Yes, in every entrepreneur's life, there will be times when you'll want to chuck something across the room in anger (or at least in frustration). But in my experience, that won't get you very far, and is certainly not a path to success (unless your business somehow involves thrown projectiles). Luckily, the "chunking" I'm referring to here is a path to success, and one that I have found to be more powerful than the simple concept of chunking would suggest.
I was first introduced to the "formal process" of chunking several years ago as part of a larger Stagen Institute Transformational Leadership course (highly recommended). My objective is not to cover chunking in its entirety here--just to hit the high points based on my personal use and application of the principles.
I have seen chunking manifested in many ways, often disguised as time management or goal setting. By itself, it is neither of these, but is instead a framework for both. In simple terms, chunking is a structured process that lets you focus on the things you have determined to be important, in manageable "chunks" (thus the name), at appropriate intervals, and with the minimum amount of "overhead" (i.e., time). It is an effective tool that can be used on an individual basis as well as with a group or team. I have personally found that for entrepreneurs, business owners, and any other "top" position that lacks the structure and management of highly-defined tactical objectives, chunking lets you cut through the clutter of your infinite to-do list and tend to those things that will move you closer to success. As an added bonus, it also helps to put into perspective the relative importance of those things that really are critical versus those that are just urgent.
Effective chunking does not require any particular software or template; it can be done with pen and paper in a notebook (although I favor using a spreadsheet, as this keeps me from having to do a lot of re-writing). There is also no "one correct way" for everyone, so I will let you determine the best way to actually keep track of your chunks, and instead focus on the concept.
It starts with a set of clearly defined objectives--typically bigger, longer-term objectives that are a year (or slightly longer) in duration. How you determine those objectives is another topic entirely, but in general, these are the major goals or outcomes that you determine to be your key success criteria. In a year's time (or so), there shouldn't typically be more than six to eight of these objectives, and in some cases, there may be only a few. They are the kind of things that would come from your annual planning meeting, or if you are a sole proprietor, your own personal annual planning meeting (where you take some time by yourself, or possibly with trusted friends or advisers, to focus on where you want your business to go and what needs to happen for it to get there). Once you have defined those big, key objectives, you are then ready to apply the process of chunking.
While there is no requirement that chunking be matched to natural calendar intervals, unless there is something unique in your industry (like the 13-month calendar often found in retail) that would suggest otherwise, the natural intervals of year, quarter, month, and week are typically used. With that said, the simple idea of chunking is to break your big yearly objectives into progressively smaller chunks (namely quarterly, monthly, and weekly)--and this is very important--with each smaller chunk requiring progressively less of your time to think about. Let me expand on that point: If it took several days (or maybe longer) to define your objectives at the yearly level, it should take perhaps a day or several hours at the quarterly level, only a few hours at the monthly level, and less than an hour on the weekly level (it is taught that the weekly review should only take fifteen minutes, but I have never been able to get it done that quickly). This is one of the key values to chunking. By breaking down large objectives into progressively smaller chunks, each requiring less time to review, you are allowing yourself to spend an appropriate amount of time at the appropriate intervals to ensure that your big objectives are met. In other words, yearly objectives are broken down into four quarterly chunks, each broken down into three monthly chunks (that only relate to that quarter's chunk), each broken down into weekly chunks. I know this must sound deceptively simple, but it works.
You probably noticed that the chunks don't go down to the daily level. This is because chunking is not designed to be a scheduling system. Instead, when you review your weekly objectives (once a week), you schedule those specific things that need to happen that week in order to achieve them; ranging from time you schedule for yourself (very important) to meetings you schedule with others to items you delegate. You do this using whatever scheduling or time management software or system you like, independent of your chunking system. This actual task/meeting/delegation scheduling step, done on a weekly basis, is critical to the process--among other things, it helps keep the "crisis of the moment" at bay, in favor of blocking out the time and/or resources you need to achieve your big, key objectives.
Getting started with chunking is a change of habit. Frankly, it was different than how I had operated in the past and was therefore difficult for me to "get into it". It also took some "tweaking" to get the process working well and a fair amount of trial-and-error in defining the scope and context of objectives and their corresponding chunks. But once I got a system in place that worked for me and forced it to become habit, I have found it to be one of the simplest, yet most powerful concepts that I have ever adopted. I know others that use it as well, and they would agree. Try it out and let me know if you don't find yourself getting more done of what you want to do, with less stress, and with more deterministic results.
Comments