Impactful people are not born that way – they are the result of significant time and effort spent cultivating healthy habits to help them be organized, focused, and effective.

IMPACT: The effect, or influence, of one person, thing or action, on another

Everyone can learn to maximize their impact, that’s why we developed this guide – to provide you with the five most important keys to success we have identified and use daily as the root of essentially everything that we do. Once we added these five key points into our daily routine, and kept them in mind when making any changes or new decisions, our impact exploded. Now, we want that for you!

Whether you are a single parent, a budding entrepreneur, an everyday person looking to add more structure, a married couple with kids getting into a new business venture… we hope that, not only this guide, but, our entire blog and website will be of value to you. This is the heart behind what we do – to provide tips and tools that work for you as well as they have worked for us.

Here are our five essential points to achieve maximum impact, how to go from stuck to soaring:

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1.  Decide what you want to be known for

Most people accept the life they’ve been given. We encourage you to create the life you want. We believe in lifestyle design because we want to be the leaders of our lives for maximum impact!

Here’s a quick way to get started: make a list of your top FIVE life priorities or values in life. These priorities or values are what is most important to you, and should be used to guide each and every decision you make. Revisit these daily, monthly, or at least annually – this will help you to measure the impact you’ve made and whether or not you’re truly keeping them in mind in your day-to-day life.

Here are our top five life priorities:

–   Uncommon freedom

–   Raising awesome adults…we are still working on this one

–   Making decisions by factoring in significance

–   Being Present, not just in Proximity

–   Operating within our capacity instead of our capability.

2. Use the significance factor

We try to run most of our decisions through the significance factor. What will matter in two weeks, one year, ten years? We work to consider how things impact our marriage, our parenting, our finances, our business, our ministry and our impact on the world as we make the day to day decisions.

3. Calendar EVERYTHING that matters

We use a shared, online calendar to create habits, communicate clearly and delegate to others. Keep yourself on track by scheduling time for calendar reviews quarterly, monthly & weekly.

We use our calendar to be intentional but still flexible.

We calendar habits we are creating until they are automatic: workouts, quiet time, regular work activities, etc.

Our calendars talk to each other about mundane items so we can spend time on valuable conversation.

4. Use the 4 D’s to Maximize your Impact – DO, DELEGATE, DELETE & DRAFT

DO the things that are your responsibility immediately or schedule time on your calendar to complete the task. If you have to reschedule something 3 times, it’s time to DO, DELEGATE or DELETE

DELEGATE to others things that you don’t need to or want to be doing. If you pay others when able you will create time to grow your business or spend quality time with family. We will talk more about delegation on our blog, but some of the most common things to delegate are housekeeping, laundry, yard work and car care.

DELETE what you really don’t need to be doing. We often have “to do lists” that keep us feeling busy, but not necessarily productive. If you get lean in your time and finances, you can often create more time for what matters most!

DRAFT behind others in your field when it makes sense. In life and business, we have found ways to use already established systems and structures to ensure we can use our time efficiently as we have scaled our home and work life.

5. Learn the art of BATCHING

Have you ever bragged about being a “good multitasker”? Yup, we’ve been there too! We wore that badge with honor until we realized how inefficient it made us. Instead we’ve learned the art of BATCHING. Here are a few ways we batch for efficiency in our life:

Our kids pack their lunches on Sunday nights for the whole week! It’s a game changer, trust us. More on this process on the blog!

We run all laundry on Saturdays and the kids have it put away by Sunday night. Yes, our kids do all of their own laundry (& have for years). This goes back to what we are creating. We will share more about “raising adults” on our blog in the coming months.

We menu plan and online grocery shop once per week. Yes, we still run to the store for missing or needed items, but overall we have become much more efficient. Plus, this keeps us eating healthier!

Our kids use a Chore Checklist each week to pass along the ownership to each kid and to teach the value of personal accountability. This creates a habit loop and allows the checklist to do more of the heavy lifting. See our website for a suggested Chore Checklist (coming soon!)

You can learn more about batching in this post!

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Maximum Impact, Today!

Rules can sometimes feel strict and joyless, but in reality, following a set of guidelines can actually set you free. By living life by a set of guidelines, like the ones we’ve outlined above, you’re taking control of your life and limiting all that back-and-forth decision-making that can more often than not cause distress, waste time, and overwhelm even the calmest of us!  

Are you asking yourself ‘where do I start?’ when it comes to taking control of your life and maximizing your impact? Download our Maximum Impact Guide below and apply it to every area of your life that matters: home, work, relationships, and everything in between.

Want More?

Looking for a bit more guidance? Get in touch! We’ve been where you are now – and now that we are where we are, we are confident we can help you achieve your goals as well!

And check out this blog post on our Top 5 Leadership books! If you are looking more at having maximum impact in your home, check out this great post on family life.