CORE Journal: Daily CORE Worksheet
If we focus on an intended future event and then plan how we will prepare or behave, there will be a moment when we are so clear and focused on that possible future that the thoughts we are thinking will begin to become the experience itself. — Dr. Joe Dispenza
I have been experimenting with daily productivity worksheets for a long time. In 2012 I started using them every day to build The Skool. I’ve done over a dozen versions throughout the years.
The half page Mini-Sprint forms was an early version of my daily productivity tools.
The daily priorities worksheet was a one page version of an Agile sprint that included time estimates. You can really begin seeing how much time it really took to do something.
The Daily CORE Worksheet
The latest version was born of several experiments. The first was the experiment of doing “Personal CORE.” In a series of experiments over several years, the latest in the last 6 months, I started dividing work and personal objectives. For the last 3 months I have been using a personal version based on tools needed to “manifest” anything in your life. The two things that remain from that experiment are; 1. The Work and Personal tracks of the worksheet. 2. The Gratitude module. Three things that you are grateful for.
The rest is pretty straight up Agile. The note that I will make to that is this; I trained in Agile in 2007. I’ve trained over 100 teams in Agile. And there are a million variations, versions and terms used in Agile. In the past I’ve tried to change the terms to different languages, some more designerly some more spiritual like using “Intentions” instead of “Objective” but here I just kept it simple. No need to re-invent the wheel or make it anything but what it is.
How to Use This Worksheet
- The first thing you need to do is download it. (Click Here to download)
- The second thing is use it. Try it daily for a week.
- Feel free to open it up in Illustrator and modify it and make it your own.
The Objectives
The first part — of defining the Work and Personal objectives for the day is the most complex. Because you need to write it broadly. Not as a task. For example if I needed to finish my CORE Co-Creators Circle work, finish this One Sheet and send out an email for my CORE webinar, the objective was: “To complete the most important elements I need for revenue generation.” Vs the actual tasks. Why is this? The work for the CORE Co-Creators Circle is the foundation for sales, our personal capabilities deck and one sheet. We are all creating that for ourselves. Myself included. I need it. The webinar email is the most important thing that drives CORE sales. This post is a continuation of the narrative needed for revenue growth but more importantly part of writing more intentionally and frequently.
- The Retrospective. The first column from left to right. Based on your previous day identify what is working for you, what you can improve on and what you are grateful for. This gives you a sense of what energy to celebrate, what energy to focus on and what energy you have already.
- The Definition of Done. Based on the objective what tasks or what process needs to be completed to meet the objective? The tasks all support the objective but they don’t all have to be done to meet the objective.
- Prioritized Actions. The biggest lesson from doing this over and over is that prioritizing only 3 things to get to the objective makes it feel doable. More importantly it gives you momentum. “I can do these 3 things for sure.” I can’t tell you how many times I have seen peoples daily “To-Do” list and said, “Yeah, you and what army are completing those.”
As humans — specially as the tech enabled, ambitious, #Grind, entrepreneurial mavens that we are we have the tendency to really overestimate our capacity and underestimate the reality and complexity of what we do on a daily basis. More so we forget about all the personal things and daily self-care rituals that are such an important part of living a happy life.
So with that in mind I have continuously refined how I prioritize. Don’t get me wrong I am guilty of living the frantic over modern stimulated life of a 21st century denizen. But my interest has always been to live not a balanced life but an integrated life. One where who I am and what I do are not these two diametrically opposed things that I have to struggle with. That it’s all one narrative thread.
If like me you have been experimenting with the same thing, of living an integrated life then this might be a good experiment for you.
If you try it let me know. Tweet me that you tried it. Also don’t forget to clap this thing as many times as possible. I think you can do up to 50 claps. So go for it. And come over to the Instagrams and say hello.
Jose is a former graphic designer who started a YouTube channel which is now educating The Futur generations. Though he was diagnosed with ADD at 24 he now believes that it’s all a vast pharma lead conspiracy to keep everyone in the “Cult of Productivity.” He is trying to live as a “Free Range Human” and experimenting on how he can be his best self without the use of pharmaceuticals or working himself to death. You can find him talking about things material and subjective on his new YouTube Channel here.
