Business Owners face a problem of many tasks they COULD do.
What they need to know is which they SHOULD do.
This Catalog lists selection methods for every type of task and skill.
Like in the Martial Arts, begin with White Belt. Yellow Belt is the first step. Blue Belt is for the more experienced
Intuition & Experience
If you have been running your business for any length of time, you probably have quite a good intuitive understanding of what is likely to be the most impactful activity. Keep in mind that, if your business is not doing as well as it might, you should use a different “tool” to get a better outcome. You might improve on your solo intuition by brainstorming with others like a mentor, partner or staff so you capture theirs as well. White Belt
Prerequisites
Sometimes there are tasks that are relatively unimportant in themselves but have to be done before more important tasks can be undertaken. One has to build the foundations of a house before the roof can be completed. You can use your intuition to schedule these. White Belt
AI Tools
You might be tempted to ask AI what you should do. We don't think that is a good idea! AI is a great research assistant helping you to find things that you could do to fix a problem. But (presently at least) it doesn't know what is important to you, and what you feel competent to do, so it can't really decide for you. And, arguably, it should not decide for you. If it did, you are no longer the "boss" in charge of your business. You are working for someone else doing things you may not understand too well and lacking any sort of commitment to doing them. White Belt
Theory of Constraints
TOC says that in any workflow there will be at least one, and usually only one, constraint or bottleneck that you have to attend to before anything else can happen. A classic example of this thinking is the shape of an hourglass. No matter what you do above and below the pinched waste of the hourglass, sand is not going to move through that pinched-waist-constraint any faster than the pinched waist will allow. It is a waste of time to spend any time focusing on parts of the plan other than where the constraint is. Critically, no progress will happen until the constraint is “relaxed”. Yellow Belt
Be 16 Times More Productive with 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 Rule says only 20% of the available activities make a significant contribution to moving forward in the required direction. The remaining 80% are decorative and/or time wasting. If you focus on the 20% import activities, you will be 16 times more effective than doing the unimportant, not mission critical, tasks. Yellow Belt
Prioritise your Time
Your time is precious! There are several popular time management techniques you can teach yourself, and your staff. This will reduce your stress because you will always be focused on the important tasks; the ones that keep you awake! Lean about the MoSCoW Method and how Eisenhower ran WWII and later as President ran the USA. You can bet he was a busy person so had to prioritise a lot. These tools work equally well on prioritising projects and on tasks requiring your time so it should become one of your regular, basic, prioritization tools. Yellow Belt
Weighted Scores Ranks using your Preferences
When you are thinking of buying a car, there are lots of features (like engine type, dashboard functions etc) you are trying to weigh up against each other for all the different car brands and models you are looking at. These weights and score techniques make it much easier to arrive at the best decision according to your preferences when faced with a whole range of options to juggle. Yellow and Blue Belt versions
The Amazing Power of Compounding
Undertaking a host of comparatively small changes can have a surprising compound interest outcome. If you can improve some element of your business by about 10% each week, that element would be 100% better in just 7 weeks. Einstein is reputed to have said “Compound Interest is the Eight Wonder of the World”. Especially useful when deciding on Kaizen tasks. Yellow Belt
Impact Sensitivity
Your profit is more or less "sensitive" (or responsive to) a change in some business aspects than others. For example, a large EU study found a 1% change in price led to an average 11% increase in profit. Learn more about the most sensitive / responsive parts of your business that you might focus on. Blue Belt
More on GamePlan Candidates and Prioritisation
This links to a listing of our library of techniques for identifying and prioritizing Candidates for including in Quarterly GamePlans