Brilliant article, thank you Polina. Blocking out sensible chunks of my time to focus on my work resulted in a lot of worry about what others would think. Which in turn led to some soul searching to challenge why I feel the need to be over accommodating to the needs of others, when in reality I'm of no help to others or myself if I have a solid run of days of almost back to back meetings. Your article has eloquently worded the opportunity and given me some more food for thought - so thank you!
Hi Polina, I really liked your article on Intentional Planning. I use a similar approach for calendar blocking, working with a calendar and task list and supporting reference material in Apple Notes However, I couldn't find an app that helped me define and stay focused on key goals and habits, so I developed one. It's just launched on the Apple App Store and I'm keen to get feedback - if you get a chance to have a look and let me know what you think I'd really welcome your input. More details at excellgrowth.com/excellgrowth-app. Thanks! David
Thank you David! This looks very cool. I think the best products come when your are trying to solve your own problem. What does this app help you with three most, personally? The feature that jumped out at me was to track trends over long periods of time (I love crunching this sort of data, though it is hard to collect).
You’ve asked a great question about the problem the app solves.
Through my work with organizations and individuals tackling difficult changes, I’ve seen how challenging it can be to stretch beyond comfort zones. However, the reward is significant personal and organizational growth, leading to improved performance and desired outcomes. While coaching support is critical, I found that tools to define and navigate change were lacking—so I developed this app.
The app addresses three key problem areas: Planning, Doing, and Improving, all of which are essential for delivering positive change.
1. Planning: Focusing on key goals and habits.
The first challenge is helping people clearly identify and prioritize their most important goals and habits. Many people pursue too many poorly defined objectives without considering the time and resources available. The app helps users gain clarity on what to focus on, which is a helpful input for practices like calendar blocking. By focusing on a small number of high-impact goals and habits, users can make smarter, more effective progress.
2. Doing: Logging progress and staying on track.
The second challenge is consistently working on goals and habits. Often, people define their objectives but fail to act due to forgetting, competing priorities, or discomfort with the tasks. The app’s journal feature plays a critical role here, allowing users to log their progress and stay engaged with their goals.
3. Improving: Reflecting, learning, and adjusting.
The third challenge is the lack of regular reflection on progress. Many people don’t reflect at all, or they review their progress but ignore setbacks. The app encourages users to log their learning in the journal and analyze progress trends to identify why things didn’t go as planned. This supports better decision-making and course correction, keeping users on track toward their goals.
I tried a similar system to manage my work, but it sometimes becomes difficult to continue with this framework for me since my work has large upstream and downstream dependencies. Is there a way to factor such things at the time of planning itself?
Sunny, I love your question. Yes, I have been tripped over by another team not delivering on their commitment and screwing up my work, or having a downstream team escalation that throws our schedule out of the window.
What Amazonians say is that "you should own your dependencies".
For downstream dependencies, I maintain a calendar of important (usually VP-level) upcoming meetings that we review/update with my team every week. This list has all key meetings where we are a dependency. For any such meeting we start planning 2-4 weeks in advance - engage with the owning team, reserve time to work on it.
If the nature of dependency doesn't require human interaction (e.g., it is data) then this is easier to automate or have an asynchronous mechanism - like, we will provide an update for you in this file by 15th of every month.
For upstream dependencies - it is the good-old follow up/reminder. I usually send an email well in advance and put a 15-min reminder in other people's diaries that they need to do X by a certain date.
Thanks for the insights Polina, I will use this advice.
Specifically for managing my downstream stakeholders. Proactivally seeking and participating in connects with VPs of the downstream team will also help me in improving the on ground adoption of the feature owned by my team.
It will also force me to proactivally provision my bandwidth in advance.
I love how accessible and impactful this framework is! Thank you for sharing. I would love to hear more about how you’ve seen executives tap into their EA to support this process.
Brilliant article, thank you Polina. Blocking out sensible chunks of my time to focus on my work resulted in a lot of worry about what others would think. Which in turn led to some soul searching to challenge why I feel the need to be over accommodating to the needs of others, when in reality I'm of no help to others or myself if I have a solid run of days of almost back to back meetings. Your article has eloquently worded the opportunity and given me some more food for thought - so thank you!
Hi Polina, I really liked your article on Intentional Planning. I use a similar approach for calendar blocking, working with a calendar and task list and supporting reference material in Apple Notes However, I couldn't find an app that helped me define and stay focused on key goals and habits, so I developed one. It's just launched on the Apple App Store and I'm keen to get feedback - if you get a chance to have a look and let me know what you think I'd really welcome your input. More details at excellgrowth.com/excellgrowth-app. Thanks! David
Thank you David! This looks very cool. I think the best products come when your are trying to solve your own problem. What does this app help you with three most, personally? The feature that jumped out at me was to track trends over long periods of time (I love crunching this sort of data, though it is hard to collect).
Hi Polina
You’ve asked a great question about the problem the app solves.
Through my work with organizations and individuals tackling difficult changes, I’ve seen how challenging it can be to stretch beyond comfort zones. However, the reward is significant personal and organizational growth, leading to improved performance and desired outcomes. While coaching support is critical, I found that tools to define and navigate change were lacking—so I developed this app.
The app addresses three key problem areas: Planning, Doing, and Improving, all of which are essential for delivering positive change.
1. Planning: Focusing on key goals and habits.
The first challenge is helping people clearly identify and prioritize their most important goals and habits. Many people pursue too many poorly defined objectives without considering the time and resources available. The app helps users gain clarity on what to focus on, which is a helpful input for practices like calendar blocking. By focusing on a small number of high-impact goals and habits, users can make smarter, more effective progress.
2. Doing: Logging progress and staying on track.
The second challenge is consistently working on goals and habits. Often, people define their objectives but fail to act due to forgetting, competing priorities, or discomfort with the tasks. The app’s journal feature plays a critical role here, allowing users to log their progress and stay engaged with their goals.
3. Improving: Reflecting, learning, and adjusting.
The third challenge is the lack of regular reflection on progress. Many people don’t reflect at all, or they review their progress but ignore setbacks. The app encourages users to log their learning in the journal and analyze progress trends to identify why things didn’t go as planned. This supports better decision-making and course correction, keeping users on track toward their goals.
I tried a similar system to manage my work, but it sometimes becomes difficult to continue with this framework for me since my work has large upstream and downstream dependencies. Is there a way to factor such things at the time of planning itself?
Sunny, I love your question. Yes, I have been tripped over by another team not delivering on their commitment and screwing up my work, or having a downstream team escalation that throws our schedule out of the window.
What Amazonians say is that "you should own your dependencies".
For downstream dependencies, I maintain a calendar of important (usually VP-level) upcoming meetings that we review/update with my team every week. This list has all key meetings where we are a dependency. For any such meeting we start planning 2-4 weeks in advance - engage with the owning team, reserve time to work on it.
If the nature of dependency doesn't require human interaction (e.g., it is data) then this is easier to automate or have an asynchronous mechanism - like, we will provide an update for you in this file by 15th of every month.
For upstream dependencies - it is the good-old follow up/reminder. I usually send an email well in advance and put a 15-min reminder in other people's diaries that they need to do X by a certain date.
Thanks for the insights Polina, I will use this advice.
Specifically for managing my downstream stakeholders. Proactivally seeking and participating in connects with VPs of the downstream team will also help me in improving the on ground adoption of the feature owned by my team.
It will also force me to proactivally provision my bandwidth in advance.
I love how accessible and impactful this framework is! Thank you for sharing. I would love to hear more about how you’ve seen executives tap into their EA to support this process.
EAs do the analysis to track the backward looking time allocation on top priorities. And manage the forward looking calendar based on priorities.