You’re listening to the 200th episode of the Productivity Show which is a major milestone for us. Three years and almost 5mm downloads later we’re still going strong and helping people like you achieve your goals in record times with our actionable content. To celebrate this special occasion we will reveal something at Asian Efficiency that we have never done before - an inside look at our planning process at the company. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, team leader or someone who wants to learn how to plan their goals in a different way, you’ll learn a lot from this today’s episode where we share how we plan our goals for the year and how we try to achieve them. We talk about which mistakes we’ve made along the way, share how we’ve sometimes failed at hitting our targets, and what we’ve learned that helps us execute better the more we stick with the process.

Thanks to Slack for supporting The Productivity Show. Slack: Where work happens. Go to slack.com to learn more.

Cheat Sheet

How Asian Efficiency's planning and goal-setting systems have changed over the years 3:03

How AE grew from a 2-person side project to a larger business with a team of people 11:44

The concept of "disagree and commit" and why it’s important 15:49

Why nothing beats doing planning sessions in person 21:35

Why you should start with the end in mind when it comes to planning 24:02

How the "critical number" keeps you on track 33:09

Using an example of creating an online course to talk about goal setting and the critical number 41:31

Using scrum and story points in the planning process 51:05

Understanding where you are now with leading indicators 53:10

How to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be 58:26

Why planning is 50% of the work 1:03:42

How "thinking time" can help you accomplish your goals 1:07:21

Lessons that we've learned from our own quarterly planning process 1:13:57

Links

Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't

TPS7: Going Paperless w/ Brooks Duncan

Our 3 Biggest Challenges of Implementing Scrum & How We Overcame Them (TPS191)

A Professional Scrum Master’s Best Advice for a Productive Team w/ Lucas Smith (TPS189)

How to Take Massive Action on Your Goals by Implementing the 12 Week Year Effectively (TPS138)

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Tomatobot for Slack

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, PocketCast or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show gain exposure. You can also leave a review! Here's how.

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!