Introduction to Strategic Business Planning and Daily Task Management

In the dynamic world of business, success hinges on the ability to set clear goals and effectively manage daily tasks. This guide provides a two-pronged approach to business growth and personal productivity.

Through the lens of business

Pick a primary KPI (key performance indicator) metric like revenue/usage for B2C, letters of intent/pilots for B2B, positive research results for hard-tech - pick the standard ones and don't get too clever here.

Pick ancillary metrics that can build up to that KPI metric. Think of these as levers to optimize in order to increase that primary KPI metric as it can get quite complex and you need these sub-metrics to help you stay closer to practical aspects of improving your KPI metric. For example: the main KPI metric of usage could be broken down into the ancillary metrics of a user's session length, frequency of use, churn rate, retention rate, etc.

Focus on increasing the main KPI metric by optimizing your ancillary metrics.

Talk to users, and build: When all else fails focus on talking to users for feedback and building your product based on that feedback.

Paying customer feedback > Free customer feedback: It is important to get feedback from paying customers because the feedback from free customers might be wildly different, and at the end of the day you want to work on a business and project that pays.

Put less emphasis on things that might feel productive or look cool (e.g., social media posting, talking to investors, finding the best lawyers, etc.)

Share your KPIs with your community and friends to keep you accountable.

Break things down: Turn your KPIs and Ancillary Metrics into goals and try to break these down into granular tasks, as granular as you are comfortable with.

Be prepared to pivot and reorganize your goals/KPIs as you learn new information.

Celebrate big wins as they can keep you and your team going when the times get tough.

Through the lens of the day-to-day

Use a task-tracking tool that works for you (e.g., Todoist, Trello, Asana, Google Keep, Evernote, Notion, etc.)

Create your to-do list and schedule for tomorrow the night before.

Prioritize your list by having an easy-win as your first task to help you build momentum, then add the most important tasks that you need to get done that day, followed by some nice-to-haves - rank these in the order of priority.

Offload to the next day: Whatever does not get done today gets added to tomorrow's list.

Create a few main goals for the next few years - these are your grand goals and your true north.

Zoom in on this year: Think of the goals that you need to hit this year in order for you to stay on track for your grand goals, write these down.

Zoom in on this month: At the start of every new month this year, create a few main goals that can help you achieve your yearly goals.

Zoom in on this week: At the start of every new week, create a few main goals that can help you achieve your monthly goals.

Zoom in on today and tomorrow: Constantly check your weekly goals when creating and prioritizing tasks for the next day.

Repeat this cycle and don't be afraid to pivot when you have new overwhelming information that things need to be done a different way.