Design A Purposeful Operating Rhythm: 4 Unbreakable Commitments To Put On Your Calendar (PART 3)
⚡️ Today’s level up ⚡️
Today’s edition breaks down the weekly organization routine, the third of four specific calendar appointments you need to keep with yourself to take your sales career to new heights.
Let’s go!
Read time: <9 minutes
If you missed them, read part one here and part two here.
Recapping why all of this is so important
Managing an account list of 50 accounts is hard, let alone 100, 250, or more.
When you assemble the puzzle and “get it right,” the production from your account list can be the equivalent of a large startup. When I left LivePerson in 2022, the accounts I closed, with the help of others, were producing $27.3M in annual recurring revenue (ARR). That’s the size of Coda, a Series D startup that employs nearly 300 people and has 10,000 customers.
Reframing your territory or account list as a startup you’re in charge of changes a lot. You start to think less like a salesperson and more like a CEO. That means your time, energy, and attention are precious. They’re not unlimited assets that can be squandered; instead, they are finite resources that must be managed intelligently.
In part one, I outlined the importance of taking plenty of time (at least six hours) to design your annual strategy. Then, in part two, I walked through how to keep on track with a monthly update routine. Without this cadence, what I like to call an operating rhythm, it’s much easier to fall prey to being reactive, falling behind, and playing the victim.
A good operating rhythm, supported by quality systems and committed check-ins to work on your business instead of constantly in your business is like sticking a big middle finger up to all the chaos around you.
This week, I will break down the third commitment on my calendar - the weekly organization.
Commitment 3: The weekly organization
What is it?
This is a routine I hold sacred on my calendar (ideally done every Friday morning) to achieve four specific outcomes with all of the tasks on my plate:
- Clarify
- Assign
- Do
- Improve
What’s awesome about this framework (let’s call it CADI), is that it allows me to free up those precious resources of time, energy, and attention and focus them in the right places.
As you’ve hopefully been picking up on throughout this series, the systems are not designed to restrict you, but instead, free you to do the type of work that is more meaningful. When you maintain this operating rhythm and practice improving with each routine, work feels like play.
You begin to think less “I have to” and more “I get to.”
This is a powerful headspace to operate in and will produce the best performance of your life.
How does it work?
Step 1: Clarify Everything To Be Done
The first step is to do a brain dump and capture everything you must do for work and life. I use Todoist as my task manager, as it’s the best in the biz. But there are many out there, so find and use one you will trust and can easily access from anywhere. Quickly capture any tasks occupying your mind and get them into your Inbox.
Next, I like to go through my tasks and label them by energy by asking how doing them makes me feel at that moment. I use the following energy labels:
Exciting+
Neutral=
Draining-
This will become important later for running filters and during your daily execution, which I’ll break down next week.
Note, Todoist also has a cool capability where you can define how long it will take to do the task, but this is something I like to do when I pull my tasks into Sunsama, which integrates with Todoist, where I can visualize both my workflow and how long my workday will be - again something I’ll detail next week.
Lastly, I label when the task needs to be done and assign a due date (if it needs one).
Step 2: Assign These
The next step is to assign all the tasks I don’t want to, need to, or best suited to do. To process the tasks at this stage, I run them through a set of four actions and ask myself a series of questions:
Evaluate (Is this really necessary?)
→ No: Hit delete
→ Unsure: Label it for processing at a future date
→ Yes: Moves on
Automate (Is this repeatable?)
→ Yes: Label it and will find a tool to automate it
→ No: Moves on
Delegate (Should someone else do this? Who?)
→ Yes: Partner with someone internally
→ No: Moves on
Outsource (Is this suited for a specialist? Who?)
→ Yes: Partner with someone externally
→ No: Moves on
Here are some thoughts on the last three, as I know many will have questions on them.
When it comes to automation, my rule is that if I have to do something more than once, I try to find a way to automate it. This doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Say, for instance, you send a similar response repeatedly, create keyboard shortcuts like “TY” for “Thank you,” or save an email template in Gmail. The goal is to stop repeating low-value work.
For delegating, this is an area I know a lot of sellers need to get better at. Too many of you are trying to do it all yourself and afraid to ask for help. As an active seller, I was constantly thinking a level or two above me (at times, I tasked our CEO to text a Mobilizer to move a deal) and a level or two below me (at other times, I was pulling in my SDR to maintain outreach on Stage 3 deals, and was willing to share commissions, even though SDRs were not supposed to stay in accounts beyond stage 2). Talk to your manager and discuss a plan for that last move.
Finally, when it comes to outsourcing, I know many sellers think, “What the hell can I outsource?” Depending on the stage of your career and the financial resources available, you may want to consider hiring an outside consulting firm that connects you with former executives where you can ask strategic questions to gain an insider’s perspective on your accounts. Or maybe you will find it valuable to work with someone to boost your LinkedIn presence. Or maybe you should hire a design agency to design creative assets to impress a new prospect. The point is to think outside the box.
Step 3: Do These
The next stage is processing the things you’re obligated to and prioritizing the most valuable tasks. Here are key questions to ask and masterful tricks to deploy:
Obligation (Can only I do this?)
→ No: Go back to step 2
→ Yes: Try these:
- The 2-Minute Rule: Do it now if it takes less than 2 minutes.
- Schedule these tasks during your energy dip times so you’re not burning high energy on low-value tasks.
- Pair it with a “level up” activity (i.e., clear out the garage while listening to that podcast episode you’ve been putting off). This will enhance the activity, ensuring a higher likelihood of completing and enjoying it.
- Use the Pomodoro Technique on longer tasks. This will help you to focus and tap into flow state, enhancing your mood and improving the quality of your work.
- Take 4 deep breaths, then calm your mind, and ask yourself, “How can I view this action with more purpose?”
Valuable (Is this high value?)
→ No: Go back to step 2
→ Yes: Try these:
- Stack rank these remaining tasks and schedule them during your peak energy state times.
- For recurring tasks on a key project (i.e. an account plan), systemize it into your Daily Start Routine and do that as your MIT (Most Important Task) before giving your time, energy, and attention away to others.
- Use the Pomodoro Technique on longer tasks to get the benefits mentioned above. If you’re in the zone and feeling it with no other scheduled obligations on the calendar, double down and keep going! This is the type of work you want to do as often and as long as possible daily.
- Bonus: Gamify it by rewarding yourself with a winning streak (i.e., 21 days in a row of completing an MIT) or completing it before a certain time (i.e., before your first meeting in the morning). Use Thrive Space (new version coming soon!) to track your progress
Step 4: Improve These
When actions are valuable, only you can do them, and repeatable (i.e. contributes to a high-priority project, such as writing a narrative business case for one of your Diamond Accounts), ask “How can I get better at this next time?”
Here’s a handy workflow chart for the entire routine:
When should you do it and how long does it take?
I like to schedule my weekly organization commitment for each Friday morning and spend about one and a half hours working through it.
Helpful tools
- Calendar
- Todoist
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