. Have you been focusing on the time-wasting activities, the things that don’t really matter, or are you making the rocks, the things that matter most, priority?
The moral of the story is: focus on your rocks, then your pebbles, then your sand.
But I like to look at this in a slightly different way - which is my productivity hack.
I like to view the rocks as the BIG, important, overarching projects. And as I mentioned earlier, these are the things that I would put on my to-do list each day and wonder why I couldn’t get anything done, because they aren’t things that can be done in a day or in a sitting. For example, rocks are starting a podcast, creating a new course, running a new masterclass. These things are big undertakings. There are several components within that project that have to be accomplished.
Those components are what I view as the pebbles - the smaller tasks that are most important, the ones that make up the majority of the big project.
And then finally, the small tasks within that project are the sand.
Each week I sit down and write out my rocks - the BIG projects that need tackled.
Then I list out every single thing that needs done in order to complete that project (my rock).
I then identify which of those things are pebbles (more important and time-consuming) and which are sand (less important, quicker, minute tasks).
Then I go through my planner and assign pebbles and sand to each day, based on my goals and deadlines, and also consider the order in which they need to be done.
I typically do this on Saturday or Sunday for the week ahead so every single morning I wake up and know exactly which tasks I’m focusing on that day, instead of being overwhelmed by a huge undertaking and not knowing where to start.
Have you ever been so overwhelmed by your to-do list that you took NO action. Instead, you procrastinated and scrolled Instagram or unloaded the dishwasher because you just couldn’t bring yourself to get started and didn’t know what to start on.
Well this method eliminates that overwhelm and breaks everything down into manageable daily tasks...so that by the end of the week, your BIG rocks (aka projects) are done.
And bonus! I’m sharing my rock-pebble-sand planner with you for free! Just click on the link in the show notes to snag it!
I’m going to break this down further and give you examples of pebbles and sand items for different rocks.
But first, this episode is brought to you by Business Breakthrough Accelerator, my signature course, designed for female business owners who don’t want to trade hours for dollars anymore.
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Alrighty, back to the show! Here are some examples for the rocks, pebbles, sand plan:
Each week I record a podcast, so the rock I’d write on my planner would be “podcast.”
The pebbles are:
-writing the script
-recording the episode in Garage Band
-turning the script into a blog post
-creating the episode cover art
-editing the recording in Garage Band
-publishing the recording to PodBean
The sand items are:
-creating story slides in Canva to advertise the episode
-creating a social media post to advertise the episode
-writing an email to let my subscribers know about the episode
-sending the email
So once all of those pebble and sand items are done, I can cross my big rock off my weekly list.
Another example would be creating a free challenge on Facebook, the rock I’d write on my planner would be “free challenge.”
The pebbles would be:
-create FB group
-create FB banner
-create membership approval questions
-create spreadsheet to track membership approval answers
-create social media post to announce challenge
-send email to current list to advertise free challenge
-create free challenge outline
-create free challenge slides
-create free challenge homework images
-create free challenge “welcome” image in Canva to post in group
-create opt-in form for people to enroll in challenge
-write nurture sequence to send to people after they enroll
-schedule the nurture sequence so it automatically sends once someone enrolls in the challenge
-create story slides in Canva to advertise challenge
-approve members daily
The sand items would be:
-respond to comments in welcome thread
-message people who didn’t answer the membership approval questions
The pebbles are the things that absolutely must be done in order to create the challenge and get people in there. The sand items are things are important, but if they don’t get done, it’s not really a big deal.
And of course, when scheduling these items in your planner, you want to think of order. You don’t want to be creating story slides to advertise a challenge until you have the group created, the opt-in form ready to go, the email series scheduled.
And this is how I get LOTS done, with two small kids at home (and being pregnant). I identify my big projects, my rocks. Then list out every single thing that needs to be done in order to complete that project, then break them up into most important (pebbles) and least important (sand), then fill in my week with tasks.
Everything has a day, a time, a purpose, and an order. I’m never left sitting around wondering what I should do next. I just look at my planner, see my tasks listed by day and by importance, then tackle the F outta them!
So if you are someone who is trying to be more productive, to feel less stressed or overwhelmed, I encourage you to try this method and let me know what you think! And don’t forget to get your free planner in the show notes!
Thank you for tuning in! Please take a screenshot and tag me @ashly_locklin, tell me what you thought of the episode, if you are going to try this method, and if you have requests for future episodes.
And most importantly, get out there and make those money moves!
LINKS:
If you want to join BBA while the doors are open, you can check out the info here: https://www.ashlylocklin.com/business-breakthrough-accelerator
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