Productivity Systems Series: Clarify & Align

In Week 1 of the series, we introduced The Productivity Tripod. The productivity tripod captures how we make the productivity philosophy we talked about a practical tool. 

In Week 2, we’ll be going over the first leg of the tripod – Clarify and Align.

Defining Clarity & Alignment

Clarity is the vision of where we want to go. The higher the definition of that vision, the more engaging it is. Alignment is the practice of focussing our energy where it’s needed to get us to that vision. 

Without clarity or alignment, we end up wasting energy applying it to the wrong points at the wrong times, or worse, in the wrong direction altogether.

Common Sense, But Not Common Practice

In productivity circles, hacks and tools get all the hype. And understandably so – we live in a culture of overload and speed. It’s only obvious to focus on the quick-win tactics. 

But before getting to the place where we use these hacks effectively, I’ve found huge value in having a system for getting from A. our long term vision —> to B. the place where we’re doing the work.

It sounds obvious but it’s a step that’s often skipped. I’ve seen people get a hell of a lot done without any real clarity on the ultimate goal or the plan to get there. There’s often an abstract goal but no definition of the path to get there. 

Often, that means we end up disillusioned and frustrated, or worse – apathy sets in – sadly before we get to the end goal. 

Energy deployed without a strategy for how it’s to be focussed, is often energy lost. 

I’ve been there many times myself.

The Two Levels of Clarity – Large-Scale and Measurable-Scale Planning

Everybody ends up somewhere in life. A few people end up somewhere on purpose. - Andy Stanley

At the heart of it every productivity system are goals - conscious and unconscious.

My favourite systems have the long game in mind with an added layer of detail defining what matters when. I love the in-the-weeds systems, but my experience is the magic happens in the space where we build a link between our vision and what we’re doing on a typical Monday morning.

If we buy into this philosophy, we start to see clarity on two levels:

-        Long term or large-scale planning, usually dealing with 3-5year goals and beyond. 

-        Mid-term or “measurable-scale” planning which breaks goals into bit-size chunks.

Long-Term Vision / Large Scale Planning    

This is the place where we think big. It’s where we get into conversations about purpose and meaning. In short, it’s where you decide you want to take over the world or become the next JK Rowling. 

Most coaches focus here. There’s a real emotional pull. I won’t cover too much here – the internet is filled with coaches and goal setting writing.

My biggest take-away is this zone should inspire you. It should excite you. And inspiration can take many forms. Building a successful freelance lifestyle can be just as inspiring as building a career in a high-flying city firm.

There’s no ultimate truth or one size fits all, despite what mainstream advice tells us. 

The point is, this vision needs to be specific to you because it should be inspiring enough to engage action.

Most goal-setting advice goes into specify and timing – which are all key – but less goal setting advice talks about how you want to feel moving towards your goal, taking action. Or what you want your days to look like when you’ve achieved objective success.

Traditional advice assumes work should be a slog, but there’s a huge difference between embracing the pain necessary to cultivate our vision vs simply slogging our way to another boozy weekend to collect a pay cheque. 

Thinking about how you’ll feel during the process is a good indicator of whether you’ll stick it out in the long run. This is a nod to the idea of lifestyle-centric career planning coined by Cal Newport. 

My view is, we’re going to be working hard regardless of the path we choose – we might as well choose a path that excites us and aligns with our values. That’s how we become good at stuff.

My values are humility, growth, awareness and uplifting others. The plan is to shape more of my days to embody these values. 

Measurable-Scale Planning —> Building Alignment Through Quarterly and Weekly Goals

The vision, life’s journey, the purpose, that’s all valid. But what are you doing at 9am on Monday morning? Take care of that and the big stuff takes care of itself. A life’s journey is a lot of days strung together – Jimmy Carr

Once our large-scale vision is clear, we want to build the bridge between those abstract ideas into measurable targets – targets we can sink our teeth into.

We want this zone to form the building blocks to the vision – the dominoes, the steps, or whatever geometric analogy you prefer. And we want the building blocks to be clear and measurable enough to make next actions obvious enough for progress to be measured. 

The durations I’ve found most practical for this zone are 2-3month periods. I’ve found the 2-3month period to be round about the sweet spot for setting targets and getting back datapoints about how well you’re doing. This’ll need tweaking to suit your specific type of work but it’s a useful guide.

This period should allow you to plan on a granular level. For me, this granular level starts with the Weekly Preview. It’s how I get from a bi-monthly or quarterly goal —> to what I want to have done by Friday 4pm.

I’ve found the process of setting weekly targets forms the first sieve in the filtering process for dealing with incoming information and inevitable distraction and busyness. 

I’ll share more about my weekly preview in future but the streps are as simple as Reflect & Course-correct;  Review & Specify:

Step 1 – Reflect & Course Correct

-        Reflect – on progress against the previous week

-        Reflect – on the biggest wins

-        Reflect – on the course correction needed. I use simple prompts to see what’s worked, needs improving and what’s getting in my way.

Step 2 - Review everything in my full-capture system and specify mandatory tasks

-        Review – quarterly goals to specify priorities for the week. I typically split these into the top 3 items for each project I’m working on and then select the one highlight.

-        Review – new tasks that have come in over the last week and how these sit next to the current priorities. These are stored in a full-capture system so I’m not relying on my brain to remember them.

-        Review – incoming requests and other tasks that might sit on the periphery of my explicit goals. In an ideal world, we’d simply work on our desired goals and nothing else. But we don’t live in an ideal world. We work and live with other people where compromise is necessary to maintain relationships. The key is to make time for the most important stuff while maintaining harmony with others and keeping the lights on.

Step 3 – Review Balance

-        Review – Relationships. Relationships are like plants – if you starve them long enough they’ll die. This process reminds me to make time for key people in my life and avoid neglect.

-        Review – Health. I’ve learned the hard way that taking shortcuts around your health is like using a credit card – you have to pay up at some point. Building practices for checking in on sleep, exercise, diet and energy are key. This is certainly an area I’ll be learning more about.

And that’s it – the straightforward way I’ve been building clarity and alignment in my work and personal pursuits.

Next week we’ll be covering systems – my favourite part of productivity tripod.