Road Map

"That damn to-do list. It's causing me more stress than anything. Every day I see 20 things on it, and maybe get a chance to knock out 5 to only add 7 more. It's never-ending...like laundry. Drives me nuts."

Do you ever feel that way? I know I do. I have sticky notes and notebooks and reminders, my calendar, and more emails than Gmail can hold. I seriously keep getting warnings that my Gmail is seriously overloaded, and they want to start charging me.

There's no reason to allow the rest of the world to take over our time. It's time to create a ROAD MAP to get stuff done....a blueprint for success that doesn't permit others to railroad us.

We are going to go through some simple steps to figure out what areas of life we need to work on, set measurable goals related to each one (at least 2 long term goals but no more than 3), then move into the visual aspects of seeing our dreams around us, followed by mind mapping a real plan with reverse engineering.

I want to make this fun for everyone and easy to do, so I've put together a quick 3 video series that only takes a few minutes to do each one. Seriously. The last video walks you through creating a digital Vision Board and entering that into a contest. Hey, at least you'll learn some tricks in PicMonkey, right?

Here's how it works: Sign up for the challenge HERE. The info starts going out January 15. Post each time you make progress inside the classroom. Then post your completed Vision Board with your 10 goals by January 31. I'll hand-select one long term goal from the entries and do a live reverse engineering digital mind mapping session of that particular goal on February 2. Whoever submitted it will win a scholarship to a course of their choice inside the Social Media Traffic School (from funnels training to webinar how-to's to Facebook ads).

There's more though. On the live call on February 2, others who submitted their Vision Boards will have a chance at a $100 Amazon card. The catch? You must be present to win the gift card AND have submitted your Vision Board by Jan 31.

So what is reverse engineering anyway? When you are looking at a long term goal that seems so far away, imagine that you are creating a road map instead. A GPS works like this: You enter the destination address. The GPS picks up that address, finds the best route and reverses the destination back to your starting point. It also shows you alternative routes that take longer - the ones without the shortcuts or faster highways.

When you're setting a long term goal, think of it the same way. Start at the destination. Ask yourself what that looks like, feels like, who is there, how much does it cost to stay there. Write down every aspect of what it's like. Then break up each thing you mentioned and jot down the tasks it would take to achieve that ONE thing on that list. Do this for EVERY thing on that list, and you've created a slew of short term goals.

The next step can be a little harder. You want to work on all of it, but you can't feasibly do that. You must learn how to prioritize these short term goals, which ones to delegate to others, and which ones to tackle yourself.

We'll talk through all of that on the live call, AND we will tackle how to manage that never-ending to-do list. The one that drives you crazy.

Sally Hendrick is the founder of Social Media Traffic School. Her school focuses on teaching you the strategy and technology of using online programs to drive traffic to your products and services. Join the free classroom at 50ShadesOfOrangeClub.com for social media tips & software tricks while waiting for the next enrollment period.