I have been expressing in this personal blog (journal) a few times in October- it was one of the more intense months of my life! Lots of events, moving around, as well as overall business changes.
Typing this out on Halloween morning from my kitchen table at home – and preparing as much as possible for a “heads down” November.
Maybe I should schedule my year like that – months that will be intense “networking” and learning by going to conferences, and then other months that are on “lock down” executing and getting work done.
Well, if I were to make those – then April and October would be the hyper, action packed networking and learning months – between the Hong Kong trade show, Canton Fair, Maker Fair, DCBKK, now Dcx Hong Kong, and Cross Border Summit – it is a real intense time. But I love those action packed times.
The rest of this year should be “low key” on the networking side – simply have the Chinese ecommerce via Hong Kong model on Friday November 18 – www.globalfromasia.com/hktrip and then preparing for the Cross Border Summit in April 2017 (crossbordersummit.com) – with a Qianhai trip in the middle sometime, probably in January.
How do you schedule your months?
I remember a Pat Flynn podcast and the woman being interviewed said she prints out a calendar the size of one of her walls in the home office and prepares all year long in advance. Then she looks at it each day while working. I would love to do that – except my home office (I mean, closet) simply doesn’t have the room to do so. I am a visual person so do have a goal to get a bigger home office soon.
Yet, we don’t need to print it out – or at a more high level at least write out the 12 months and list out any big events or action items that will be happening.
I could already picture it in my mind for 2017 (can’t believe I’m already thinking about next year in October!). There is the New Year holiday and then Chinese New Year. Before you know it, we’ll be in March 2017, and I’m pushing hard for the Cross Border Summit event in mid April (exact date not yet determined).
Then we will get through a busy April trade show season, with May transitioning into summer. Summer is super hot in Shenzhen – but no real travel plans, yet. Should we take the kids back to USA to meet the family then? Normally I go to USA in early Autumn, like September.
After the summer, it springs into action in October with the action packed month I just made it through this time. Should be a bit more smooth now that the first Dcx Hong Kong has been completed.
Then the holiday season (well, Western holiday) for November and December to cool down from the trade show season, and repeat it all over again in 2018.
Wow, life has just gotten somewhat predictable! But by being predictable, you can optimize and enhance the performance.
Review Your Grind Reports
Another idea I have is I can review my grind reports. I just read the blog post from Tim Ferriss about his first chapter of the new book “Tools of the Titans” and he mentioned his house is jam packed with notebooks since he was like 7 years old -documenting what he ate, what he did that day, etc. He could go back to a certain time of his life and pull the notebooks from his shelf and review them to see how he was living at that time.
I’m starting to get there, and the Grind Reports I started last year can help me look back at which months I was most effective. At least in the measurement metric of 30 minute pomodoro works sets.
If you don’t measure it – you can not improve it. I am measuring for sure now, and it does feel pretty good.