Day 7 of Building a Product to Sell and Make Millions...
This is hard.
(That title is completely sarcastic btw. I just like making fun of online writers who claim all you have to do is build a product and you can make tons of money online. Yeah, right.)
I can be hard to please.
And I have yet to find a daily planner that implements the Duration Framework for projects.
It drives me crazy.
So I’m building my own.
Follow along, or don’t, I don’t care. I’m documenting this for myself as I build a product for the first time and try to turn it into a business because I think it’ll be fun.
Build a result, not a product
That was a recent x post I came across today and I liked it. The result I’m trying to build in this planner (it’s hardly a planner) is decisive focus. Below is the opening page of the planner, which is a quote from Chris Bailey.
“At any given moment we are focusing on something.
The question is, how frequently do you choose what to focus on?
In other words, roughly how much of your time do you spend deliberately and with intention, deciding in advance what you want to do and when you’ll do it?”
I’ve noticed something about focus and planners. Most planners are not for people like me who manage their entire schedule. That means that I had to invent a system to help me “self-manage” myself. Something to create boundaries and keep me moving forward, even though there are no real consequences if I sleep in till 10am. It’s called the “Duration Framework” and I cover it in this video.
All that to say, I’m trying to build a physical book with a system that creates the outcome of intentional focus. As Chris said, we rarely deliberately and intentionally decide what we will do with each hour of the day. Why? Because we don’t have a good system. That’s what I’m trying to solve.
It’s day 7 and I might be making a terrible decision
It’s 7:30. I’m fiercely gripping my cup of tea because it’s freezing in my house. I’m trying to figure out how to fit everything I want into this planner, because inevitably, the one thing I decide to leave out, will probably be the one thing I will want most.
But, one thing I’ve learned is if a product tries to do everything, it usually does it all poorly. Like your phone. It’s amazing at communication. Probably the best piece of technology ever created other than smoke signals. But then, your phone started trying to do everything else. Like manage your calendar, tell you when to go to sleep, replace your books, become your camera, be your personal workout coach and therapist.
The result?
It does everything… kinda ish.
Which leads me to my possibly terrible decision. I think this planner is only going to do 2 or maybe 3 things. I think I’m going to cut out the 80% that only 20% of people would use and focus on the main objective.
So I’m cutting all the fat. No habit tracker. No monthly or yearly view. No time blocking (except my fancy system), no elaborate system to help you make your goals, no fancy quotes, no boxes to shade if it’s sunny or rainy today… etc.
I want this to be simple.
Easy.
Most of all, highly functional.
As someone who gets distracted easily, I want to make something that takes me deeper, not wider. Am I the only one who feels spread too thin already? Too many options on the dollar menu.
One planner, one objective, one system.
Done and done.
Huge problems I’m facing
I can’t for the life of me think of a good name for this thing. It’s not a planner really and it’s definitely not a journal. What do you call something that gives you a daily and weekly system for intentional focus on projects? Focus… book? A “cognitive self-regulation log for attentional refinement and metacognitive enhancement”?
Each planner is designed to be quarterly, so 90 days, because I don’t want people to confuse it with a Bible or a dictionary. A general rule of thumb for my planners: If I could strain a muscle picking it up, it’s too girthy. I have a few pages to help flush out the main focus point for those 90 days, but again, I don’t know what to call it. “Goal” sounds too big for only 90 days, and “project” feels too small. Micro-goals? Atomic projects?
It’s really hard not to copy the planner I’m already using. If I wasn’t going to offer it to others I would care, but because I am, I’m trying to be careful. I highly respect Javier and his work on the Finisher’s Journal and I don’t want to take advantage of his work. It’s been challenging because I love what they have done and since I’m using this personally, there’s a lot I want to keep. I’m hoping it will continue to morph over the months.
If you have ideas, by all means, please send them.
Things that I thought would be problems that weren’t
The software. Honestly, I thought learning Adobe Indesign would be a huge pain, but it really wasn’t. I mean, take a look at that and tell me it doesn’t look overwhelming at first glance.
I already use a few Adobe programs and they have a lot in common. Also, my sister knows that program inside and out which has been ridiculously helpful. I’m around 10 hours in and already have the main skeleton done. Sometimes things look more complicated than they are.
Time. I like to consider myself to be a busy person, so I assumed I would never find time to get this done. But it’s amazing how much you can accomplish on something if you dedicate one hour a day, first thing in the morning. It turns out I am quite productive in the morning despite barely being awake. I’ve commonly come back to Indesign later that day, only to see something I did that morning and have no recollection of ever doing it. I planned to finish this by March, but honestly, I’ll probably be done by the end of January.
Motivation also hasn’t been an issue either. I can’t say I’ve ever really felt motivated to work on this. I just get up and do it. Like making breakfast, it’s just something I do.
Finding someone to print it. Here again, I was reminded of how amazing it is to have connections. My sister has run a magazine for many years now, so she knows almost everything you can imagine about paper and printing. Long before I even started this planner-journal-thing I had a list of who could print it, what kinds of paper to use, and how much it would cost.
Inspiration for ideas have come easily as well. Since I’ve used the same daily planner for years, I know exactly what I want and need. I can easily envision it and it’s really fun.
As I said earlier, feel free to follow along if you’d like. I personally think people selling courses on how to do all this stuff are full of it. So I’m gonna blaze my own trail and see what happens. If you follow along I’m sure we will learn a lot together.