As we step into year 3 of use of PlanDoTrack and Coaching Business Builder, I continue to hear from users of the workbook/planner what they enjoy using. Shaped by hundreds (if not thousands of) hours of planning and productivity work with teams, organizations and business owners, PDT and Coaching Business Builder are geared to provide you with time to focus and get traction, putting into practice “Daily Steps + Consistent Action = Momentum”
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Here are six of the perennial favorites which get mentioned regularly from readers and the PlanDoTrack Facilitators:

Monthly Daily Planner  - One of my personal favorites, the Monthly daily tracker provides a space for you to regularly review your daily steps towards key goals. There’s space for you to track movement in 11 key areas – pick some personal, pick some business, and track away. You’ll see this one in the title for this week’s post.

Content Tools especially the Daily Content Tracker – The Daily Content tracker provides you with space to note what you have added to your list. Use it to list what you have created and where you are sharing it.

Monthly Content Journal – One Line a Day. Another favorite of mine, I use this in two ways. The One Line a Day gives you space to note one line for every day of the month. I use one to note my key actions for the day and a second one to note one sentence around IDEAS I had. It’s great to go back to and look at over time.
 
Monthly Content Tracker – While you may not be creating content every day, it’s likely that you will be sharing it. The monthly content tracker can be used to help you create a link to it.

Metaview Annual Goals and Milestones – This page allows you to get a high level overview of all the goals you have ahead of you. Update it as you go, given that annual plans can shift and change, as we’ve seen in recent years.

The Month in Focus – This is an invaluable tool used as a planner and retrospective on your week. Use it on a weekly basis to track your key priorities, successes, enablers, derailers, lessons learned and what you will do or focus on next week.
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Pick up a copy of either one of the Planners in digital format now at our Potentials Realized site. Note they are not available as a digital edition anywhere else (at least at the moment).

I’m adding onto these tried and tested resources during the 21 for 21 Co-working Series with some new resources including  new 21 day trackers, as well as a couple new quarterly and weekly planning tools. Join us for the 21 day experience and follow along at your own pace at : https://jennifer-britton.xperiencify.io/21for21/
Let us know what your favorite tool or resource is – share it with us at the Facebook group or over at the Conversation Sparker Zone.
 
Let us know what your favorite tools are!

When I went to write PlanDoTrack two years ago, I would have had no idea just how many people would be moving to work in the remote space right now. What I have loved seeing is how people have made the transition over to remote work smoothly and are now the in mid-term of their remote work experience. With that in mind, the principles and practices which underpin PlanDoTrack become even more important for sustainability. In this week’s blog post I wanted to zoom into five areas you might explore in terms of MAINTAINING productivity in the remote space. You’ll find more on each of these areas in sections 1 and 2 of the PlanDoTrack workbook and planner.
 
#1 - Create or Revisit the Vision
In recent months I’ve been spending a lot of time with groups in presentations talking about the importance of creating or revisiting your vision.
Our vision creates a horizon for us to aim towards. In times of disruption, this is even more important.

What are the elements which are important for YOU to focus on?

What are the elements which are important to keep an eye on?

#2 - Be Crystal Clear on Outcomes
 Leadership and teamwork in the remote space is all about outcomes. It’s about being very clear about:

• What will success look like?
• What is the outcome? What is NOT the outcome.
• What are you doing to stimulate conversations around outcomes?

#3 - Top 3 – 5 Goals
With vision and outcome in mind, what are the core essentials to be focusing on? It’s easy to get pulled into the eddies of other people’s priorities.

Questions:

• What are the top 3- 5 things you need to be sure you get done – today? This week? This month?
• What are you doing to keep your Top 3 – 5 visible and tracked?

Note that in many of the PlanDoTrack planning pages, there is space for you to track your Top 3-5.
 
#4 - Be Intentional (and ruthless) With Boundaries
As many have seen in recent mots, creating boundaries and routines that work well for each of our individual experiences are critical. Whether we are navigating work-life issues or working in a team that runs 24/7, being intentional and focused on our boundaries is critical for high performance. We need cycles to renew as much as cycles to run.

Questions to consider:

• What are the boundaries you need to employ?
• What are the renewal cycles you need to build in?

 
What’s important to note? Join us for more conversation around this at the Virtual and Remote Visionaries Hub on Facebook .

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!
​

In recent months, the lockdown globally has led to some very interesting research opportunities. Does remote work, really work? Is it as productive as working in person? Who likes to work remotely and who flourishes?

As with any type of work situation, and one that has been more pronounced, even for those of us who have always worked remotely, I think it’s interesting to explore what some of the initial statistics and studies show. Here are details from five different studies:

Here’s where we were before COVID:

• Approximately 3.4 percent of the population or 7 million people in the U.S. were working remotely
• Remote work had grown by 151% between 2018 to 2019, if job listings are an indicator

(https://media.thinknum.com/articles/remote-job-listings-are-growing-faster-than-office-jobs/)

Today…
Gallup research found that 54 percent of office workers would leave their job, if they could have one with more flexibility. And Gallup further states that “job flexibility increases engagement.”

According to this article by Kellie Wong – 25 Remote Work Statistics:

Gallup puts it all together: “Job flexibility engages remote workers — which drives performance.”
Here are some additional statistics Kellie Wong shares in her article:

• Remote workers can be 20 to 25 percent more productive than their onsite colleagues
• Real estate expenses saved by each remote worker average $10,000 a year.
• Employee turnover in companies that allow remote work is 25 percent lower than in companies that don’t offer that option.
• Employees who work remotely at least one day a month are “24 percent more likely to be happy and productive.”
• 85 percent of businesses say that implementing flexible work locations have made their company more productive.
• 75 percent of people who work remotely do so because there are fewer distractions.
• 77 percent of employees say that working remotely will help their company lower operating costs.|

 
Who is working remotely? According to this HubSpot survey:
Job Types of Remote Workers

• 18% of executives work remotely more than on-site. (Owl Labs)
• 35% of remote workers are individual contributors. (Owl Labs)
• 30% of people report working for a company that's fully remote. (Buffer)
• 46% of C-suite members work remotely at least part-time. (Owl Labs)
• 55% of VPs work remotely at least part-time. (Owl Labs)
• New employees might work remotely less often at their company. Roughly 75% more on-site workers have worked in their positions for less than a year, (Owl Labs)

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/remote-work-stats
 
What are you intrigued by? What’s important to note?
​
Join us for the conversation at the Virtual and Remote Visionaries Hub on Facebook. It’s a new group I am hosting and hope that you will come and join us to share ideas, resources and insights. Join us here. 

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!
​

In coaching, we often ask clients to think about the structure, of their accountabilities and what they have committed to doing going forward.

If someone is working on becoming more efficient by doing things once rather than returning back to it time and time again to perfect it, a structure might be “better done than perfect”.
 
If someone is wanting to become better at minimizing the paper on their desk or emails in their inbox, it might be a note on their desktop saying “Touch it once” or “Get to zero”.

For someone else, productivity might mean becoming more efficient with their time windows, and having an alarm or a timer to note when it’s time to sign off. By creating more urgency, it can help us move through moments of procrastination or increase our pacing.
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Finally, for someone who wants to get better at getting into the routine of working out, the structure might be having the gym bag in the trunk, or a pair or running shoes in the car, to fit in the later in the day workout, after shopping or work (if you are out and about). If you are home, it might mean setting a timer and having your gym things ready for when you are ready to head out.
 
Structures can be visible – a post it, a note on your computer. Structures can be auditory – a song, or an alarm, or even a verbal note.
What are the structures which are going to support you in achieving your goals this quarter?
 
Enjoy!

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!

This week’s Weekly Planning hack is about CONDENSING. To condense something is to make it more dense, thicker, or collapse it. When we condense things down, we return them to their elements.

In planning, productivity and business it’s important that we condense things down to their core elements so that things are more clear.

When you think about condensing things in work or business it might include:

• Prioritizing all the different Quarterly project options you are working on – What’s going to give the greatest impact? What’s really important?
• Simplifying some of the marketing text you are going to use in a campaign
• Simplifying processes in order to streamline
• Taking some projects off the list

​What else could be condensed?

Best,
​Jennifer

“What doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get done.”

When I went to name the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner a few years ago, it was first called Get ___ Done. The more I did work with professionals of all kinds (remote workers, leaders, entrepreneurs, the more apparent it was that metrics were an important part of productivity. We can get things done, but is it the RIGHT things, in the RIGHT ways?

“Metrics that Matter” gets us thinking about the things you want to track. What’s important to you? What’s important to your work or business? How often are you pausing to see where things are at? What are the metrics that matter?

As I shared in a September 2019 community call for Coaching Business Builder, metrics matter for several reasons including – they help to:

• Anchor

While we may be a Jack or Jill of all trades, it can be important to bring “Experts” on board as well

• Provide Data

Offering a variety of engagement types – products and services, which can allow you to expand your reach and geographic impact

• Scaling

Scaling your business beyond a one-on-one hourly revenue approach.

• Know Where We are Going

Keeping your work fresh, so that you are working around similar issues but in different formats

• Resource Allocation

Inspiration and Expansion of ideas
 
What’s important to note about metrics in your work and world right now?

What are you doing to track them? This week? This month? This quarter?

If you haven’t taken a look at your metrics from the last quarter, take a look back at them now. What do you notice?

Best,
Jennifer

“Bottom line is, if you do not use it or need it, it’s clutter, and it needs to go.”
– Charisse Ward via United Mayflower

​This week’s Weekly Planning Hack gets you to take a few minutes to archive materials that no longer are relevant. Whether it’s digital or hard-copy, being able to archive and/or delete information can be key to focus, prioritization and clarity.

As I wrote in Teams365 Check It Off Tip:
“While it might seem like adding time that you don't have, clearing things off and out, like your desk, or inbox, on a regular basis can create the space for new energy and clarity. What needs to get cleared in your office right now? Is it your inbox, old files? Take 15 minutes today to clear something and notice what new is created as a result of this.”

Even businesses will have different sets of legislation outlining how long materials need to be kept for. Spend some time checking with your local level government how long you need to keep materials for. Sometimes this may be for a period of five or seven years. Check it out.

Things that you might consider archiving include:

• Emails
• Financial records
• Manuscripts or other creative works
• Client/customer files
• Newsletters

What else could be archived? What could be converted from analog to digital?

Again, be sure to check perhaps with your local small business center in relation to what your local level requirements are for keeping materials and files.

Enjoy the conversation!
​Jennifer

Back in 2016 I started experimenting with the notion of sprints in terms of accelerating my work cycles. Sprints usually consist of setting a more condensive work boundary around a project, task or activity. Those working in the tech and design sector have been leveraging the power of sprints for a while.
​
Sprints are based on the idea that I could get just as much done in shorter windows of time, particularly as it related to new ideas and programming.

What it can look like:
In the short-term, sprints might involve dedicating a 60-minute window to the initial part of design of a program, rather than giving it a whole day. While we might not complete everything in one sitting, it’s likely that it will move the needle forward.

On the longer-term, some teams are moving to a process where they dedicate a week or two to a project, to build it and get feedback on it.

There are multiple benefits to sprints including:

• Compressed, focused time around an activity, usually at 100% productivity.
• Immersion – Being able to focus only on one thing for a fixed period of time to design, and pilot, the activity.
• The ability to dedicate all resources to that activity.
• Getting the important things DONE and usually at a stage where they will become embedded, rather than when projects get started but aren’t really far enough along to stand on their own

​Questions to consider:

• What are the areas you want to be involved in creating or designing?
• What’s important to take action on, and get traction around, this quarter?
• What could you do to leverage the power of a sprint?

Let us know about your experience with sprints!

Enjoy,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!

Clean it out to create some space! This week’s Weekly Planning Hack gets you to think about what needs a clean out to create more space, focus and/or speed.

Sometimes taking 15 minutes to clean something out can be of great value. For example, if your technology is starting to slow down, maybe it’s time to ensure a back-up can clear some of the video files that are piling up. Or perhaps, emails need to be archived.

Cleaning things out may also help to find things that have been “lost” or simply buried.

What are the things that could benefit from getting a clean out? Consider all these areas:

• Email files
• Filing cabinet that hasn’t been touched
• Desk drawer
• The closet in your office which doesn’t get touched
• The file drawer
• The fridge (yes, you might be surprized with what you find)
• The pile of papers on your desk (or buried away)
• Your briefcase or bag
• Your electronic files --- even a quick scan may unearth some documents you don’t remember having

Be aware of how long things need to be kept. For example, in some jurisdictions business records may need to be kept for seven years or longer.
What are the things that can benefit from a clean out? What have you let pile up and really could benefit from a few minutes spent organizing? Look around with clean eyes.

Take 15 minutes today, or over the course of the next several days to clean something out. Let us know what you chose and what you found!

Have fun cleaning!
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!

“One of the best pieces of advice I heard from a mentor was to consider the MUST do’s versus the NICE to do’s when prioritizing. It’s made a huge difference.” – Jennifer Britton

With a gazillion things on your task list, what’s a “MUST do” versus a “NICE to do”? Discernment is a key topic of recent Weekly Planning Hacks here. Questions to ask yourself as you consider what is important:

1. Which activities, if not completed, will have significant long term (or medium term) impact?
2. What tasks are dependent on one another?
3. What needs to be completed before something else?
4. What runs the risk of expiring if it does not get done?
5. What might create a gap if it’s not completed?
6. What would have a negative implication if not done?
7. Who needs/is waiting for the product to the completed?
8. What is contingent on it?

Activity:
Take time to note all of your tasks. What are the MUST TO DO’s vs the NICE TO DO’s?
With those items on the NICE to do list, do these get DEFERRED? DUMPED? DELEGATED? Decide what you are going to do with them, and if they are to be delegated, make sure you check out this post on delegation, one of the tasks that many professionals find challenging.

For more on delegation, check out these past two PlanDoTrack blog posts:

• Week 43 of the 52 Weeks of PlanDoTrack – Delegation
• Weekly Planning Hack 31 – Delegation 

If you are on LinkedIn, let’s connect and check out this older article I wrote on delegation.

​Enjoy!
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!