​I've been planning to write an e-book for about a year.  I'd get super excited about it, dreaming about all the people that I might be able to give just a little bit of help or encouragement, and then I'd start doubting myself.  I came up with excuses why I couldn't or shouldn't put my content out there for the world to read, and I just plain procrastinated!  Fear of failure and rejection set in, and I put that goal aside.

Well, this week, I decided I'm going to just start and not in a "someday I'll publish this" way, but in a hard core, 6 week sprint with a for real deadline kind of way!  This spring, I listened to Natalie Eckdahl on her Biz Chix podcast talk about hitting your next goal in just 6 weeks, and I got excited.  She told success stories, and I was sure I could do it!  But soon, the excuses started again as I looked at my calendar and realized there was a vacation coming up in the next 6 weeks, and that would just throw a wrench in things. The next time I thought about it, there was something else on the calendar in the following 6 weeks, and I was a little relieved to have another "reason" not to start.

Choosing not to proceed - not to challenge myself - limited me and made me feel inadequate.  I really believe this began a vicious cycle that caused me to began procrastinating on all sorts of other things.  Not only was I not accomplishing my goals, I was feeling guilty and weighed down by all that was undone.  A good friend recently gave me some great advice.  She said to pick one thing that I could finish that day, just one.  I did it, and you know what finishing just one little thing did for me?  It gave me momentum to want to do more and more!  In Brian Tracy's book, Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, he shares about the old saying: 'if you eat a live frog first thing each morning, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that it's probably the worst thing you'll do all day.'  Use the frog as a metaphor for that thing that you know you should do and that you know you'll feel better when you've done - and just start!

There's no magic formula, but here's what I'm doing.  Would you like to join me and do your own sprint to accomplish that thing that you've been putting off?  You can download a FREE worksheet here, but please read on for some suggestions.
​
Start TODAY! 
Don't wait for a Monday or the first of the month or when things slow down at work or when the kids start school -  start TODAY!

Announce your goal to at least one other person
​If you keep your goal to yourself, it's all too easy to continue procrastinating.  Once you share it with even one other person, your chances of meeting your goal go up significantly.  The American Society of Training and Development reports that chances of success increase by 65% when you commit to completing it to one other person and chances go up to 95% when you check in regularly to report on your progress.  I am currently doing a 5 day Infinite Growth Challenge hosted by Pinterest Marketing Strategist, Rachel Ngom, and one of the daily assignments was to post in the Facebook group - for all to see - what the one thing you need to do even though you're scared to do it.  I shared that I'm going to write my e-book, and now I feel accountable to the others participating in the challenge to get it done!

Commit to make forward progress (however small) EVERY day!
How big your goal is will determine how much you have to do every day, but don't let a day go by without some action.  Create a chain that you promise yourself you won't break.  6 weeks is only 42 days - you can do this for 42 days!!  Set aside a time each day where you will record your progress and adjust your plan.  I've been spending 5-10 minutes on my deck in the mornings making my notes.

Plan backwards
Start by thinking about what success will look like.  That's where you want to be at the end of week 6.  My goal is to publish an e-book by September 11, 2019 (which just happens to be My Life In Order's 2 year anniversary!)  Now work backwards on what you have to do to get there, starting with weekly goals.   Here are my weekly plans thinking with the end in mind:

• Week 6: Publish and promote
• Week 5: Edit and format
• Week 4: Seek feedback
• Week 3: Write and format
• Week 2: Write!
• Week 1: Market research, finalize topic, research process

I've decided to make out daily goals a week at a time.  For example, this week looks like this:

• Day 1: Establish weekly goals, commit publicly
• Day 2: Gather materials from previous presentations
• Day 3: Survey blog readers about topics and pricing
• Day 4: Locate "how to write and publish and e-book" training materials
• Day 5: Review training materials
• Day 6: Review previous presentation materials 
• Day 7: Review survey results and decide on topic

Next week, I'll make daily goals around actually writing!  

​ DO IT!!!
Now the hard part, actually do the thing! Here is a FREE printable I've created to help you be successful. Please share with us in the comments on this post or on the Facebook page what big things you will be accomplishing in 6 weeks! You've got this!! I'll be sharing with you my weekly progress on social media (so be sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram) and I'd love to hear about your weekly progress, too. If you'd rather not share with everyone, feel free to email me at info@mylifeinorder.com

Update

I did it! I finished my e-book in 6 weeks thanks to the help of a great book launch team and the 6 week sprint process! You can get your copy now!

Sources:

Wissman, Barrett. “An Accountability Partner Makes You Vastly More Likely to Succeed.” Entrepreneur, 20 Mar. 2018, www.entrepreneur.com/article/310062.

Eckdahl, Natalie. “Hit Your Next Goal With a Six Week Sprint.” Biz Chix, 28 Mar. 2019, bizchix.com/363-hit-your-next-goal-with-a-six-week-sprint/.

Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash

In less than an hour before you leave for your trip, you can save yourself five times as much time when you get back.  If your company uses Outlook and your email goes through a Microsoft Exchange server (as opposed to a mail provider like Gmail or Yahoo!), you can literally process your emails when you're far, far away and Outlook isn't even running!   It's easy - just open Outlook, and click on "File" in the menu bar in the upper left of the screen.  Choose "Automatic Replies," and after you've selected the dates and created templates for your replies, click on the "Rules " button - this is where it gets really cool!  Here you can create nearly endless rules to automatically delete, move or forward messages based on a variety of criteria like who sent it, who it was sent to, the subject, etc.  The rules run and take care of your messages automatically, so that even if your "no email on vacation willpower" fails you and you pull up email on your phone, those messages will already be taken care of.

If you use Outlook with a mail provider like Gmail or Yahoo!, you can create rules but they just won't run until you open Outlook, and you'll need to manually turn them on and off.  Just click on the "Rules" icon on the "Home" tab and then select "Manage Rules & Alerts."   If you use something other than Outlook, don't despair, you can create similar rules, too! ​

As you go through the next few steps I'm going to outline for you, this folder will be a holding tank for your later to do's.  To make it very easy to quickly move items to this folder, set yourself a Quick Step.  When a message is selected in the Inbox view, you can simply click on the Move to "Vacation Review" Quick Step to immediately move it out of your Inbox and into this folder.  

Here's how to create a Quick Step in Outlook:

1. On the "Home" tab in Outlook, click on the down arrow for more options in the Quick Steps menu
2. Click "New Quick Step," then select "Move To Folder..."
3. Name your Quick Step something like "Move to Vacation Review"
4. Choose Your "Vacation Review" folder from the drop down and if you'd like to automatically mark messages you process with the Quick Step as read, check the "Mark as Read" checkbox.
5. Click Finish
6. Now you will see your new option in the Quick Step box.  
7. To rearrange the order of your Quick Steps, click on the down arrow for more options and select "Manage Quick Steps"
8. Select the Quick Step you want to relocate, click on the up or down arrows until it is in the location you want, then click "OK"

Expand one group at a time, skipping the group of emails sent only to you - you'll handle these in the next step.  Quickly scan to decide if you can delete the whole group, and if so - go for it!  If you think that there may be something you need in that group,  get a closer look at an individual message without opening it by turning on a reading pane.  Click on the View tab and choose your favorite reading pane location.  

As you review individual emails, don't get distracted and try to do anything! You have three choices: 1. Delete (use your keyboard delete key or the delete icon), 2. Move to "Vacation Review" folder, or 3. Archive (move into your existing folder structure. To read my suggestions on a simple folder structure for email read Email Organization: Part 1.)  The only other thing I'm going to give you permission to do at this point is to unsubscribe before deleting if it's an email list you no longer want to be part of.

Now you should be left with emails that were sent only to you.  To make it easier to review, drag the "To" field back down to the Inbox grid, then follow the rules above to group, but this time right click on the "From" field.  You will instantly recognize if a sender is spam or one that you need to pay attention to.  Just like before, as you review individual emails using the reading pane, resist the urge to do anything.  Just choose from the same three choices as above: ​1. Delete 2. Move to "Vacation Review" folder, or 3. Archive.  Remember you're allowed to unsubscribe before you delete since that will help you have fewer emails next vacation.

Now your inbox should be completely empty - unless you've gotten some messages while working through this process.  It's ok to leave those few, unread messages in your Inbox for now.  The Inbox is for new, incoming messages, and your Vacation Review folder is for your backlog of things to get done.  Now you have a way to see clear progress as you get caught up.  

​Make sure your "Vacation Review" folder is set to conversation mode.  Just go to the "View" tab and check the "Show as Conversations" checkbox.  In the "Conversations Settings" drop down, make sure "Show Messages from Other Folders" is selected.