Welcome back to our series on keeping time in perspective. Last week I introduced the process of using Agile in your coaching business to make the most of your time but also to keep the time you have in perspective rather than overloading yourself. We focused on what you are saying yes to last week. Now we are going to shift gears and think about saying no so that we continue our theme of simplicity, clarity, and vision in 2022.

Introduction

Here we are. As I mentioned, last week was all about saying yes, but in a way that respects the time that you have and keep it in perspective. Instead of overloading your task list, you make use of a backlog, then methodically and intentionally move items to your sprint then on to your in-progress list and ultimately crossing the finish line and putting your tasks in the done category. Perhaps you even do a victory dance like we do in our home.

I shared that although I don’t use Agile following the exact tenets of the process, I’m hoping to get there as I work through my backlog of work and ultimately get ahead. Chances are, you were thinking that sounds nice and on the other hand you were thinking that it sounded impossible. Your backlog was just too long. In preparation for today’s episode, I took a moment to see how many items are on my backlog of this recording in early January. There are a whopping 70 items, all at least 4 steps each on my backlog. This doesn’t count the items on this sprint, but I’m confident that I can accomplish all of these tasks in 2022.

One reason is because I’m saying “no” more often. Are you ready to hear more about that?

Saying No and the Backlog

At the end of 2021, you explored the pillars where you would like to focus for 2022. These pillars were aligned with your mindful vision and will help you immensely here. So if you have those pillars, go ahead and pull them out. If you don't, you might go back to the end of our 2021 season.

Take a listen to those episodes. Again, there episodes 45 through 48, but I think you'll find episode 45 and 46, the most helpful here. So you have your pillars, you have them in front of you. And what I'd like to do today is share a trick that I discovered as I was creating my backlog. I crafted my pillars. I knew where I wanted to spend my time and attention focus my energies in 2022 so that I could make more progress on my mindful vision for my coaching business.

This is what many coaches hope for. They want to make progress in their mindful vision. And so when I looked at that backlog, I was very intentional. In fact, last week I shared with you that I have my backlog divided into different categories. What I didn't tell you is that I divided them by pillar that I wanted to focus on.

And so what you have here is you have a backlog and you have your list, right? You can look at it, maybe you categorized it just based on similarities. That's a great place to start. What you can do now is take a look at your pillars, see how they align with those different categories within your backlog. Maybe it's a perfect one-to-one match.

That's amazing if that happened, that means those pillars are really at the forefront of your mind and of your attention, but chances are, they are not 100% aligned mine weren't at first, but that doesn't mean they can't be. So take a look at your categories in your backlog. If you did not categorize everything, just look at your whole backlog list.

And as you go through your backlog, identify which pillar each of those backlog items will align with. If you get to