Generally, it’s waking up sometime between 5 am and 6 am…
Drinking one cup of black coffee while I write copy for work (before that I spent this time reading the Wall Street Journal)…
Going to my office at around 7 am…
Spending the first 30-60 minutes doing admin stuff (responding to emails, doing reviews for Copy Accelerator Members, checking in with employees, etc)…
Then jumping into a block of uninterrupted “deep” work that lasts 2-3 hours.
The deep work is focused on whatever I’ve identified as being my most important task or needle-mover for the day…
And that’s something I’ve figured out in advance.
Specifically, here’s what I do:
First thing Monday Morning…
I write out a list of everything I “need” to do for the coming week.
Then from that entire list, I go through and I pull out the 3-5 biggest needle-movers.
These are the handful of items that, if I were to accomplish them and nothing else, I’d still feel good about my week.
Next, I write down how long I think each of those big needle-movers is going to take to complete (total time).
Then I write out each day of the week…
And for whatever window of time, I’m typically at my best (for me roughly 8 am through 11 am)…
I schedule deep work on my biggest needle-mover.
So let’s say I’m working on a new sales letter…
In a case like this…it might look like:
Monday:
MISC/Admin: 7 am – 8 am
New Sales Letter Research: 8 am – 10 am
Tuesday:
MISC/Admin: 7 am – 8 am
New Sales Letter Mechanism Work: 8 am – 10 am
Wednesday:
MISC/Admin: 7 am – 8 am
New Sales Letter Mechanism Work Continued: 8 am – 10 am
Thursday:
MISC/Admin: 7 am – 8 am
New Sales Letter Brief: 8 am – 10 am
Friday:
MISC/Admin: 7 am – 8 am
New Sales Letter Lead and Background Story: 8 am – 10 am
Notice how in this case, I’m not actually finishing the big needle-mover. But that’s because typically with a sales letter, you’re given several weeks for turnaround time anyways. So instead of waiting to go on a bender right before the letter is due…
I’ve broken up the writing process into nice, small, manageable chunks. And frankly, these are the types of chunks that help me to avoid procrastination, because it’s only two hours!
Now, what about all of the other stuff on my list?
Well if there’s something that’s reoccurring…
Or that’s been scheduled in advance…
And it’s both urgent and important…
I write that down too.
For example, every Tuesday Justin and I have our Copy Accelerator Trainings go from 10 am – 12:30 pm PST. That never changes.
And Copy Accelerator is certainly a needle-mover for me…
So that gets written down for my day on Tuesday.
And then I have a reoccurring coaching call with someone on Thursdays from 2 pm – 3:30 pm PST, so that gets written down too.
After I’ve written down my reoccurring stuff, I return to my needle-moves.
So far we’ve got:
- New Sales Letter
- Copy Accelerator Weekly Call
And let’s say my third needle-mover is to work on my RMBC Copywriting Course.
This is a needle-mover because I want to help thousands of people to improve their copy, and their incomes, dramatically.
Let’s say I estimate that creating content for my RMBC Course is going to take about 40 hours of my time…
This means I’m not going to finish it in one week, which is fine…
But I can make some really solid progress if I plan out chunks of time where I work on the course each day.
So, once I’ve included all of that – here’s what my schedule for the week will look like:
Monday:
MISC/Admin: 7 am – 8 am
New Sales Letter Research: 8 am – 10 am
MISC/Admin: 10 am – 10:30 am
RMBC Course Content Creation: 10:30 am – 1:30 pm
MISC/Admin: 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Done For Day
Tuesday:
MISC/Admin: 7 am – 8 am
New Sales Letter Mechanism Work: 8 am – 10 am
Copy Accelerator Weekly Call: 10 am – 12:30 pm
MISC/Admin: 12:30 pm – 1 pm
RMBC Course Content Creation: 1 pm – 3:30 pm
Done for Day
Wednesday:
New Sales Letter Mechanism Work Continued: 8 am – 10 am
MISC/Admin: 10 am – 10:30 am
RMBC Course Content Creation: 10:30 am – 1:30 pm
MISC/Admin: 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Done For Day
Thursday:
New Sales Letter Brief: 8 am – 10 am
MISC/Admin: 10 am – 10:30 am
RMBC Course Content Creation: 10:30 am – 1:30 pm
MISC/Admin: 1:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Coaching Call: 2 pm – 3:30 pm
Done For Day
Friday:
New Sales Letter Research: 8 am – 10 am
MISC/Admin: 10 am – 10:30 am
RMBC Course Content Creation: 10:30 am – 1:30 pm
MISC/Admin: 1:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Done For Day
You’ll notice that after the RMBC stuff…
I did also add in some solid chunks of time for admin stuff like phone calls, meeting with employees or managers, responding to emails and messages, etc…
And you’ll notice how even though I’m stopping most of my days by around 3 pm…
I’m still getting a LOT done.
This is important…
I think that one of the big misconceptions people have is that they don’t have enough time each day…
But the truth is, they have TONS of time…
They just end up spending their time on the wrong things.
For me, the approach I just laid out works well…
Especially because I’ve found that as long as I make progress with my biggest needle-movers each week…
I feel good.
– SPG
P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.
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