Ari Meisel

How To Not Set Goals or Make Resolutions

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It’s almost 2018 and that means New Year’s resolutions right?

Well, not so fast. While there is a subtle difference between resolutions and goals; I think they suffer from the same problem. They both set most people up for failure.

I’ve never believed in setting long terms goals.

I believe in Kaizen, which in Japanese means, “continual change for the good.”

Every day of my life I attempt to improve in some measurable way. It could be my leadership skills, my writing, my physical fitness, or my emotional intelligence as a husband and a father.

My main issue with goal setting is that it locks people into a singular focus and limits their flexibility. One of the things that has aided the incredible growth at Less Doing is our ability to constantly experiment, validate, and shift direction as needed.

We’ve been fortunate that many of our experiments have worked, but there have definitely been ones that didn’t pan out and we were able to reverse course quickly.

When you hear someone say something like “My goal for 2017 is to sell my company for $10 million.” That sounds really exciting and grand but you’re also fooling yourself. You have to break down any long term goal into months, weeks, days and then figure out what the very next step is.

I really believe that if you focus on improving something each day, you will far exceed any artificial goal you might set.

So that’s the truth, I don’t have any specific goals for this year. I love what I do and I’m going to keep doing it.

Happy New Year, I can’t wait to see what you accomplish in 2018.

How to Screenshot in Real Life

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When you are trying to communicate something to a person working remotely I have found that sending a screenshot (a static image of what you are seeing on your computer) or screencast (a video of you doing something on your computer) can mean the difference between crystal clear understanding and total misdirection.

I wanted to tell someone that I didn’t like the title of this article, I can simply screenshot it, annotate it, and everyone is on the same page.

Screencasts are even more helpful when showing someone a process, such as how to delete a file from your desktop.

My favorite tool for doing any kind of screen capture is definitely Cloud App. It makes it so easy, with one keyboard shortcut to grab what you need, the link to the file gets automatically added to your clipboard so you can immediately send it to whomever you need.

But what about in real life?

I realized that there are tons of situations in real life where it would make life so much easier if I could show someone what I need or maybe, what THEY need, in a given situation.

That’s where Skitch comes in.

It’s a mobile app that let’s you screenshot your real life activities. You simply take a picture and then you can annotate the image with labels, arrows, scribbles, and text.

I hid childrens motrin in the stroller in case my mother needed it while watching our kids

I needed to have these three pots moved

So this way everyone is on the same page, and it keeps people accountable. Whether you need to show someone a leak in your ceiling, telling a junk company which bags to remove and which to leave, where you hid the keys to the front door, anything like that, you can reduce errors by using a tool like Skitch.

Taking a Second Look at Your To-Do List

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We use a ton of productivity tools here at Less Doing.

IFTTT…

Fika…

Evernote…

Toggl…

Dashlane…

Voxer…

Intercom…

I’d bet money I’m the world’s biggest fan of Slack and Airtable.

These and the other tech tools are assets we use to keep our operation running smoothly.

But you want to know a secret?

The tools you use to take your productivity to the next level don’t always have to be high-tech to be high-value. In fact, sometimes the most productive tool in your arsenal (note — I said “your arsenal” not mine) is something you’d least expect…

The to-do list

That’s right, the to-do list — that idea-gathering device I’ve long lambasted — can occasionally be useful.

Many of you create to-do lists every day, and of course, I know why — they’re simple, familiar, and somewhat effective at helping you catalogue your thoughts.

But like any productivity tool, the to-do list is only as good as you make it, and when you don’t make your to-do list good — man — will it slow you down.

In fact, it’ll do more than slow you down — it’ll paralyze you.

Projects will stall, reminders will stack, and that to-do list will keep growing…

And growing…

And GROWING…

You’ll feel overwhelmed, incapacitated, and utterly incapable of making clear, impactful decisions.

When this happens, whatever positive use you could have extracted from the to-do list will be next to nil.

Unless…

Unless you can find a way to remove the roadblock…

Fortunately for you, I have one.

Give your to-do list to someone else.

No, I’m not telling you to hand it off to a VA (though that is an option), I’m telling you to give your to-do list to anyone else.

Just ask them to look at it, see what questions they ask, and what comments they make.

●. Why are you trying to do that?

●. Wouldn’t it be easier to hire someone to help?

●. How are you going to get that done?

●. This doesn’t make sense…

●. I did something like this before…

It’s an incredibly powerful way to get the ball rolling again on stalled projects.

A fresh pair of eyes can point out something that you’ve failed to notice. It can motivate you to re-prioritize and re-organize.

Again, the person you give your to-do list to can be anyone — a VA, a friend, or a stranger at the bus stop, it doesn’t matter.

It’s going to help you gain a different perspective and zero-in on what’s getting holding up your most imperative projects.

Whenever you are ready…here are 4 ways I can help you become more replaceable and grow your business:

1) Join our FREE Facebook Group — The Replaceable Founder

2) Get our FREE Replaceable Founder Mini-Course

3) Come to our next One-Day Intensive “Becoming Replaceable Workshop” in NYC

4) Want to work with us privately? Just answer a few questions and find out if you’re a good fit. Apply Now

Why Your “To Do” List Is Holding You Back

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I’ve written extensively about the damaging effects of using to do lists. The problem with so many to do lists is that people tend to put things on them they can’t reasonably do. Typically they can’t do them because they are too big of a project (like “write book”) or because they can’t move forward until some 3rd party does something first. Most to do lists just end up being a dumping ground and either people feel a false sense of accomplishment because they “put it on their list” or they look at the list and that voice inside our heads that pushes us to complete the uncompleted (formally known as the Zeigarnik Effect) tells us to do all of these things, that we can’t actually do, and our brains basically put a moratorium on any form of productivity.

If you’re using a whiteboard as your to do list, stop reading right now, take picture, and erase it immediately. You’re guaranteeing you’ll never get those things done.

However, if you’re to do list looks like this, there’s hope…

and here’s why, while I don’t believe in to do lists, I do believe, very strongly, in DOING lists.

A DOING list is a place where you can put a task or project and have a clear path towards actually getting it completed. This is where Trello comes in. Trello allows you to put your tasks into an “assembly line” of sorts that follow a Kanban system (basically the Japanese version of lean manufacturing). You can use Trello to organize pretty much anything but if you use it for project management than you have projects that correspond to a board, each board has lists which represent phases (like To Do, Doing, Done, or Prospect, Lead, Customer for example), and each card is a task. Below is my DOING list.

Now the special thing is that I have an entire team attached to my board. Your team might consist of work colleagues, a spouse, contractors, or maybe a virtual assistant. Nothing sits without some action to it because these items are never static. They can move from one phase to another, even other boards if they become relevant to that project. You can always move a project forward because the pathways to do it are right there before you.

Whenever you are ready…here are 4 ways I can help you become more replaceable and grow your business:

1) Join our FREE Facebook Group — The Replaceable Founder

2) Get our FREE Replaceable Founder Mini-Course

3) Come to our next One-Day Intensive “Becoming Replaceable Workshop” in NYC

4) Want to work with us privately? Just answer a few questions and find out if you’re a good fit. Apply Now

How Do You Organize?

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There’s a question I’ve been asked time and time again and it’s usually some variation of the following:

How do I organize my file hierarchies?

It’s a good question and one that has two different answers — there’s one answer for email, and there’s another answer for everything else.

As it pertains to email, you’re all probably familiar with my opinion:

There should only be THREE folders in your email:

1. Delete

2. Do

3. Defer

That’s it.

But as it pertains to everything else:

Dropbox…

Evernote…

Your Hard Drive…

Or — if you’re old fashioned — your filing cabinet…

I’ll simply say this:

You never want to have too much or too little in any file or folder.

To get specific, I quantify too little as less than 20, and too much as more than 100.

When your file or folder has less than 20 items in it, you need to consolidate. Move those items into a similar filing category that can accommodate an absorption.

When your file or folder has more than 100 items in it, then you need to BREAK IT DOWN…by date, subject, file type, it doesn’t matter — do what you think is best.

Obsession with organization is inefficient, but so is sloppiness. When it comes to filing finding the balance is key, and I believe that balance starts with my 20/100 rule.

If you find yourself frequently struggling with file hierarchies and organization in general, here are some additional rules to live by that I highly recommend…

DON’T WAIT

The longer you take to address your filing/organizational problems the worse they’ll get. The worse they get, the more inefficient and frustrated you’ll become.

KEEP CATEGORIES

Categories within the umbrella of your hierarchy are great as long as they aren’t too broad (“documents”) or too specific (“Receipts — April 1st through 7th 2014”). I recommend filing by general topic categories, and going from the broad to the more specific (“Finances à “Receipts” à Q1 2016”).

REMEMBER THE 20/100 RULE APPLIES TO SUBFOLDERS

The 20/100 rule doesn’t just apply to individual files, it applies to subfolders as well. If your umbrella category is “Clients” but more than 100 different client subfolders fall within that categorization, find a way to break them up, like “Clients 2015” and “Clients 2016”.

NAME PRACTICALLY

Whether you find yourself naming individual files or important folders, keep names short and sweet. Don’t take that as a license to forgo detail or specificity, but long names are going to be more of a hindrance than a help, guaranteed. This is especially true if the files/folders named are going to be shared (like a company Dropbox account).

STAY STEADY

Whatever system you ultimately elect to put in place, it’s important to practice consistency. The rules you create for structuring your file/folder hierarchies need to be just that — rules. Without a diligence and repetition, your dream of having an organized, highly-efficient filing system will never be realized.

Getting organized is never easy — I had to almost die in order to realize the value of organizational efficiency — but it is 100% worth the effort. Try implementing my 20/100 rule today and I promise you’ll start reaping the benefits sooner than you think.https://upscri.be/6892b4?as_embed=true

Whenever you are ready…here are 4 ways I can help you become more replaceable and grow your business:

1) Join our FREE Facebook Group — The Replaceable Founder

2) Get our FREE Replaceable Founder Mini-Course

3) Come to our next One-Day Intensive “Becoming Replaceable Workshop” in NYC

4) Want to work with us privately? Just answer a few questions and find out if you’re a good fit. Apply Now

4 Reasons Why Phone Calls Suck

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In this era of endless chatter — SMS, iMessage, Slack, Roger, email, Snapchat, GChat, Instagram, there’s one common form of communication that needs to be relegated to the back burner.

And that mode of communication (as you probably predicted from the title) is talking on the phone.

It’s not that talking on the phone needs to be retired completely, but people need to realize talking on the phone is nota wonderfully efficient means of communication, especially when it comes to business.

In fact, there are many, MANY times when talking on the phone is incredibly inefficient.

Just think of all the variables that could inhibit a clean phone call…

  • Conflicting schedules
  • Different time zones
  • Bad cell service
  • Lousy acoustics (ever tried having a phone call in a Manhattan Starbucks at 8AM? — you’ll be better off at a firing range)

Yet everyday entrepreneurs and busy professionals find themselves subjected to the same antiquated request:

Hey, let’s jump on a call.

Why? What’s so wonderful about the phone call? What makes it so pervasive and popular?

I’m guessing here, but it probably has to do with the fact a phone call is the most familiar form of communication in modern business.

The problem is this:

Just because something is the most familiar doesn’t mean it’s the most efficient.

In the 1950s, taking a train across the country to visit family would have been far more familiar to the average American than taking a transcontinental flight, but that didn’t make the train more efficient than the airplane.

(No, it’s not an apples to apples comparison, but it’s not apples to oranges either…More like apples to pears.)

The point is, people need to start accepting the inefficiencies that are inherently tied to arranging and executing a phone call because they’re real, and they’re really slowing down the speed of business.

As an example, hey, let’s jump on a call is a problem I run into ALL the time.

Clients will ask me to sync up with them on the phone — instead of Trello, Slack, etc. — only to discover matching two different schedules to accommodate a 15 or 20 minute conversation is a challenge in and of itself.

So instead of engaging in a form of asynchronous communication (like Roger or Voxer and getting the issue SOLVED ASAP, I can spend a lot of time chasing down clients, desperately trying to find a mutually agreeable time to talk.

And as much as a tool like Calendly can help in theory, what happens if the only time available on the client’s calendar is eight days away?

Or worse, what happens if a call is successfully scheduled but the client doesn’t show because of some last-minute commitment?

Work that could be getting done remains untouched…it’s nothing less than a waste of time.

That’s the beauty of asynchronous communication — it allows for important conversations to take place, but it gives all parties involved the ability to have those conversations on their own terms and schedules.

Again, this isn’t a Let’s Get Rid of the Phone Call campaign…it’s a Let’s Start Re-Thinking the Phone Call campaign.

So before picking up the phone today, take a moment to really think about whether or not the issue at hand actually requires a phone call.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the conclusion you come to.https://upscri.be/6892b4?as_embed=true

Whenever you are ready…here are 4 ways I can help you become more replaceable and grow your business:

1) Join our FREE Facebook Group — The Replaceable Founder

2) Get our FREE Replaceable Founder Mini-Course

3) Come to our next One-Day Intensive “Becoming Replaceable Workshop” in NYC

4) Want to work with us privately? Just answer a few questions and find out if you’re a good fit. Apply Now

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