Getting Your Business On The 'A' List

How many times has this happened to you?You come into your office with the intention of getting great things done today. You can't wait to get started, you’re excited, in fact, today IS the day you're taking your business to the next level.

And then before you even realize it, something comes up, and it feels like a priority, so you hit the pause button on your plans and do this one little thing. Next thing you know your day is filled up with this priority and that priority that has to be done.

You get to the end of your day and you are not completely sure what you did, but you know one thing for sure, this was NOT the day you took your business to the next level.

Don't worry, you are not alone.We can all lose focus, get distracted... even lost.

When we first started our coaching business we were ALL over the place. Neither of us were what you could call time-based or focused. We were more of what you might call "free spirited". And as you can imagine, between the two of us we could travel some serious distance from our intentions in those unfocused moments.

But then we got turned onto this idea that Ivy Lee had shared with Charles Schwab back in the 1920's and we adapted it to work for us and we call it "The A List" and yes, the 'A' is for authentic. :-)

It's real simple, make a list of everything you want to, need to, desire to get accomplished around your business. This will be your "Master List" and this is where you will add new things that need to get done.

Don't get overwhelmed, the next step is going to make it all VERY manageable for you.

Once you have your list go through it and pick 6 (and only 6) priorities that you want to accomplish tomorrow and put an 'A' next to them.

Write these 6 priorities on a separate piece of paper, they don't need to be in any order, yet.

Now go through your list of 6 and prioritize them based on deadlines, relevance to your goals, JOY factor, return on investment of your time and energy - '1' being the highest priority, '6' being the lowest.

So, now you've got your 'A' List. Below is an example of Brian's list from today.

A5 - Write email copy for Thursday's Teleclass and set up auto responder
A1 - Respond to email request from _________
A4 - Send Ezine
A3 - Edit Article/photos for ezine
A2 - Work on new copy for website
A6 - Reach out to the people we met at yesterday's chamber breakfast meeting

Now here is where the real power of the list comes in...

You start working on 'A1' and you do nothing else until it is taken as far as you can take it. Hopefully this means completion, but you may have to wait for someone else to send you something you need, or maybe you could only leave a message.

Whatever it is you take it as far as you can and then move on to 'A2', and take it as far as you can. So on and so forth through your list.

If you are unable to get something finished on your list it moves to the top of the next day's A list. So let's say Brian was unable to get to 'A5' (email copy) and 'A6' (chamber follow up) on his list, tomorrow his 'A1' would be to write the email copy and his 'A2' would be to reach out to the new people he met at the chamber event.

The "A List" creates a structure and a focus around your goals and your time which will help you to make this THE time you moved your business to the next level.

And the cool thing is that at the end of every month you have completed approximately 140 things on your Master List - things that were priorities for your business.

Your Authentic Assignment

We invite you to pull out a pad of paper and start creating your "A List" now. You may really be surprised at how much you are able to get done in a day, and in your business, with this simple, yet powerful tool.