What's On My Mind
I want to move things forward faster. Mo, what would you recommend?
I got this question last week during a GrowBIG Training.
The answer?
Deep Work.
And man, I'm a fan!
Cal Newport has popularized the concept: long blocks of time to move one thing forward. No interruptions. LOTS of meaningful momentum.
The opposite of Deep Work?
Confetti Time.
I'm not sure where I heard that term, but it sure resonated.
Confetti Time is where you have entire days of on/off time blocks. You never have more than 20 or 30 minutes to yourself.
Zoom meetings. Travel. Constant interruptions. Slack messages, texts, and random emails.
It never seems like things move forward.
It's frustrating.
The opposite?
Meaningful Momentum.
The method?
Deep Work.
There's a big need for Deep Work in business development:
- Reviewing what's working and what's not
- Setting growth strategy through a system like our GrowBIG Leader Training
- Writing compelling collateral and copy
- Automating processes
- Reengineering processes
- Refining your market positioning and value story
- Figuring out how you can better create curiosity
- Perfecting that amazing potential Give To Get you've been thinking about
- Creating templates of great questions, objection/resolution matrices, meeting agendas, standard responses
There's so much we can do to improve.
Sometimes we need to slow down to speed up!
I think there are three kinds of work modes:
- Normal day to day work
- Not working: vacation
- Deep Work
Most of us spend a lot of time planning the first two, but rarely the third.
I'll show you what you need to succeed below.
But first, some great news...
What We Just Created
I'm a HUGE fan of Jay Baer over at Convince and Convert and...
He was on the show this week!
If you don't know Jay, he's easily one of the top 3 marketing minds on the planet.
His website is one of the most visited marketing resources in the world.
Here are three episodes this week you won't want to miss...
Me and Jay talking about creating word-of-mouth referrals.
Me and Jay talking about how to get prospects coming to you by "atomizing" your content.
Me and Jay talking about how to deepen relationships.
Jay CRUSHED this interview.
This means TONS of value for you!
If you only have 10 minutes, click that second link on atomizing your content.
That's good stuff.
What's Worth Lingering On
Back to Deep Work.
I love being in front of our clients, helping them help their clients succeed.
It's a rush to deliver our GrowBIG Training and other programs.
But I also get a similar rush from working on my own.
Big blocks of time.
Big movements forward.
It's so damn satisfying.
So how do you get more Deep Work time?
Three ways.
- Daily.
Build in little blocks of uninterrupted time. This is generally best near the beginning of the day. Start with a small time block and make it bigger over time.
- Quarterly.
I try to build in a "just work on the big stuff, whatever it is" for a day a two near the end of each quarter. We have some seasonality in our business where it slows down twice a year, so I build in a little more time then. You can leverage your seasonality for Deep Work too.
- Episodically.
When I see a big project coming up, I try to block off a few days for it, sometimes longer. I have to schedule these sessions a couple of months in advance because my schedule books up to 6 months out. I have to look ahead on these, which isn't my natural tendency. When I have the foresight to plan this out, it works great.
You can set these time blocks in your calendar right now. Pick your desired cadences with time blocks and schedule recurring meetings forever.
A few seconds now will get you started.
Here's Pro-tip.
You have to block off the time.
Deep Work will never happen naturally.
Plan it. Block it. Hold it.
Deep Work only works if the time is uninterrupted.
Scheduling is pretty easy. Holding the time is hard.
It's really hard.
But do it.
Your future self's success is depending on it.
Mo