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com
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WORKSHEETS

How to achieve more by doing less

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What’s your “why”? Quantify it
I want to be more productive so that I can… How many hours a week are you wasting by doing
this task yourself?
LESSON 2:

The Why
ASSIGNMENT:
By fixing this pain point, I could save

What’s Your “Why”? hour(s) every day / week / month.

(Or, What Would You Do With an

Extra Hour a Day)

Take a moment, and write down your “why.”

Why do you want to be more productive?

In other words, why are you taking this course?
Are you seeking freedom from something (negative
liberty), or freedom to do something (positive liberty)?

Are you hoping to spend less time on repetitive tasks

like accounting and finance, and more time on creativity?
Or maybe you’d like to spend more time with your
family, and never miss another date night?

Maybe you’re hoping to scale your startup in an

efficient way without adding a ton of overhead?
Or perhaps you’re just curious about how much more
important work you could get done – the type of work
By following the productivity framework
you’re really passionate about, that got you into this
in this class, you’ll be able to take back
business in the first place – if you could only automate a
at least 1 hour a day.
few other things along the way.
Just think what you could do with that
Put it into words. Then I’ll show you how to start putting
extra hour!
those words into action.

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The 3 D’s of Email Useful Email Tools

LESSON 5: Delete It (or decline it) Inbox by Google

www.google.com/inbox

The 3 D’s of Email

Deal With It (like, right now)*
Followup Then
Defer It (to a later time when you can www.followupthen.com
properly deal with it)
“Rules” in Outlook
ASSIGNMENT:
“Deal With It” has a caveat – ”Delegate It” – which we’ll “Filters” in Gmail
Try Out the 3 D’s talk about in detail later in the course.

in Your Inbox I promise you, every single email can be treated with
one of these 3 action items.

Head over to your inbox. Take a quick glance at your

recent emails. And apply the 3 D’s that I discussed in
the Lesson to three different emails that are staring you Tips for Managing Email Notes
down right now.

• Nuke your old emails.

Set up a “filter” or “rule” to automatically
Archive every email in your inbox that’s more
than 2 weeks old.

• Archive all marketing emails.

You can set up another filter to archive anything
that has the word “unsubscribe” in it, so that all
your emails are relevant and from actual human
beings.

• Snooze as needed.
Using Followupthen.com, forward the
“Defer It” emails to a later time (for example,
2hours@followupthen.com) and it will
automatically bring it back to your attention
at a later time that you decide is best.
Remember, you should get to a point
• Create your own system
where everyth ing in your inbox is exciting,
in your inbox for applying the 3 D’s at scale. Try
interesting, and actionable.
out Gmail’s labels, stars, flags, etc. and see what
works best for your style.

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 www.getwsodo.com
www.getwsodo.com The time of day in which you have the most taps is your
How to do the CNS Tap Test: peak time; this is when you have the most focus, and
you should use that focus on your best work.
• Tap your index finger on any surface
• Count how many taps you can do in 10 seconds Each person’s Tap Test results are unique to them –
LESSON 6:
• Do this 3-4 times a day for 3-4 days total there is no right or wrong amount that you should be
• Record the different numbers of taps to see what striving for. Your results will be relative to you as a
Keeping time of day you “peak” person. Just look for the highs and lows.

Focus, Avoiding
Distractions How many taps can you do in 10 seconds?

DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3 DAY4

ASSIGNMENT:

Find Your Peak TAP TEST #1 # of Taps # of Taps # of Taps # of Taps

Time
Time:

Do the Central Nervous System (CNS) “Tap Test” to

find out your own peak time – the window in which
TAP TEST #2 # of Taps # of Taps # of Taps # of Taps
you are 2x to 100x more effective.
Time:

TAP TEST #3 # of Taps # of Taps # of Taps # of Taps

Time:

If you’d prefer to do this digitally, try an app:

• Less Doing Peak Time App (Android)

TAP TEST #4 # of Taps # of Taps # of Taps # of Taps
Time:

PRO TIP

Set a calendar reminder for yourself during your peak

time, or block off your schedule during this time for NEXT STEP
deep work (e.g. writing and idea generation). Now, try doing your best work during your peak time.

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Where and how do you Compartmentalization Tips
focus best?

LESSON 8: Describe your ideal environment for productivity. Set a timer.

Try the Pomodoro Technique for compartmentalizing
Compartmentalizing • What tools do you use to get in the zone?
your time. Set a timer for 25-minute intervals of
focused work, with 5-minute breaks in between.

ASSIGNMENT: Interrupt yourself.

Make use of the Zeigarnik effect, which states that
Map Out Your Ideal • Do you have a favorite pen or pencil?
people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks
better than completed tasks.
Environment for
Productivity Put on a mask.
Are you Batman or Superman? Is your natural state
“super,” or do you have to get into a certain mindset
Getting into the right mindset physically will drastically in order to be super? Think about what you can do to
• Do you sit in a specific chair or location?
affect how you focus mentally. compartmentalize and get into that zone.

Use environmental triggers and associations to help

you compartmentalize, so you can avoid distractions
and get your best work done.

• What is the lighting like?

• Headphones on or off? What music?

• Which associations help you stay focused?

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Kanban System

If you’re already well-versed in Trello or another tool
that uses kanban systems, then you can jump ahead to
LESSON 9: the next lesson. If this idea is totally new to you, I’d like
you to set up your own kanban system out of your to-do
Project list. Either write it down in the columns below, use post-
It notes on your wall, or input it into a tool like Trello.
Start with 3 basic columns: To Do, Doing, and Done.
If your project is more complex and required more steps,
feel free to start with a blank sheet and add columns
accordingly. The goal is just to break down the work and
always keep things progressing forward.

Management +
Task Lists TO DO DOING DONE

ASSIGNMENT:

Create Your Own

Kanban System
Kanban is a productivity system for visualizing the flow
of work in a supply chain, developed by Toyota in the
1940s. It’s also the inspiration behind apps like Trello
and Asana. A kanban system encourages the movement
of work-in-progress to completion.

Tips for Kanban Systems

• Think small. • Keep it moving.

Break work down into micro-goals. Use tasks and
sub-tasks.
• Pick the right people.
Breaking down bigger projects into individual tasks
helps identify whom you need to collaborate with or
delegate to on each step.
Nothing should stay in any one phase for very long.
If a task is stuck, the kanban system helps you identify
blockers and identify solutions.
• Get inspired.
Yes, productivity should get you excited. Here are some
inspiring kanban examples by Trello, from Editorial
Calendars to Hiring Funnels to an MVP Roadmap for
an imaginary dog messaging app:
https://trello.com/inspiration

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Which repetitive tasks Having trouble thinking of
would you automate in your what to automate?
business or in life?
LESSON 10: Here’s another approach...

Automating Write down 3-5 ideas.

Think about a pain point in your business or on
your team. Where is the breakdown happening?
Repetitive Tasks 1

2
ASSIGNMENT:
How much time is spent by having you (or another
Which Repetitive 3 person) physically doing this task?

Tasks Are You Tired 4

of Doing? 5
How much time would you save if you could
remove the human being from the equation?
Repetitive tasks and processes are grueling. Even
something as simple as paying a bill can have several
dozen steps involved – which is wasting your valuable
time and energy. Consider automating
Anything that is repeatable is something that just certain components of
hasn’t been automated yet. these processes: What would you be able to accomplish by gaining
that time back?

• Accounting & Payroll

• Hiring & Firing
• Company Procedures & Policies
• Human Resources
• Running a Company Retreat
• Scheduling a Weekly Meeting Now keep watching the course, and I’ll show you
• Social Media Marketing how to actually automate these processes.

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How to optimize? Identify processes that:

In this lesson, we talked about shining a light – to identify • take too long
how we do the things we do, so we can make those • are repetitive and annoying
LESSON 12: processes better. I want you to look at all the processes
in your life and in your business. • you aren’t good at

OPTIMIZE: Which ones are repetitive?

• have unforced errors

Shining a Light Which ones are taking lots of unnecessary time?

Where have you slipped up?

Where are the unforced errors? In other words, what

are the situations where something went wrong due to
no outside influence other than your own mistake?

ASSIGNMENT:

Identify Broken Write down 2-3 processes that need optimizing.

Processes WHAT IS IT? WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT?

How do we actually optimize a process? First, we need

to bring some awareness and identify what’s broken.
People often say that they do things a certain way PROCESS #1
“because that’s how we’ve always done it.”
This is the wrong way to go.

It’s crucial to look at the processes in your business,

figure out what’s not working, and then we can make
some simple tweaks to optimize them (and ultimately,
automate and scale them). PROCESS #2

PROCESS #3

Once you have these on paper, let’s move into the next lesson and talk about how to actually do it.

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In order to effectively improve a process so that
Action Item
literally anybody could do it (or at least, anybody
qualified that you hire), you need to make sure it
works on both a secondary level and a tertiary level.
A great hack for achieving this is to reverse-engineer Take one of the processes from your previous
LESSON 13: the process. assignment (Shining a Light), and document it so that
it could be done by anybody. Screencast it, share that

OPTIMIZE: Use this simple 3-step

with a 2nd person to create the SOP, and share the
SOP with a 3rd person to execute.

Improving method

Processes
• Screencast your process using a tool like
Quicktime or CloudApp while explaining it.
Tools for Optimization
• Give that screencast video to a 2nd person
ASSIGNMENT:
to create a checklist based on what they see,
• Process Street
Design a Process
which turns into the makings of a standard
operating procedure (SOP). https://www.process.st
(workflows, procedure documents,
That Can Be Done • Lastly, give that SOP to a 3rd person to
actually carry out. They likely won’t be able to
process templates)

By Anybody follow it perfectly – but, they will point out the

dozen errors that you could fix along the way.
• LastPass
https://www.lastpass.com
(password manager)

The key thing to remember when optimizing processes
is this: if it wasn’t you doing the task or project, what
would the person do?
• Google Drive
https://www.google.com/drive
What you end up with in the end is a SOP that (store and share procedure documents)
could be done by anybody, and shared within your
• MediaWiki
organization or an outsourced worker so that
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
you no longer have to do it yourself. Next up, we’ll
(create your own workplace Wiki)
walk through how to automate these optimized
processes, and then outsource anything that’s left.

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Step 1 Step 2

Write down 3 things in your business that you’d
like to automate, and why (2 small, 1 big).
LESSON 14:
Start to think about what the trigger is, and then
AUTOMATE: what action you want to occur as a result.
Think about how you could create an “external brain”
for automating Idea Capture, and getting notes out
of your head as quickly as possible. Use the space
below to braindump. The brain is great at coming up
with ideas, but not so great at storing them!

Triggers and Actions

ASSIGNMENT:

What Would You

Automate?

I’m going to walk through a live example of how to

actually set up an automation with one of my favorite
tools, If This Then That (IFTTT), in the next video lesson.

For now, I want you to think about 3 things that you’d

like to automate in order to make your business, your
marketing, your sales funnel, or other aspect of your
company more effective.

Is it something as simple as, “Every time it rains, I

want to get a text message reminding me to bring my
umbrella to work”? Or “When a customer signs up
for my email list I want to automatically follow them
and Tweet them a welcome message from my brand
account”? Think it through, write down your 3 ideas
on the worksheet, and then we’ll move onto the next
video where I’ll show you how to automate them.

If you’re feeling intimidated, don’t worry – you’ve

already set up a simple automation in the 3 D’s by
“Deferring” an email with Followupthen.com!
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Take one of the ideas from the previous worksheet, or a new idea altogether,
and create your own IFTTT automated applet.
LESSON 15:

AUTOMATE:
Setting Up IFTTT
Pick a service from the IFTTT triggers list that you use every day or week
(e.g. Facebook, Twitter, camera phone, screenshot tool).

TRIGGER

ASSIGNMENT:

Set Up Your Own

IFTTT Automation
A resulting action that would make your life easier, or your business run more
smoothly, if it didn’t require those extra few seconds or minutes to actually do.

ACTION
You’ve seen me do the technical setup for If This Then
That (IFTTT) – and I use the word “technical” loosely, as
it’s surprisingly easy to do yourself. Now it’s your turn.

Then go to ifttt.com, sign up for free, and start a new applet.

The beauty of this tool is that the whole process should only take you a few minutes to set up. Voila: instant automation.

Just imagine what else you could achieve with this one simple yet powerful tool! The possibilities are endless.

Having trouble thinking of an automation right now? Browse through IFTTT’s library of applet ideas:
https://ifttt.com/discover

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The 6 Levels of Delegation

LESSON 18:
EXPLORE
OUTSOURCE: DO AS
I SAY
LOOK INTO
THIS FOR ME
GIVE ME
YOUR
EXPLORE,
DECIDE,
AND CHECK
AND
DECIDE, JUST GET
IT DONE
ADVICE, WITHIN
The 6 Levels of I’LL DECIDE BACK WITH
ME
THESE
LIMITS

Delegation
Action Item:
ASSIGNMENT:
Write down 10 things that you need to get done, or things that you just don’t want to do (or shouldn’t be doing yourself).
Explore the 6 How will you delegate these 10 tasks? Which of the 6 levels of delegation would you use for each?
Delegation Styles Try to mix them up among the different levels (1-3 tasks in each delegation style).

TO DO: DELEGATION STYLE

Depending on the project or task that you need to 1

delegate, you may need to use a different approach. As
we discussed in the lesson, there are 6 different levels 2
of delegation that you could be employing – each one
gaining more trust as you go down the line.
3
The ultimate goal is to go from management – which is
Level 1 – to leadership – which includes full trust and 4
confidence in the person doing the work.
5

10
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There is a lot of upside Medium Task or Project:

to outsourcing:

LESSON 19: • Specialization

You don’t have to give something to somebody
OUTSOURCE: that they’re not good at, or that they’re not
going to want to work on.

Outsourcing • Engagement
You can engage with somebody in a way that
Large Project:

Like a Pro they can truly add value to a project, instead of

just being another cog in the machine.

ASSIGNMENT:
Write Down 3
Things You Could
Outsource
Now that you’ve optimized all the processes that need
improvement, and automated as many as possible,
there shouldn’t be much left to give to a human being.
However, there may be a few things that you still
need to outsource, in order to scale your business or
maximize your own time.
What do you need to
outsource?
Think of 3 projects or tasks that you could, should,
or have been waiting to outsource. Make one of
them small (e.g. buy tickets to something, make a
dentist appointment, book a dinner reservation), one
medium (e.g. creating your monthly expense report),
and one large (e.g. come up with a new content
marketing strategy).
Small Task:
Next, think about how you might break them down,
what needs to happen in order to communicate the
process clearly to an outsourced professional, and
where you might go in order to outsource them.
Is the small project something that a Virtual
Assistant could do? Is the medium or large project
something that requires a little more trust and
collaboration? How will you communicate the brief
to the outsourced worker?
Use the lines on the next page for notes.

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Notes Tips
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for Outsourcing Outsourcing Resources

• Use multimedia. Leverage

Try conveying your vision in a more visual way https://getleverage.com
– screencapture with Quicktime, animated (my former company specializing in outsourcing any
GIFs xwith CloudApp, photos taken on your project :)
smartphone, audio recording explaining your Upwork
thinking, etc. https://www.upwork.com
• Communicate clearly. (freelance design, web development, and more)
If you’re working with a competent outsourcing Fiverr
provider, and you got a result back that wasn’t https://www.fiverr.com
what you had envisioned, more often than (design, marketing, writing, video, and more)
not it’s because you didn’t communicate it
effectively. Zirtual
https://www.zirtual.com
• Put yourself in their shoes. (virtual assistants)
Often, outsourcing providers work remotely in
other cities and countries. Welcome that new TaskRabbit
perspective. Allow them to bring their ideas and https://www.taskrabbit.com
experience to the table and become part of the (moving and furniture assembly)
discussion. Amazon Mechanical Turk
• Give details. https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
Keep in mind, the person with whom you’re (“Human Intelligence Tasks”)
working is not sitting next to you. Don’t skip 99Designs
over the obvious when communicating your https://99designs.com
vision. A lot of outsourcing problems occur (graphic design, logo & branding, business cards)
when you start thinking, “Oh I don’t need to
mention this detail because it’s so obvious.” This Rev
is the opposite case. Give them as many details https://www.rev.com
as possible, so that there are no open questions (on-demand transcription and translation)
and everyone is on the same page.
• Let go a little.
Ask yourself, “Do you want it to be yours, or do
you want it to be good?” Really you should want
the work to be good. The outsourcing provider
may complete the project differently than you
would have – but it will be completed, and you
didn’t have to do it yourself.

Communicating your vision – which, ultimately, is

leadership – is how you effectively delegate and
outsource in the end.

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