Schedule Everything
From a classic children’s nursery song:
Henry says,
“There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza,
There's a hole.
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it.”
It goes on and on – needs straw to fix, straw’s too long, needs an axe, axe is dull, sharpen axe, needs stone, too dry, needs water, needs a bucket, then Henry says,
“But there's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
There's a hole.”
I use the bucket analogy a lot in sales. The top way to increase sales is to follow up, follow up, follow up. The best way to lose sales is not to! The bucket has opportunities in it – all the hard work in marketing to prospecting to leads to proposal goes in the bucket. Then the leads drip through the holes in the bucket!!!! Either put a follow-up bucket under the bucket or fix the bucket by following up until it’s a no or not worth it anymore!
I’ve decided this works with priorities. We have them. We usually write them down. Well, many don’t. Why? No system. We have requests from co-workers, clients, friends, family, pretty much everyone! And so much drops off our radar, or better, out of the bucket. No system.
I’ve been saying this recently: “I catch everything!” Because I’ve learned this one key prioritization skill -Schedule everything!
Email? Easy. Every email I send for which I’d like an answer gets Bcc’d to me. I receive it and file it in one of three key folders – PENDING, SCHEDULING, or FOLLOW UP.
Pending – all “waiting on reply” emails that don’t involve scheduling. I still have the ball until the request is provided. The “ball” is in pending, in my control. It never leaves until completed, or I abandon it purposefully.
Scheduling – all scheduling emails, which is fun because by Friday most of them are done!
Follow up – all long-term or “I want to circle back…sometime” emails. Still in the bucket.
No email is unreturned, no request is not reviewed, no proposal is not followed up, no call is not made or returned, even random life/work/Amy thoughts while driving are “Siri’d” (new verb!) into my reminders for Friday. Why Friday? Because that’s when the Quarterback shows up for my week ahead. PLANNING. That’s my system. So, here’s my simplest version.
On Fridays, I have a hard, can’t cancel, end-of-day meeting with myself called “planning”. What if I’m off Friday? I do it Thursday. Planning is non-negotiable. When I open “planning,” there is a checklist of what I need to do. 9 things. I’ll just give the simple list.
Review pending, scheduling and follow up folders and take appropriate action.
Schedule all future actions, based on upcoming needs – incomplete tasks, prepping meetings, building content, strategic initiatives, write an article like this (for which I have a recurring reminder).
Check current recurring schedule for any issues, conflicts, and gaps – oh, the gaps – I use them to catch up on email, and random tasks in reminders on my Friday reminder list.
What isn’t scheduled in reminders, is tagged with work, family, etc., and unscheduled. I can review weekly or monthly to schedule if ready.
Schedule everything. You might think it’s too much work. Well, I say it’s a system that leverages future time and frees up my mind to be fully on the present. No lagging commitments, “I have to remember this” anxiety, gotta do this and that. It’s all organized.
Done. Discipline = Freedom.
So, Henry – Let’s find a way to plug up the hole, buddy!