How to achieve your goals? Discover the game-changing EPSoM system - a brilliant 5-step approach to turn your aspirations into reality. In this video, I break down the EPSoM framework, combining the Eisenhower Matrix, Pareto Principle, Systems Thinking, Pomodoro Technique, and Mindfulness. Learn how to prioritize tasks like a boss, discover the power of mindfulness for self-awareness, proactive decision-making, and fostering a growth mindset that propels long-term success.
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00:00 Introduction to the EPSoM Framework
01:42 Why this EPSoM incremental system really works
2:23 E: Eisenhower Matrix for Task prioritization
2:59: How to use the Eisenhower matrix to choose high leverage activities
06:49 P: Pareto Efficiency and the 80/20 Rule
08:10 S: Systems for Strategic Implementation
11:03 O: Pomodoro Technique for Enhanced Focus
13:26 M: Mindfulness for Productivity and Well-being
15:45 Recap of the EPSoM Framework
15:16 Closing Thoughts and Additional Resources
Ash Roy Video Transcript (This transcript has been auto-generated. Artificial Intelligence is still in the process of perfecting itself. There may be some errors in transcription):
Ash Roy:
Do you feel overwhelmed when you think about how you're going to achieve your goals?
Well, this five step system called the EPSOM system that I have coined has helped me to Several hundred business owners go from overwhelm to accomplishment, even when their goals felt insurmountable at first. EPSOM is an acronym for five terms, each of which tie into specific frameworks that together pack a massive punch.
E stands for Eisenhower Matrix. P stands for the Pareto Efficiency Theory. S stands for Systems. O comes from the second letter of the word Pomodoro, which is the first word. In the term Pomodoro technique and M stands for Mindfulness. Now in this video, we're going to be talking about how all these five come together to create your massive productivity punch.
Before this counter runs down to zero, I'll be explaining what EPSOM stands for and why it might be useful in your life or business right now. But first let me introduce myself. I'm Ash Roy the founder of productiveinsights.com a CPA and an MBA with a passion for all things marketing. Okay, now let's talk about the EPSOM system.
EPSOM is an acronym. The E stands for Eisenhower matrix. And we'll be talking about how you can use that. to get better at task selection. The P stands for Pareto efficiency or the 80 20 rule, and we'll be talking about how the 80 20 rule ties into the Eisenhower framework and the fact that it's fractal and what that means for you and your business.
The S stands for systems, which happens to be one of the most strategically valuable activities you can do as a business owner or as an individual. The O stands for systems. is the second letter from the word pomodoro. And we'll be talking about the pomodoro technique, which I will show you how to use so you can stay focused on the things that really move the needle in your business or your life.
And M stands for Mindfulness. What does mindfulness have to do with productivity and business success? You'll find out in this short episode. So buckle in. I'm very excited to bring this to you. I hope you find it as useful as I intend for it to be. Over the last 15 years or so, after having worked with hundreds of clients, I think I found a way that actually works.
I have seen the system help several of my clients achieve goals that seemed insurmountable at first. And if you follow the system, it will help you free up more time in your life, enjoy the things you really want to do, including your hobbies and spending time with those you love. Now, this Epsom system is not only easy, it's one that actually works even for goals that seem hard to achieve.
Why? Because it's built around the idea of actually doing less, not more. And we'll be talking more about this in this episode. So be sure to stick around till the end. There's going to be a big reveal. I will share something I think you'll be pretty pleased to hear about. Not all the tasks you have on your never ending to do list are actually essential.
For years, I struggled with trying to complete my never ending to do list, but I found that actually led to poor results. The answer is not about doing more. It's actually about doing less. It's about doing the right things in the right sequence and not doing some things at all, but rather delegating them or eliminating them from your workflow.
By eliminating a lot of task lists from your workflow and either delegating them or outsourcing them or not doing them at all, you start to really reduce the amount of overwhelm you experience. Okay, so how do you figure out what to actually do and what not to do? Let's have a look at this website called the Productive Insights website where I've written in detail about the Eisenhower matrix.
Now you'll see that this blog post has got these links down the side. It's like an index and you can just jump from bit to bit and just go to the relevant section. It breaks down the entire Eisenhower matrix in detail. The part I want to bring your attention to is this Eisenhower decision matrix.
Dwight Eisenhower was an ex president of the United States. and he was prolific in many areas. He focused on the idea that things that are important are seldom urgent and things that are urgent are rarely important. Now obviously there are exceptions to that but the key here is to focus on quadrant two of the Eisenhower matrix which looks at things that are not urgent but important.
These are the things that really move the needle in your business and your life. This matrix here has the urgent stuff on the left side of the x axis and not urgent stuff on the right side and then the not important stuff. On the bottom of the y axis, Quadrant 1, stuff that's urgent and important.
Quadrant 2 is not urgent but important stuff. Quadrant 3 is the urgent and not important stuff. And Quadrant 4 is not urgent and not important stuff. Let's walk through an example to illustrate why it's important to focus on Quadrant 2 activities. Let's take health as an example. We'll start with Quadrant 3.
If you focus on stuff that's urgent but not important, you might reach out for a bag of chips or eat a whole lot of junk food because there's a certain urgency to getting that sugar fix or that carbohydrate fix and that may actually lead over time to quadrant one situation an urgent and important situation that you want to avoid like a heart attack or a stroke or something like that if instead you focus on quadrant two activities that don't have an urgency to them.
But are actually important. For example, exercising regularly, making better food choices. You're less likely to end up in a quadrant one situation where your health is in serious decline and you need urgent attention. Exercising regularly, making better food choices isn't easy, but it's important.
Reaching out for junk food and not exercising is easy. But not only is it not important, it's not good for you. The big idea here is focusing on tasks that move the needle to Forward and set you up for success. Another example of a quadrant two activity. If you're a business owner is creating high quality content becomes a digital asset that then promotes your business by delivering value to your ideal customers and does so independent of your direct involvement.
Yet another example might be setting up a membership community where. You can deliver value on an ongoing basis and charge your clients relatively lower fees than having to constantly trade time for money. You might offer information products within your membership community that you only have to record and create once, but then they keep on giving to your clients and also bringing income into your business.
And the quadrant four activities are things that are not urgent and not important. Now I'm not saying don't do these things and depending on situations they may even be important. So. Take for example, watching television, having downtime. A lot of people would say, don't watch Netflix. Don't watch TV.
Don't enjoy yourself. I disagree. I think downtime is important after you've put in a hard day's work and you've done the important stuff, which isn't always easy. You reward yourself with a break. Brian Tracy talked about this in our conversation in episode 207, and you can check it out by going to productiveinsights.com/207.
The idea of focusing on what's urgent and not important brings up the How do you figure out which activities are important but not urgent and which ones are urgent but not important? What activities help you to build assets either within your business or your life? For example, creating systems or hiring great quality team members, putting the energy into those things.
That invest in the long term in life and in business understand the Pareto efficiency theory, which was first coined by somebody called Vilfredo Pareto. The big idea here is about 20 percent of your effort delivers about 80 percent of your results. Now that doesn't happen exactly in that ratio, but It's a good rule of thumb.
If you'd like to learn more about this, check out my conversation with Perry Marshall, where he actually explains that the 80 20 rule is fractal, which actually means that you can take it one level down. So 20 percent of 20 percent is 4 percent and 80 percent of 80 percent is 64%. So 4 percent of your effort delivers 64 percent of your results.
And if you take that one level further, still 0. 8 percent of your effort. Delivers 51. 2 percent of your results. So using this general rule of thumb, you can start to ask yourself, what is that 20 percent that delivers 80 percent of my results? Let's say you have a business. Who are the 20 percent of my clients that bring in 80 percent of my revenue?
Who are the 80 percent of my clients that only bring in 20 percent of my revenue? Maybe I need to find a way to serve them in a way that's more efficient. The idea is to focus on the small proportion of your efforts that deliver a large percent of your results in all areas of your life. This brings up another challenge.
How do you find the activities, the 20%? 80 percent of your results, the 4 percent of your efforts that delivered 64 percent of your results, 0. 8 percent of your efforts that deliver 51. 2 percent of your results. The answer comes down to listing all your activities and thinking deeply about them. If you're a business owner, a great example of this building good quality systems and standard operating procedures.
Why is that an activity that represents 0. 8 percent of your effort that delivers 51. 2 percent of your results? Because When you create great quality systems, you can delegate more effectively. You can standardize your output. McDonald's has built such a great brand because their burgers are so standardized.
No matter what McDonald's restaurant you go to, you know what you're getting. That's the result of great systems. If you haven't watched the movie called the founder, I highly recommend it. If you create good standard operating procedures, and it means you can delegate and therefore in a sense, replicate yourself rather than being employed by your business, you become more of a business owner.
Because you can work more on the business and less in the business. Why? Because as your business grows, delegation becomes important. Without good quality standard operating procedures and systems, you can't delegate effectively and therefore scale your business. You know what else you need to be able to delegate effectively and scale profitably besides systems?
Great quality team members. Which brings me to another example of One of those 0. 8 percent of your efforts that delivers 51. 2 percent of your results. If you want to build a great business, you need to hire really well. I'm sure you've heard the phrase, he who sweats more in training. Sweating when you're hiring people means you'll suffer less when running a business.
Another example is building a great culture in your business and sense of what it means to be a part of this business. This is how we do things around here. All of these things are great investments in the long term and help you to build a sustainable business that is profitable and can scale without your direct involvement.
But this raises another problem. How do you stay focused on the future? Those important activities that don't have an urgency to them when it often seems so innocuous. Take for example, hiring great quality team members. That doesn't feel like a today problem for most of us. You think to yourself, I'll get that done later.
But the truth is when it comes to hiring, you want to always be on the lookout for great team members. Another example is documenting your procedures in your business. I've worked with business owners for over five years in the Productive Insights membership program. Everyone, including me. Finds staying focused on these non urgent but important activities to be a herculean effort And if they're left unattended for long enough They create that crisis situation which then becomes urgent and important and your business Is now at risk or your life is at risk or your health is at risk.
Most people think about working harder and just doubling down on your focus. That is true in part, but it is also about pacing yourself. And this is where the Pomodoro technique comes in. The Pomodoro technique was coined by a guy called Francesco Cirillo. The idea is very simple. You work in 25 minute increments with a five minute break at the end.
What we've done in the productive insights community is we meet at least twice a week, every single week, and we do these 19 minutes sprints that is broken into three parts. And at the end of every sprint, we check in with each other. It only takes about a minute or so. We give ourselves a score on a scale of one to 10.
To create a sense of self awareness as to how focused we were. Nobody rates anybody else. We just rate ourselves. And that's a mindfulness piece, which I'll explain in a minute. And the other thing we do is we commit to the group and say, in the next 30 minutes, I'm going to work on whatever. Checking my emails, having a power nap.
You can do whatever you want in those 30 minute sprints. The idea is staying focused in the group setting on the Zoom call. We have people from all over the world. The group is usually quite small and tight knit. Some of us are getting more done in those 90 minutes. And we're getting done in the whole day.
Why does this adaptation of the Pomodoro technique in our Productive Insights membership program work so well? I think it's because we humans are social creatures and accountability works even better when it's done in a group setting. And when we make a commitment to the group that we are going to work on a certain project or a certain task, we're more likely to stay working on it for that 30 minute period.
And when we check in at the end of the 30 minutes and we give ourselves a rating, we become objectively aware of how focused we were because we're using a number on a scale of one to 10 to rate our focus level. And the thing is, When your brain acknowledges that you were unfocused and you gave yourself a four because the cat walked in and you got distracted, the next time the cat walks in, you're less likely to allow yourself to get distracted because your brain has taken note of the fact that the last time it happened, you gave yourself a four out of 10.
The next time your phone beeps during a sprint, you're less likely to check it. Or you might even take your phone and put it in a separate room, which I highly recommend, by the way. So you're less tempted to even look at it and you're more focused on your work. This self awareness and this objective self evaluation, this feedback, is helping us to get so much more done.
Now, if you'd like to learn more about our membership program, head over to productiveinsights.com/membership. We have a special offer available for you through to the end of May, 2024. Sure to reach out. And I think you'll be very pleasantly surprised with what we have to offer you. Now, I mentioned earlier on that I would explain a little bit more about mindfulness and what it has to do with this EPSOM process.
Mindfulness is simply self awareness. Mindfulness Remember that rating thing we talked about, where you rate yourself at the end of every sprint? That, in my opinion, is a form of mindfulness. Here's another reason mindfulness is really important. Because when you are more mindful, you're more likely to make better task choices.
When you focus on the right tasks, the important but not urgent stuff, you're more likely to Work on things that really move the needle in your business or your life, and you're going to be more effective. You're going to work a lot less. You're going to feel a lot less overwhelmed, but you're going to achieve a lot more.
Going to be able to achieve those big goals rather than working like a lunatic. You're going to be able to optimize your efforts. Work on the 20% that delivers 80 percent of your results, the 4 percent that delivers 64 percent of your results, the 0. 8 percent that delivers 51. 2 percent of your results.
You are going to do so in a way that is graceful and that doesn't drain you. So much of that comes back to self awareness, being aware of choices you're making, being aware of your thought patterns, and And you're being reactive and saying, I'm going to make a proactive choice to do stuff that doesn't have an urgency to it.
But I know is going to make a lot of these seemingly urgent tasks redundant. Your mindfulness will increase the likelihood that you will focus on hiring great quality team members. And you're likely to build a business and culture that nurtures development, growth and creates value. So there you have it.
That's the EPSOM system. E for the Eisenhower matrix, P for the Pareto efficiency theory, the 80 20 rule, S for systems, the gift that keeps on giving, O which is the second letter of the alphabet. The word Pomodoro and M, which is mindfulness. I hope you found this episode useful. If you'd like to dive deeper into my conversation with Perry Marshall, who wrote 80, 20 sales and marketing, check out productiveinsights.com/186, definitely check out my conversation with Brian Tracy, productiveinsights.com/207 , and also check out. My conversation with James Clear, where he talked about building habits and the importance of setting up the right environment. We had a good chat about that. I hope you found this useful, and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.