Chapter 5 - Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, and Friday Reflection

From Getting Results | The Book

“My future starts when I wake up every morning … Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”—Miles Davis

In This Chapter

Learn the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern for weekly results.
Learn how to use Mondays to set your vision for a great week.
Learn how to use The Rule of 3 for carving out daily results and weekly results.
Learn how to use Fridays to reflect on your results and make improvements to your routine.

At the heart of Agile Results is the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern. It’s a simple weekly pattern in which each week is a new chance to get results. On Mondays, you figure out three outcomes you want for the week. Each day, you determine your three most important outcomes. On Fridays, you reflect on your results. This pattern helps you tune and prune your results.

One of the most important techniques I share with those I mentor is how to manage their tasks. It's too easy to churn or find yourself in task saturation. Another common mistake is to confuse activities with outcomes. That is, you might spend a lot of time doing a lot of activities but not actually accomplish anything. In fact, I’ve seen many smart people throw a lot of hours at their weeks only to fail in one way or another. It might be that they ended up missing an important time window or losing any sort of work-life balance. In some cases, they spent all their time doing activities but not actually producing any results. In other cases, they produced results, only to find out it’s not the results they needed or wanted.

How you frame and organize your results for the week plays an important part in your success. There are always more things to do than there is time in a day. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. It’s easy to beat yourself up over what you didn’t finish. It’s easy to spend all your time on task management. It’s easy to find yourself at the end of the week, wondering where your time went. The reality is that without a system it’s easy to get off track.

The solution is a system—a simple system you can count on, not have to think too hard to implement, and turn into a lifelong habit. In this system, each week is a fresh start. If you fall off the horse, you can get back on. Each week you know you’re spending your time on the right things. Rather than feel overwhelmed by your backlog, you feel good about your accomplishments. Each week, you improve your ability to get results. That’s the idea behind the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern.

Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection

Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection is a simple but effective pattern for results. It’s time-tested. Here's the approach in a nutshell:

Item	Description
Monday Vision	On Mondays, simply identify three outcomes—compelling results—you’d like for the week. If you’ve established what your Hot Spots are, use them for input.
Daily Outcomes	At the start of each day, identify three compelling outcomes you want to accomplish. Use your three outcomes for the week from your Monday Vision as input. You may have a laundry list of tasks, but for your Daily Outcomes, identify the three most important things you can accomplish for that day. You use these three outcomes to help you prioritize all of your tasks and focus on results. If you complete your three key outcomes for the day, you can always bite off more. Whenever you ask yourself what’s the next best thing for you to do, your three outcomes should guide your answer.
Friday Reflection	Each Friday, make time to reflect on your results. This is your chance to see how you’re doing at getting done what you set out to do. Identify three things that are going well. Identify three things that need improvement. This is a balanced look at your results. In addition, it’s also a good time to check yourself against your three outcomes for the week and notice any recurring patterns.

That’s the basic pattern. However, you can tailor it for your scenario. For example, maybe your week starts on a Sunday rather than on a Monday. What’s important is those three parts. While the whole is more than the sum of its parts, each piece of the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern is significant. In fact, you can incrementally adopt each piece.

This is the same weekly pattern I’ve used for years to get results in extreme scenarios. It’s helped me through the best of times—and the worst of times. It’s the same pattern I’ve used to lead teams at Microsoft to ship on time and on budget while still keeping a work-life balance. It’s the same system I’ve used to help the people I mentor get their life back and get on track. It works. What makes it work is that it’s a simple way to organize your results. And it’s self-correcting. What you learn each Friday, you can fold back into each new week.

Key Benefits

The Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern provides a simple framework for you to organize each week. Here are the main benefits of adopting this pattern:

It’s a Starting Point

It’s a place to start. Even if your current approach is already working for you, you can improve it simply by adopting the routine of Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection.

It’s Simple

It’s simple enough that you can immediately apply it. On any given day, simply identify three outcomes for your day. If this is Monday, then identify three outcomes for your week. If this is Friday, reflect on your week and think of three things that went well and three things you’d like to improve. It really is that simple.

It Helps You Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Having three outcomes is a way to set yourself up for success. If you’re accomplishing your results, then you know you’re on the right track—good job! If you’re not accomplishing your results, then you have to ask yourself whether you picked the right outcomes or if you need to improve your approach. As you practice each day, you get more effective.

It’s an Easy Way to Stay on Track

Rather than ad hoc, it’s a system. When you have a routine, you can improve it. If it’s not working for you, you adjust it. It helps you get back on the saddle again.

It Helps You Make Course Corrections Sooner Rather than Later

It allows you to be more responsive to things that might arise.

It’s just enough planning so that you have a map for your week, but you stay flexible. It’s just-in-time so that your plans are timely and relevant. One of the worst pitfalls is to have a rigid system where you can’t respond to change. Another common pitfall is to get bogged down in a system where the tool drives you. With this approach, you’re the driver. You’re in control. You always get to figure out what you’re next best thing to do is in the context of the results you want to accomplish. Life can throw you curve balls. Having a weekly system for results helps you keep swinging at—and hitting—whatever life throws at you.

Why This Approach Works

Here’s why this approach has worked for me and many others:

It's self-correcting by providing opportunities for course corrections throughout the week as well as from week to week.
You get rid of the noise in your head (the buzz of all the little MUSTs, SHOULDs, COULDs floating around).
Unimportant items slough off. (Don't carry them forward—if they're important, you’ll rehydrate them when needed.)
You manage small and simple lists—never a big bloated list.
It's not technology bound. When you’re not at your desk, pen and paper work fine.
Keeping your working set small helps you prioritize faster and make course corrections as needed.
It's a system with simple habits and practices. It's a system to consistently check your path, allowing you to course-correct and integrate lessons learned.
Your next actions—your MUSTs—are immediate and obvious relative to SHOULDs and COULDs.

Why some other approaches haven’t worked:

They were too complex or too weird.
They ended up in monolithic lists or complicated slicing and dicing to get simple views for next actions.
It was easy to get lost in activity instead of driving by outcome.
They didn't account for the human side.
Keeping the list (or lists) up-to-date and managing status were often more work than some of the actual to-do items.
Stuff that should slough off wouldn’t, and a snowball effect would ultimately make the approach unwieldy.

I've been using Agile Results now for years. I've tweaked and simplified it as I've shown others over time. While I learn every day, I particularly enjoy my Friday Reflections. I also found a new enjoyment in Mondays because I'm designing my days and driving my weeks.

Now that you have a better understanding of the strengths and benefits of the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern, let’s take a closer look at how it works.

Monday Vision

Monday Vision is simply a practice where each Monday, you identify the most important outcomes for the week. This helps you work backwards with the results in mind. Knowing where you want to be by the end of the week, helps you stay focused during the week. It also helps you get in the habit of prioritizing your time and energy. There are a lot of things competing for your attention. This is your chance to draw a line in the sand and decide what you will and won’t do.

3 Outcomes for the Week

Start with three outcomes. Simply identify three results for the week. Use questions to guide you. To do so, ask yourself questions such as, “If this were Friday, what are the three most important results I want to show?” and, “What would be the most pain if it weren’t done by Friday?” Focus on outcomes, not activities or tasks. There’s a good chance you may have lots of activities and tasks. This is about carving out three results for the week that you truly care about.

Daily Outcomes

Daily Outcomes are simply the three results you want for your day. This can be anything, such as completing a draft of a chapter in your new book, or having your best workout session, or finishing a meaningful slice of your project at work. You decide. Consider what you can reasonably accomplish and what would be the most valuable. Value is always in the eye of the beholder. Consider what’s valuable for you, your family, your project, your team, your manager, etc.

3 Outcomes for Today

Identify your three best results for the day. That’s it. You can always bite off more later. Challenge yourself to pick the three most valuable results that you can reasonably accomplish. This focus will help you quickly come to terms with prioritizing what’s on your plate. You may have a sea of tasks. Don’t get caught up in your backlog. Instead, think of the three most valuable things you can accomplish today and apply laser-like focus toward doing so. When you know that each move you make is working towards your meaningful outcomes, then you know that you’re making your best plays given the circumstances. You can’t control everything, but you can control your choices, your best moves, and your best responses for the situations you’re in. Check your three outcomes for the day against your three outcomes for the week to see if you are on track and trending in the right direction.

MUST, SHOULD, COULD

There are lots of ways to rank and prioritize. For example, you might use numbering systems such as Priority 1, Priority 2, Priority 3 (or P1, P2, P3). While this might be helpful in task management systems, I’ve found that in terms of a daily list, it helps to simply think in terms of MUST, SHOULD, and COULD. MUST is what you must get done, SHOULD would be nice, and COULD is just a pipe dream. There’s something about the language that helps your brain prioritize better when you think in terms of MUST vs. SHOULD or COULD. I’ve used numbering systems for my outcomes and to-dos in the past, but ultimately, I found better results, by using MUST, SHOULD, COULD to organize and prioritize my results. I’ve also found that many of the people I mentor had similar experiences. That said, if you prefer a numbering system, there’s nothing stopping you from using a MUST, SHOULD, COULD mindset to help you organize your P1, P2, P3s.

Daily Outcomes Lists

You can use your Daily Outcomes as your to-do list. Each day, make a new list. Title it by date (for example, 2009-03-12). Start by listing your minimum MUST items, then your SHOULD and COULD items. Next, given your available time and energy, use The Rule of 3 to bubble up to the top of the list the three most compelling outcomes for you. Use this list throughout the day as you look through your various input streams for action. Your input streams include meetings, email, conversations, or bursts of brilliance throughout the day. Since you do this at the start of your day, you have a good sense of your priorities and can better deal with potentially randomizing scenarios. This list can also help you batch your work. For example, if you know there's a bunch of folks you need to talk to in your building, you might find that it would be more efficient to walk the halls rather than have email dialogues with them. On the other hand, if there are a lot of folks you need to email, you can batch that as well.

What’s the Next Best Thing to Do?

When you find yourself wondering about your next steps, then first ask yourself, “What’s the next best thing to do?” This simple question can go a long way. There may be things you want to do. There may be things that seem easy to do. While you may choose those for practical reasons, before doing so, answer whether that’s the next best thing for you to do. At least then you know your trade-offs. If you need to get perspective, remind yourself of your three outcomes for the day and your three outcomes for the week.

Friday Reflection

Friday Reflection is a practice where you evaluate three things going well and three things to improve. By having a dedicated time for reflection, you can better focus on the “pitch” and not the “scoreboard” throughout the week. During the week, you perform; then on Friday, you evaluate. This helps you avoid over-analyzing yourself throughout the week. By focusing on both what’s going well and what needs improvement, you also keep yourself balanced. It’s all too easy to focus on just the negative and miss out on the positive—what’s going well or what’s working.

Friday Reflection is also a chance to evaluate what you got done—or didn't—and why. Because you have a flat list of to-do lists chunked up by day, it's very easy to review a week's worth and see patterns for improvement. It's actually easy for you to do this for months as well. Trends stand out. Analyzing is easy, particularly with continuous weekly practice. Your key learnings feed into your Monday Vision. Think of this as carrying forward the good, while letting go of the bad.

One way to make Friday Reflection a regular part of your weekly routine is to make it a recurring appointment on your calendar. For example, simply block off 30 minutes on Fridays at 10:00 a.m. You may not need the full time, but give yourself that time in case you need it. This is one of the most significant ways to continuously improve your quality of life, week over week. This is truly your chance to get clarity on your personal success patterns and what you need to change. It’s also your chance to celebrate your wins and feel good about your ability to learn and respond.

Additional Considerations

Here are some additional considerations to keep in mind and help you when you adopt the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern.

Value Delivered Over Backlog Burndown. Rather than just focus on reducing your backlog, think in terms of flowing value. This will impact both your mindset and your results. Rather than feel like a slave to a backlog, you’ll be making conscious decisions over what your next best thing to do is, whether it’s an item from your existing backlog, or capitalizing on a new opportunity. This is agility in action.
The Rule of 3. Whenever you feel overwhelmed, turn to The Rule of 3. Set simple limits. You may have hundreds of tasks in your backlog, but take the time to figure out your three most meaningful results for today. This will give you clarity, focus, and peace of mind. When you know you’re working on the right things, it’s easy to stay fully engaged and produce your best results.
Framing Results for the Week. Framing your results is simply how you picture it in your mind, or how you help others picture what your results will look like. The more you practice framing your results for the week (by getting a good vision of what your three results will really look like), the easier it gets. Clarity is a skill.
Tests for Success. Identify and define your own tests for success. You get to define three outcomes for the day and the week. Imagine in your mind what success looks like. If achieving the results won’t actually be a success, then you need to either redefine success or redefine your outcomes. This is a great way to practice setting and resetting expectations both for yourself and others.
Scenario-Driven Results. A good way to figure out tests for success is to use scenarios or to craft stories. For example, if you’re working on your backyard, walk the scenarios that matter to you. You might prioritize having a barbeque on your deck, laying in your hammock and enjoying your rose garden as key scenarios to optimize around. Rather than just mow the lawn or clean up the back, now you have specific scenarios or experiences that you are lighting up and making happen. This gives your work meaning, and it improves the quality of your life, simply by focusing and concentrating your effort toward your next best things to do.
Find a Way to Flow Value. You can always make incremental progress. Remember that value is in the eye of the beholder. If you aren’t flowing value, either to yourself or to others, then something is off. See if you can chunk your results down. One way to do this is to have a “show and tell” where you show your results to others. Your show and tell could be demonstrating some software you built, or it could be as simple as showing off a room in your house that you cleaned. If people don't value what you are showing, you'll know earlier rather than later, and you can adjust your approach.
Have a Buffer. Life happens. No matter how well you plan or how predictable things seem, things sometimes suddenly come up. Have a buffer for them. Bite off what you can without having a plate that’s so full that you’re paranoid about running into your boss and getting yet another item to add on top. You also don’t want to be in the situation where one more straw breaks the camel’s back. Think of your work like a buffet: instead of piling it on, take smaller portions, clear your plate faster, and make multiple trips. This will keep you lighter, more agile, and more responsive to any opportunities. If you’re plate is too full and you have no buffers, you won’t see any opportunities—only threats to your already overburdened schedule.
Timeboxes. Use time limits to help you spend your energy more effectively, and to invest your time across the things that matter most. A timebox is simply a limit or constraint in terms of how much time you will spend on something. This helps you avoid overspending your time in one area at the expense of another.

In Summary

The Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, Friday Reflection pattern helps you make the most of each week. On Mondays, figure out three results for the week. Each day, decide on three outcomes for the day. On Fridays, ask yourself what three things are going well and what three things need improvement. Reflect on your results.
It’s a flexible, adaptable system that you can tailor to suit your needs.
Because it’s a system, you can tune and prune it based on what you learn about yourself and the situation or context that you find yourself in.
Focus on outcomes. Your outcomes should sound like results or achievements, not activities and tasks.
Use the system to support you in whatever you need, whether it’s personal results at home or personal results on the job. Trust the system as a way to help you see the forest from the trees while dealing with your everyday tasks and activities.