I’m a big proponent of annually reviewing my past year and deciding what to focus on for the year ahead.
This year, I’m trying something different. I’m setting out eight major things I want to accomplish over the year.
I want this to be my “white list” for ideas and opportunities.
When I have a new opportunity, I can check it against the list. “Does this match?” I’ll ask myself.
If it does, excellent! A new thing to tackle!
If it doesn’t, I’ll save it in my “2017 Ideas” notebook in Evernote with a little detail on what the idea is. Every month or three I’ll go back and review the ideas.
But, by doing this, I am doubling down on focus and attention. I am doubling down on constraints. I am saying “This is the 2017 I want. Let’s go do the work.”
They say you overestimate what you can get accomplished in a year and underestimate what you can accomplish in five years (I originally heard this anecdotal phrase in Bryan Tracie’s “The Luck Factor” audiobook). Well, we’ll see, won’t we? I’m a fan of thinking about my life in terms of five year chunks. A play is five acts. Why not five years? 2017 kicks off the first year of my five years for “Building.”
And that’s what my focus looks like as I enter into 2017. Hiring people. Building a team. Delegating more (Thanks Jessie). Travel. Add new streams of income by launching new business ventures. Make it less about me and more about the company. Kai Co is bigger than one person and there’s both more I can accomplish at-large by growing and more people that I can help with a bigger team.
I like teaching people, making things, and seeing businesses grow.
— ✨ Kai Davis ✨ (@kaisdavis) December 4, 2016
My 2017 Goals
- Serving my paying clients
- Lose 10lbs four times
- “Make Burning Man Great Again”
- Get to 10,000 email subscribers
- Hit the following recurring monthly milestones on my product sales: $2,000, $4,000, $5,000
- Producing Make Money Online with Nick Disabato
- The workday ends at 5pm. Friday is a Personal Day. The Weekend Is My Time.
Let’s dive in
The workday ends at 5pm. Friday is a Personal Day. The Weekend Is My Time.
I work too much. I’ll be honest with you. I find myself spending extra time — too much time — at work. But when I have a constraint (like leaving on a trip), everything that needs to get done, gets done.
I want to focus on just the highest value, the most impactful things I can for my business. The top 10% of things that will make the biggest impact and ignore the other 90%.
But I have a bad habit of letting work expand to fill the space. And I need constraints to define the space that work can grow to fill.
Inspired by my friend Philip Morgan, I’m adding some constraints to my life.
I’m switching to a 4-day work week.
I don’t work on Fridays.
My work day ends at 5pm.
The weekend is my time.
Within that box, I have to prioritize more. I have to be more intentional. I have to ask myself “Is this something that I want to choose to focus on?” and if the answer is no, I need to delegate it, eliminate it, or automate it.
Serving my paying clients
All of my consulting work is focused on helping educational product creators grow their audience and increase their revenue. I get you in front of your audience with podcast guest tours. I help you build and grow your audience. I help you identify and launch new sources of revenue for your business. I help you manage your most valuable relationships.
Make Money Online
I record a humble little podcast about unfettered business domination as an independent business owner with my colleague and co-host, nickd. It is a wonderful podcast and you cannot stop us. Go and listen right now.
Lose 10lbs four times
This doesn’t necessarily clock in at losing 40lbs, but repeating the process of losing 10lbs.
I’m weighing in at 234lbs as of December 2nd. I’m planning on cutting down to 215lbs, doing a short muscle-building bulk to 220, cutting down to 210, bulking up to 215, and cutting down to 205lbs. So, 30lb net loss over 13 months — with 10lbs of muscle gain in there.
“Make Burning Man Great Again”
I’m lunching a Burning Man camp, Shangri La, in 2017, in partnership with the Hammer and Cyclery camp. More on this coming soon.
COMMONLY ASKED QUESTION: “Kai, why isn’t Burning Man great?”
Answer: There wasn’t Shangri La at Burning Man yet.
Get to 10,000 Email Subscribers
I’m just over 2,500 as I write this. I’ve never applied focus and intention to growing my list. I’m applying focus and intention and hitting 10,000 this year.
Hit the following recurring monthly milestones on my product sales: $2,000, $4,000, $5,000
My consulting work is focused on helping educational product creators build their audience and increase their sales.
I’m going to be using more of the strategies I use when I help a client grow their business on my own books and courses.
I’m approaching this as a ‘Goal Tower’:
- $2,000/month
- $4,000/month
- $5,000/month
Okay. Bye. ??
