Day 1 of 7 Days of Agile Results - Sunday (Getting Started)

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imageYour Outcome:   Learn how to get started quickly with Agile Results, even if you've never read the book.

Welcome to day 1 of 7 Days of Agile Results.  By following along each day, you can learn how to use Agile Results as a powerful system to easily triple your productivity.

Agile Results is the productivity system introduced in my best-selling time management book, Getting Results the Agile Way.

You don't have to invest a lot of time, to get a lot of benefits.  You don't even need any ramp up time.  You can just get started now and implement other concepts from the book as time goes by, and when you are ready for those concepts.

The main idea is to get benefits now vs. later.

Here are some of the big benefits you'll gain from using Agile Results as your productivity system:

  1. You'll automatically master time management, motivation, and personal productivity by using proven practices.
  2. You'll improve and amplify your impact by focusing on your top 3 Wins for the week.
  3. You'll avoid getting overloaded and overwhelmed by your day by using 3 Wins each day to focus and prioritize your time, energy, and attention.
  4. You'll reduce your stress and improve your peace of mind by generating a vision for your week and for each day.
  5. You'll improve your satisfaction each day by knowing that you actually got the important things done.
  6. You'll quickly learn how to improve your productivity through continuous learning, feedback, and changing your approach.
  7. You'll learn how to embrace change and get better results in any situation.

With that in mind, let's take a quick look at how Agile Results works:

  1. On Mondays, write down 3 outcomes or "Wins" that you want for the week. (This is called Monday Vision.)
  2. Each day, write down 3 outcomes or "Wins" that you want for each day. (This is called Daily Outcomes.)
  3. On Fridays, ask yourself, "What are 3 things going well?," and, "What are 3 things to improve?", and write your answers down. (This is called Friday Reflection.)

This is the Monday Vision, Daily Wins, Friday Reflection pattern in Agile Results.  It’s a simple pattern for weekly results.  By focusing on 3 Wins each week, and each day, you apply concentrated effort to your most important results.  Focus is your force multiplier.

It might sound incredibly simple, but that's the idea.   Agile Results really is a simple system for meaningful results. 

Simple, but powerful. 

When you identify 3 outcomes or "Wins", what you are doing is:

  1. Prioritizing among your multiple, competing priorities.
  2. Focusing on your highest value results.
  3. Creating a way to more consistently produce better and better results.

What you are actually doing is learning how to identify and produce continuous value … the agile way.

And, as you will learn, value is the ultimate short-cut.

Assignment

  1. Read a few case studies and testimonials to understand some of the results that people achieve using Agile Results.
  2. Add a reminder to your calendar to test-drive Agile Results each day for this week.