Dear Stakeholder,
this newsletter will be a different beast altogether.
I’s going to be the first part of a mini series
that all put together might change your life.
If you actually follow along that is.
But first, let me shove in a short commercial.
You find this way too much to read? You’d much rather do this in exercise in a group? With some additional guidance? Join the next Go Scrum Yourself cohort. It’s like an Incubator that breeds Agile Solopreneurs. 4.5 weeks of execution and learning that help you go from Procrastopreneur to Solopreneur. Go Scrum Yourself!
Still tuned in? Perfect. Let’s jump right into it!
Go from Procrastopreneur ..
.. and unhappy with your current progress because:
you are dreaming big but executing very little?
know that you have the abilities - but think you lack the willpower?
you find yourself trapped in the cycle of setting ambitious goals - and then doing something else entirely?
You're not alone.
I believe that all of us possess the skills to achieve remarkable things.
Some of us are even capable to dream them up.
Maybe you already have a vision for what your life could be like.
.. to Agile Solopreneur
Yet you might not see a clear path to achieve all of your goals and create that dream life of yours. So let’s embark on a journey that will help you to
Define a path towards your vision
Set you up to actually go it and
Prove to yourself that you will indeed get there.
So, fasten your seatbelt, because it's time to do some weird psychological magic and make those dreams a living, breathing reality.
The 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-Method
Defining the Technique
The cornerstone is the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 goal-setting technique,
that helps you create a timeline from a ton of independent goals.
So, to set yourself up for some excessive brainstorming!
Brainstorming Without Limits, but With Timelines
Whatever you’d like to have achieved
in your ideal envisioned lif: put it on paper.
Let your imagination run wild.
Explore your aspirations in the domains of
business, relationships, and personal development.
What have you achieved as a Solopreneur, Entrepreneur or Employee?
Who have you met? How did you interact?
What have you learned? What did you overcome?
Think big, think bold, and think without restraint.
There's no need for filters.
If those 15 minutes feel like just the beginning, that's perfectly fine—keep going.
But don’t stop before those 15 minutes are up!
Now for Those Timelines
If you just follow the above - well, you end up with your bucket list.
Not bad, but also not what were looking to achieve here.
We put those ideas on a timeline.
The goals you listed might vary in many ways.
Some might be small and everyday, some might be epic and look superhuman.
Your job is to put them into specific timeframes -
that’s where all those numbers come into play.
In Agile Estimation techniques (like Planning Poker)
the Fibonacci numbers illustrate the growing uncertainty in our estimations
when the complexity and size of a task increases.
You can either estimate it as a 13, a 21 or a 34.
There is nothing in between and the gaps are constantly growing.
The 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-Method brings a similar twist to your life goals.
The 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-Timeline
Ask yourself the question:
When could you possibly achieve these goals,
if you started working towards them now?
But instead of really detailed estimation,
you only have following buckets at hand:
in 1 decade
in 2 years
in 3 months
in 4 weeks
in 5 days
in 6 hours and
in 7 minutes*
You definitely won’t be able to do it in the next 6 hours?
Put it in the 5 days category.
It will most likely take longer than 2 years to accomplish?
That’s a candidate for the 1 decade bucket.
You get the gist.
Now you might realise
that you have many goals on one end of the spectrum and
very few on the other.
In other words:
Are you a visionary, but have few ideas how you get there?
You might want to add some milestones along the way.
This way you already slowly craft a strategy.Or are you focused on the strategic view -
with the majority of durations in the range of months and weeks?
Look at what would be an even bigger goal.
And what might be interim goals in the tactical sphere?Or are you already more of a tactical person?
With items more similar to todos and potentially easier to accomplish?
A good step here might be to “learn dreaming” first.
But that’s for a different time.
A Highly Sophisticated Decision Algorithm
That’s a whole lot of goals that we got here!
So how do we make leeway in selection and prioritization?
You might prefer a different approach here, but for me the way to find out goes through only 1 question:
What are you most excited about?
From your brainstormed list, choose the goals that ignite the most profound excitement within you. For each time window and category.
The things that you are most excited about are the ones that typically get done.
And for the others? Maybe it’s best to just leave those goals behind.
So now we got a list of goals on a timeline - and you might be wondering why you should also have goals that you’ll achieve in 7 minutes.
I’ll share the thought behind this next week - when we’ll use them to continue to program yourself to achieve your goals.
And if all of this sounds too complicated to be done alone:
Enhance your journey in a fun and playful manner.
Join the next Go Scrum Yourself cohort.
The perfect opportunity to thrive and grow with your Agile Success group.
That's a wrap for today!
Stay tuned, subscribe to the newsletter and don’t forget to:
Go Scrum Yourself!