135 Rule Videoing

There's a ton of personal time management tips out there.

Some can be fun. Hello ,'To Don'ting'.

Some can be regimented. Ever encountered Franklin Covey?

Some can be go-to lifehacks. Yep, 'eat that frog'.

Among these prioritisation and productivity methods sits The 135 Rule.

There's a couple of flavours of it. For now, let's go with this one.

When determining what you must tackle, you split down possible tasks into three categories; big, medium, small.

The idea is then to assign yourself one big job for the day, then three mediums, before five smaller.

The extent to which you, your colleagues, or your prospects buy into these kinds of templates doesn't matter so much.

The point is that to try it out as a format for a particular video call as a type of agenda framework may well hold selling benefits.

Given the caveat that the first time you try something new it might not work as well as possible, meaning further iterations would likely be required for the approach to begin to fly, the mere fact you try it at all can be sufficient to both jolt your fellow participants into greater engagement and gain you extra credits for being different.

Too few sales video calls attempt, harness or enjoy the power of the pre-sent, pre-set agenda anyway.

So why not give presenting one in this manner a go.

You can explain its reasoning.

If confident enough, you can even send around for ideas in advance.

Presuming you know what the One Big Thing is and that there's broad agreement on its status. Then you can elicit options for the 3s and 5s ahead of time.

The other angle here, is that any 'elephant in the room' is tackled head on. No procrastinating.

If you run up against the clock at the end of your allotted time together, choose a meeting where it's better to leave some of the smaller items unaddressed rather than flail with a half-cooked main issue still hanging.

You could even set time limits or slots for each topic type, in proportion to their 'weight'. For instance, the classic hour meeting could build in a forty-five minute framework (so allowing buffer for any start delay or overrun) along the lines of say, the '1' allotted twenty minutes, each '2' then five each, before the '3' issues get two apiece.

You can always arrange offshoot sessions to complete untouched actions. And confirm when to reconvene as a group if necessary.