Chunking Up For Progress - Cara Lumen

by Cara Lumen

If we think in bigger chunks, we’ll feel better organized. Four big chunks are Plan. Prepare, Produce and Learn. Here’s how that might work.

Schedule a Planning Chunk

You need to take time to work on your business rather than in your business. This means quarterly contemplation about what’s working and what’s not and based on that what to release and what to keep.

You need a chunk of time to plan a new project – do your research, create an outline, write a landing page to focus your intention.

You need a chunk of time to plan the topics of your blog posts or article submission.

This is brain time. This is time you stop doing and allow yourself to feel and think and observe and choose. Put a planning chunk on your calendar. Putting it at the end of the week gives you time to acknowledge what you have accomplished and prioritize for the next week. Project planning can be scheduled any time. Again, you need to mark off several hours so you can really sink down into your ideas and pull out the best ones. Schedule planning time on your calendar in healthy sized weekly chunks.

Schedule a Preparation Chunk

You need time to prepare. This is the time you spend writing the landing page for your new product or service. It is time spent designing a cover for your ebook, or writing a new worksheet for your coaching practice. It can be about outlining a new course, designing handouts for it, figuring out bonuses and schedules. It’s about brainstorming blog topics and product ideas. It’s based on planning but it is about moving your projects forward.

Schedule a Production Chunk

I try to blog three times a week but I write them in one sitting and post them for the week so I just need one chunk of production time for the major part of my blog. It’s important to me so I do it Monday morning. I want to continue to post articles to www.ezinearticles.com so in this blog producing chunk I now make time to post at least one article on line. Adding one small step to an existing time chunk can keep you moving forward.

Part of my producing chunk is about leveraging – turning a teleclass into a home study course for instance. Or taking a radio script and making three articles out of it. Fleshing out my Cornerstone Content. Seeing if I have enough blog posts on a particular topic to create a new ebook. Putting existing ebooks on Kindle. You can see how you need a good chunk of production time each week.

Schedule a Learning Chunk

We need to keep learning. Schedule time to be on a conference call that will bring you new knowlege, read a business book, go exploring on the internet, or take a tutorial in a program you already use. I’m reading the revised version of Michael Port’s Book Yourself Solid (I’m in it) and going to write a book review for Sharon Sayler’s What Your Body Says.” (I wrote the exercises) I want to order Mitch Meyerson’s “Success Secrets of the Social Media Superstars.” And I have several content development workbooks I want to study to enrich my “How to Craft a Magnetic Information Product” course. A learning chunk is vital to keep expanding our horizons. You should schedule a learning chunk every week.

Schedule daily Move Ahead time

What is important for you to accomplish this quarter? That is the one project you are going to focus on. Break it down into steps and schedule them on your calendar. Keep focusing on this one project till it is complete. It’s a Move Ahead Chunk on one outstanding project.

In my case it’s a content development course I am creating. My steps are:
1. Design the content, the experientials and the handouts
2. Decide how long the course must be
3. Decide what bonuses will go with it
4. Schedule the time to give it – allow time to begin marketing it 6 weeks out.
5. Write a landing page
6. Pick a price
7. Write the invitational emails that will precede it.
8. Expand the outline
9. Write the content
10. Produce the product
11. Promote the course

Some of this is planning, some preparing, some producing and some learning but you have to schedule 2-3 hour chunks of time for a Move Ahead time on a special project. This could be an information product, a new service, or even learning a new skill like more about video or audio. Mark off an afternoon to be creative. Then create. Give yourself chunks of time to plan, prepare, produce, learn and move ahead. Then notice how quickly your business takes off.