How To Build a Seven Board
A Seven Board is task list that focuses on getting you moving instead of focusing on being complete or comprehensive. It is essentially the first 7 tasks you can think of for the first 7 projects you can think of.
I created the seven board after reading The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and found that applying some speed tasking techniques can quickly outline projects which need to be done.
Here’s a common problem we encounter: You know you’ve got a lot to do (generally speaking), but you can’t think of anything specific that you have to do “now”, and you can’t think of what things have priority and need to be done quickly versus items which can wait.
If you don’t get some direction, you risk losing momentum on your projects. Until you get your workload broken down into manageable chunks, you will lose valuable time idling in frustration.
The Rule of Seven
“People can not remember more than seven items in a list.”
I’ve noticed a sub-rule of The Rule of Seven is that everybody, upon learning about this rule – is sure that they can remember much more than 7 items in a list, and immediately makes an attempt to prove The Rule of Seven wrong!
We are going to use The Rule of Seven to our advantage. We are going to break through the “I need to get everything done and I can’t think of what I need to do now” mindset. We are going to do some Speed Tasking and generate a Seven Board of projects and tasks that need to be accomplished.
How to Create a Seven Board
- Open a new Excel spreadsheet.
- In cell A1, type “Projects”.
- Next, type in seven projects that you need to get done across the first row. (These don’t have to be your seven most important projects. The idea here is to use the rule of seven to get ideas quickly without over-thinking. If you only get 6, don’t sweat it.)
- Then, in the seven cells underneath each project, list out each project into 7 tasks. They do not have to be in order, they do not have to be equal in scope- they only have to come quickly.
- When you notice your brain slowing down at task #7, move onto the next project and list out the next 7 tasks.
Once you’ve got your Seven Board filled out, look it over. Prioritze the projects (left-to-right) and prioritize the tasks (top-to-bottom) by importance. Next, grab the tasks (either individually or use the whole column including the Project heading and the tasklist) and drag and drop them into your task list in Outlook.
By using a Seven Board you can quickly create 49 new tasks in minutes and keep moving forward on your projects without getting overwhelmed.
