How to Set Priorities That Drive Big Results (Pizza Priority Party)
Become a Productivity Machine
We’re back with a 4-part FREE training series designed to help you become a more focused + productive creative.
This will be an ongoing theme each week where you can take what you’ve learned to the next level in the upcoming 3-Week Group Coaching Boot Camp which opens for enrollment Thursday, April 27th, 9 AM CT. 🗓
This session will show you how to reduce guesswork, eliminate distractions, and become a productivity machine.
Note: Click the image to watch the replay. Continue below to read the blog.
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Pizza Priority Party
"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?" - Henry David Thoreau
Anyone can be busy, but how many people are productive?
A lot of creatives share with me their biggest struggle is related to time management...
But as a dig deeper, it typically stems from misaligned; or a complete lack of any priorities.
Not everything is a priority and matters equally.
This goes for how you approach your everyday life responsibilities, your day job, and your creative pursuits.
I like to visualize life as a successful, well-balanced slice of your standard pizza:
Your crust (+ sauce).
Your cheese.
Your toppings.
To me, these overlap with the 3 important areas of your existence:
Life (crust + sauce)
Day Job (cheese)
Dream (toppings).
When you're missing your crust, you just have a messy handful of cheese and toppings.
When you're missing your priorities in real life, you may feel “off” and focused on your “work” too much.
Let's break down how to get to a solid, balanced slice so you can crush life AND your creative biz.
The goal is to take control and be intentional with the moves you make.
3 Buckets With Up To 3 Priorities
Determine Your Top 1-3 Priorities Within Your Top 3 Buckets
Let's start by flushing out those top 3 Buckets: Life, Day Job, and Dream
Within each of these, you'll have up to 3 Priorities listed...
Why only up to 3 things?
I truly believe you can only be obsessively focused and productive in up to 3 things at once...
Less is more as constraints are powerful for gaining quick traction.
Bucket #1
Life - Crust + Sauce (Foundation)
Priority 1
Priority 2
Priority 3
Start with the top priorities in your Life as without these, you lack a sturdy foundation to build from.
(Think building a skyscraper on quicksand—no bueno.)
Life priorities can be things like family, fitness, finances, faith, travel, socializing, etc.
Bucket #2
Day Job - Cheese
Priority 1 (%)
Priority 2 (%)
Priority 3 (%)
Think about your roles at work—what are the top 3 areas of focus you get paid to do?
What part of your job delivers the biggest results for your employer?
Also, list out bandwidth percentages that are dedicated toward these specific tasks.
Getting granular will help you when we pivot to the Dream bucket.
For example, at my last job, this would be broken into UIUX 40%, Branding 40%, and Client Relationships 20%.
Note: If you're self-employed, your biz would most likely fall under Day Job. What you want to chase on the side would fall under Dream.
Bucket #3
Dream - Toppings
Priority 1 (%)
Priority 2 (%)
Priority 3 (%)
Once you have the crust + sauce and cheese figured out, we can move toward our toppings...AKA your Dream.
Here are 3 focus questions I always keep top of mind:
What season are you in?
What's your main focus within this season?
What's the main result you're trying to accomplish?
This is where priorities come in as it'll help you distinguish opportunities from distractions.
It's not about "doing all the things" but "doing only the things that matter most."
Based on your experience, it may be best to scale back to ONE priority/focus for the season which allows for the quickest traction.
And within that ONE priority, you'll have sub-areas of focus/tasks.
My Pizza Priorities Example
Here's an example of how I'd put this together for myself along with percentages within my creative biz priorities.
Bucket #1
Life - Crust + Sauce (Foundation)
Family: My wife and kiddos come first, along with the rest of my family and closest friends.
Fitness: If I don't take care of my body and mind, my quality of life will suffer + my creative biz will crumble.
Finances: I'm focused on changing my family tree and refuse to live paycheck to paycheck.
Without these priorities in place, I'd be a workaholic destroying relationships and my health (Again, all toppings, no crust 👎).
Bucket #2 + #3 Combined
Day Job & Dream
I find myself in a unique situation this season where my coaching biz is overlapping with my art-based side hustle heavily.
So I will be combining the buckets of my Day Job (coaching) with my Dream (art) as this shit is truly a dream job.
Let's start with the focus questions:
What season am I in?
I'm in a heavy coaching mode season with severely limited bandwidth with a newborn in the picture and my family duties.
I'm only able to work around 15 hours per week and have to be extremely dialed in.
What's my main focus within this season?
My focus for the coming months is to streamline my coaching services to free up more bandwidth.
I currently can't scale my time and grow my biz to where I know it could be—I've become the bottleneck.
What's the main result I'm trying to accomplish?
I'm looking to productize my current coaching services by the end of the year, if not sooner.
This will allow me to serve current and new students from an automated approach…
So I can expand and offer new coaching services within the exciting Web 3 space.
This will also free me up to spend more time with my family, bring back the podcast, and create more art.
Here's how I break down my priorities within the current season I'm in:
Coaching (60%): My students get the majority of my time as they financially provide for me and my family. I've accepted I will fall behind in replying to everyone else.
Brand Awareness (25%): Promotional and brand-building tasks like emails, live trainings, social content, etc. that can expose creatives to the next level of service I can provide.
Art (15%): While this is my therapeutic escape, selling my art as NFTs have brought in a new income stream for my family. It also serves as social proof for coaching creatives on how to do it too.
These are truly the main 3 priorities that move my business forward and within these, I have sub-priorities, projects, and tasks (I go deeper on this in the upcoming Boot Camp).
The percentages change based on the season I'm in—especially if I have a coaching offer I’m promoting.
If I don't have my priorities in check within the Day Job/Dream bucket, I'll become stressed out, waste my time, and see minimum progress.
Go for a Good Slice
My goal for myself and my students is to crush every aspect of our lives—we control what we can control.
This may seem like overkill getting this granular in these buckets, but it truly allows us to thrive by staying focused on what matters most.
When you know what’s important and you execute, that's when you see results.
That's when you can enjoy a delightfully balanced slice of pizza to enjoy where Life, Day Job, and Dream are clicking.
I’d love the opportunity to show you to do this as well!
Let’s Work Together 🤝
Are you struggling to dial in your priorities that create the biggest results?
If so, you'll love the upcoming 3-Week Boot Camp on Focus, Prioritization, and Productivity (5/6 - 5/26).
In 21 days, I’ll show you how to reduce the guesswork, find clarity on your path, and enjoy the hell out of the work you're creating.
Consider learning more below about how to join an upcoming 3-Week Boot Camp. 👇🏻
JOIN THE BOOT CAMP WAITLIST
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Or they’re available as one-off sessions to tackle your current biggest struggle.
These are for anyone looking the take the next steps in growing their creative biz/brand creating work they vibe to.
Expect challenging exercises, a private community, 3 weekly live calls, and more.
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