A short workbook to accompany Video 1 - High Payoff Activities - the most important factor in personal productivity and hence success - get this right and you are 80% there.
2. High-Payoff Activities
No 1
Write down a significant goal you have in the workplace, something that will take you
months or maybe even a year to complete. This should be one of your major
responsibilities.
Make the goal SMART – specific, measureable, achievable, realistic and timebound.
This is important. “Get more clients” is not a goal, it’s a dream. Generate £50K of new
gross margin from a minimum of 10 new clients by the end of Q2” is a goal. It’s
SMART.
Don’t rush this – all success starts with clear goals.
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DrMarkNugent.com BRC House, Bredbury Business Park, Stockport, Cheshire, SK6 2SN, UK
3. High-Payoff Activities
No 2
Write down everything you or anyone else could do to make this goal happen.
Everything. It’s important to get everything down because it might be clear to you
that refurbishing the website is not a critical activity, but to the person who loves
doing that, they will delude themselves that it is.
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DrMarkNugent.com BRC House, Bredbury Business Park, Stockport, Cheshire, SK6 2SN, UK
4. High-Payoff Activities
No 3
Look at all the activities and circle those that will make the difference, that will
deliver your goal, that is essential, that you know, in your heart of hearts, must be
done, whether you like doing it or not.
These are your high payoff activities.
DrMarkNugent.com BRC House, Bredbury Business Park, Stockport, Cheshire, SK6 2SN, UK
5. High-Payoff Activities
No 4
Make sure each high payoff activity has a metric associated with it. So rewrite them
with metrics. For example, “do some cold calling” becomes “make 20 cold calls per
day”. For the one-off activities, make then timebound, e.g. “launch XYZ product by
end Q1.”
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You now have the high payoff activities that will give you the best chance of achieving
your goal.
DrMarkNugent.com BRC House, Bredbury Business Park, Stockport, Cheshire, SK6 2SN, UK
6. High-Payoff Activities
No 5
Put the high payoff activities in your diary. Make sure that it looks like 50% of your
time is scheduled to be spent on these critical high payoff activities. These activities
take precedence. Protect this time with your life. Giving your high payoff activities
this amount of time will give you all the benefits we have discussed.
DrMarkNugent.com BRC House, Bredbury Business Park, Stockport, Cheshire, SK6 2SN, UK
