First thing’s first… Click Here to get your Productivity Placemat sent straight to your inbox.
Using this productivity tool in my daily life changed the trajectory of my career. It changed the way I break down projects and keeps me on track to meet my goals time and time again.
Why I Created The Productivity Placemat
I first designed this my productivity placemat after being promoted into a new position within the company I worked for. As a part of this new swanky position, my compensation was now structured so that I could receive quarterly bonuses if I completed certain projects designated by my boss each quarter.
Cha-ching! Now your talkin’! As a couple with a significant amount of student loan debt, we were all about trying to pay off as much of that debt as possible before starting a family. I was BEYOND motivated to reach my quarterly goals each month to make that extra cash.
And these quarterly goals weren’t small… they were going to be tough, lofty goals that needed a lot of planning and thought to achieve. I needed to be on this all quarter long. Procrastinating to the last four weeks wasn’t going to get the job done.
I decided to break my quarterly goals down into small daily tasks I could tackle each day, mixed in with my other responsibilities and tasks.
I’m sure I’m not the only list person out there. I love crossing off more smaller tasks off my list rather than one larger one.
So I took a blank piece of paper out of our company’s xerox machine and drew out the first version of what you just received in your inbox. My productivity placemat.
It may not look like much. It’s not fancy or complicated. But that’s the beauty… it’s simple and it WORKS!
I used it every week that quarter to keep track of my progress and ended up receiving my entire bonus at the end of the quarter. Almost immediately I started to receive recognition from my boss for my accomplishments. He came to know me as somebody who could GET SHIT DONE. And I did… quarter after quarter.
And the great thing is that if you are somebody that hits goal after goal consistently, more than just YOUR boss starts to notice.
After a year and a half in this great new job where I was kicking ass, I was recommended for yet another promotion into another area of the company with an increased salary and even greater bonus structure.
And I took it.
I’m now in a job I LOVE! I continue to use my placemat daily to track my progress toward my goals each week, month and quarter.
Do you want results like that? Well buckle up buttercup… I just gave you the key to your success for FREE.
Identifying Your Goal
The first thing you need to do is identify your quarterly goal. This could be something assigned to you by your boss (similar to my story above) or a goal you are setting for yourself. And this doesn’t have to be work related. You could use this for personal development, health & fitness, or anything else you want to work on for yourself. It’s more useful if its not something that is the same task everyday like ‘work out’, but is a project or goal you are trying to reach that is variable over your timeline and has varying tasks each day.
Also make sure that your goal is a strategic, meaningful and measurable.
For instance, “I want to get better at writing” is a great goal but how are you going to accomplish that? How is that going to help you long-term? Are you trying to get better at writing so that you can then attempt something bigger?
Depending on the end goal in mind here, I would suggest changing the goal to something like “Write a fiction book”. This isn’t something you would be doing at work necessary (although you could do some of it on your lunch break) but is a great example to break down.
This goal is strategic – You could get this book published or self-publish on your own.This goal is meaningful – Writing a book is on a lot of people’s bucket lists. Not many actually accomplish it. It’s an amazing accomplishment. This goal is measurable – Setting this goal allows you to track your progress along the way. Hopefully you are halfway through writing the book by the end of week 5. If you feel like your not halfway through, you’d need to increase the amount of time you are writing every day.
Now is this a lofty goal for someone to accomplish in 3 months? You bet it is! You are not going to have a Pulitzer prize winning book at the end of the quarter. It’s probably going to be a very rough draft. But its written! And when you break it down day by day, it’s probably not as daunting as you think.
The lion’s share of work and time is going to be put into doing the actual writing. Still, you’ll be more effective and organized if you first plan out your idea, outline the story in detail and develop your characters. That way you won’t get caught getting off topic in your story.
How To Use The Productivity Tool To Reach Your Goals
Your placemat is downloaded as a printable PDF. You can print it on the standard 8.5″ x 11″ paper. Or you can print it on tabloid size paper (11″x 17″). Not everyone’s going to have access to print on 11″x 17″ if you aren’t in a corporate office like me. But I love having everything on a larger sheet of paper. Regardless, this productivity tool is effective at any size.
First break that big goal down into 3 equal parts which will make up your monthly goals. And by equal, I mean equal in the approximate work load they are going to take to accomplish. For your week 1 placemat, write the specific measurable goal for the first month onto your placemat in the designated area.
Then break each monthly goal down into 4 equal weekly goals. From there, assign yourself tasks each day to reach that weekly goal. You don’t have to plan your daily goals out for each week. Do that each week.
For example. the plan for your quarter could look something like this for our book writing example.
Month 1: Plan out book ideas, outline story, start writing.
- Week 1: Draft book idea and complete a rough outline of the story
- Week 2: Develop your main character and secondary characters, their backgrounds and contributions to the story. Add more detail to the story outline. Break the book into 7 parts
- Week 3: Write Part 1 – 2 hours of non-stop writing each day
- Week 4: Write Part 2 – 2 hours of non-stop writing each day
Month 2: Write Write Write – Just get it down!
- Week 5: Write Part 3 – 2 hours of non-stop writing each day
- Week 6: Write Part 4 – 2 hours of non-stop writing each day
- Week 7: Write Part 5 – 2 hours of non-stop writing each day
- Week 8: Write Part 6 – 2 hours of non-stop writing each day
Month 3: Finish writing – Edit together
- Week 9: Write Part 7 – 2 hours of non-stop writing each day
- Week 10: Edit and clean up Parts 1-4
- Week 11: Edit and clean up Parts 4-7
- Week 12: Write a compelling introduction and cohesive ending to the story. Make sure your characters are well developed and interesting – edit as necessary.
The big thing is reassessing each week to see if you are on track with your goals. If you are putting in the time effort each day to check off your daily goal, this won’t be an issue. If you fall behind then you need to make up for lost time.
Making the goal is easy. Breaking it down into a plan for the next 90 days is easy. The hard part is the action. Doing the task and checking it off each and every day.
Friday Afternoon Goal Setting
Getting organized for the next week on Friday afternoons has really helped me mentally. I have blank productivity placemats printed out in my office at the ready to pull from. I set a recurring appointment on my work calendar for Friday at 4:45pm to “Goal Set for Next Week”.
I grab a blank placemat and the one I used for the current week. I copy over the Monthly Goals and write in my new weekly goals for the coming week. I then outline what needs to happen each day of the week to hit that weekly goal along with all the other tasks, meetings and things I need to get accomplished each day.
As I mentioned, I’m a big list person so this placemat doubles as a place to list off all of the other things I am going to tackle that day. As with any job, things come up during the day that you have to tackle so I write those down too. And then I get to cross them off 😃
I get this all done before I leave work on Friday. I can disconnect from work for the weekend and when I come in on Monday morning, I know exactly what I need to tackle.
It’s great looking back at the end of each week and seeing everything that I accomplished.
How This Productivity Tool Can Change Everything
Using this simple tool changed my career. It changed the way I tackle a project. It trained me to think methodically about what milestones needs to be reached along the way to hit that bigger goal.
And it revolutionized how I optimize and spend my time. I don’t waste time working on things that aren’t going to help me reach my goals. My productivity placemat is a visual reminder on my desk that I’m making my quarterly goals a priority in my day, each and every day.
I actually keep mine tucked under my keyboard so that my arms are resting on it ask I type on my computer. It’s right there, visible at all times.
You’ll be shocked at how easy it is to reach those goals when you break them down into these tangible and easy to accomplish tasks. You’ll see yourself hit goals you never thought possible and you’ll start to set more challenging goals each quarter after you see what you are capable of.
Because the secret to reaching your goals is putting in the time… every…. single… day. There’s no secret beyond that. Just consistent daily hard work.
I hope you’ll print a couple of these off and work them into your goal setting routine and share your successes with me!
I can’t wait to see what you accomplish!
If you looking for other ways to maximize your productivity at work, check out my post here.
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