The 240 Day Method: How I use it to stay ahead
A few months ago I read THIS blog post about how to plan an entire year's worth of work. You guys know I'm a sucker for batch-processing. So, I started using this method to plan, and now - I want to share it with you all.
What is The 240 Morning Method?
The idea is to plan a task for all 240 mornings in one year. The tasks, in this case, should be something that helps you grow your business. They can take an hour or 5 minutes - as long as you stay consistent with the mornings, you'll start to be more successful. I recommend making this task something a little smaller than "write a blog post". Instead, use your time wisely and plan ahead.
Here's an example of what 5 days of tasks could look like:
- Plan 5 blog posts and outline them on your blog.
- Create graphics for your 5 blog posts (blog image, social media images, any infographics you'll need)
- Schedule your blog posts for publish and schedule social media posts to go out accordingly. Make sure the SEO is set up.
- Do the research for your blog posts - link to helpful content or videos, get any stats or facts you need.
- Start writing. Finish one blog post today.
When you batch process your tasks like this, you'll be able to get more done in the day. Then the following week you can write for 1 hour every morning and at the end of 2 weeks you'll have a month's worth of blog posts, social media, and content ready and scheduled.
Morning, Day, Night, Whatever!
The article I read references the book "Eat That Frog!" by Brian Tracy. Like me, Brian Tracy strongly believes in doing your hardest tasks first thing in the morning - so the 240-morning method recommends scheduling your tasks for the morning. However, I know you are not all morning people. Some of you work better at 11pm and others have to work at 1pm during nap time.
Build this plan to work for your schedule. And if you're interested in becoming more of a morning person, check out my podcast, "How to Become a Morning Person" where I talk about how and why you should wake up earlier.
How many days are there now?
This method might sound great - but unless you're reading this right near the new year - you probably don't have 240 mornings left in this year. I used THIS tool to calculate the days left in the year.
I also used this plan to help me plan content for all of 2017. If you want more details on how to do that, read THIS blog post on the PROblog.
How does this method apply to business?
The 240 method is a simple idea, but actually applying it to your life can be tough. Here's how I've been using this method to plan various parts of my business.
Goals
I create goals for myself regularly, but I rarely had goals that built onto each other. This month I decided to change that. Instead of setting a monthly goal of making $1000 from sales, I broke that into 30 days. Instead of working toward a large goal, I worked toward making $34 per day.
September 1st, I put a lot of time into advertising and finding a new client, I made $193.82.
September 2nd, I took the night off to go out with friends, I made $8.40
By setting daily goals I was able to measure my income better. I was able to immediately see how effective my advertising work has become. If you had asked me two weeks ago how much of my income is passive, I would've said 50% - after 2 weeks of keeping data, I realized it's only 12%.
Breaking your goals down into daily measurements can help you focus on your business in a more productive approach and help you better understand how your work directly influences your outcome.
I recommend starting by writing out your goals in the PPP format (The book "Bull's-eye" by Brian Tracy talks about this in-depth). Make your goal Personal, Positive, and Present. Here are some examples:
- I made $5000 in one month - due date: December 2016
- I have 3 coaching clients per season - due date: Fall 2016
- I write for an hour every morning for a full month - due date: October 2016
Once you have some goals written in the first person (personal), with a present tense (present) and angled at a positive light (positive), you can break those goals down into daily tasks to get you to your due date.
Editorial Calendars
Use your goals to build your content towards a purpose. There are far too many blog posts that should've been a facebook update or an Instagram caption. Use your blog posts to teach, inform your ideal client, and generate sales or grow your email list. If your blog post doesn't have a purpose, it's not going to help your goals.
Reference your goals often while you plan your blog posts and content. Make sure everything you post is helping you toward your goals in some way.
Launch Plans
When you have a new idea like an ecourse, new services or a new site, it's easy to feel overwhelmed at the amount of work. Use the 240-morning method to help you break your big idea into small daily tasks. This way you prevent yourself from taking on too many projects at once (your calendar will fill up fast!) and it'll make your projects much more manageable.
