20 Examples of High Leverage Activities to Set Powerful Goals and Move Your Needle Now

What tasks are going to make the biggest impact?

This post was first published on my Medium blog—follow me there for the most up-to-date entries!

You’ve heard me talk about establishing your Big 3 tasks, and how each should provide leverage for your personal or professional endeavors. But some people stumble over what, exactly, these might be, so in this post, I’ll give some examples of high leverage activities (HLAs).

My Process

Facing blank sheets of paper is tough for me, and maybe for you. To generate new ideas, I need a framework — even a loose framework. A little springboard to get me going.

In his book The Vision Driven Leader, Michael Hyatt names four “pillars.” These pillars give me that springboard to identify my “candidates” for my next week or next quarter’s high leverage activities.

My method might not be for everyone, but you may want to start with my three-step process:

Step 1: List the four pillars: team, product/services, marketing, and impact.
Step 2: Jot down activities that pertain to those pillars. Use active verbs.
Step 3: Review the whole thing, then put a star next to the activities that seem more urgent, or those that are foundational for pursuing another activity.

I generally use this method when I’m planning for the upcoming quarter, but if you want to be more granular, feel free to use it for your weekly planning.

My Examples

What you need to plan for your next quarter might be very different from what I need. And the list that follows is by no means exhaustive. My hope is that my examples of high leverage activities will trigger some ideas to help you identify your high leverage activities for the upcoming quarter.

Team

*Train/mentor new manager
Reduce duration of team meetings to max of 90 minutes
Implement new project planning software
Document five common/complicated procedures that are not yet documented
Conduct an employee satisfaction survey

Product/Services

Develop/update/complete a new high-ticket project or program
*Design a new course that will teach others how to adapt their in-person course to a virtual classroom
Scrutinize old and proposed new products that are may be just distractions
Review/update the Full Focus Planner course
Perform an impact analysis of products that we might need as we take steps of sunsetting a product

Marketing

Draft a new nurture sequence written for the new product
Plan themes for upcoming podcasts or blog posts for this quarter
Re-read Donald Miller’s book Marketing Made Simple
Outline a pre-launch, as described in Jeff Walker’s book Launch
*Draft content for a webinar that would act as a lead magnet

Impact

*Achieve our 4th quarter revenue goals
Get a 5:1 ROI on marketing efforts
Reduce shipping costs with new software
Stop working on Friday afternoon after the conclusion of my Friday Accountability Mastermind group
If I work on Saturday (which is my favorite day to work), then I will take Monday off

Refining and Prioritizing

That’s 20 examples of high leverage activities which, with the help of a framework, I was able to generate. But a list of ideas is not a plan — after you list, you need to refine and prioritize.

To prioritize, I asked myself:

With two new teammates on board, which of these activities is most likely to move the dial?
Which of these is most likely to have a domino effect on the others?
Which of these feels most urgent and most important this quarter?

Tackling any or all of these actions would move the dial for me. But as you read this list of activities again, start asking yourself questions about your own business that are less concrete.

For example, as you see…

“Mentor new manager…” ask yourself: How would hiring, firing, training, or mentoring move the dial for my business?
“Design a new course…” ask yourself: In this post-COVID environment, could I offer a new product or service that solves a problem for my current or hoped for customers? Should I look at the Ansoff Matrix to kick around some ideas?
“Scrutinize old and potential new products…” ask yourself: Should I revisit the 80/20 rule to identify distractions? That is, what (products) should I embrace or avoid offering to whom (customer) or where (geographical location), and by what means (sales and marketing)? More succinctly stated, what products are more trouble than what they’re worth?

Make Your High Leverage Activities Strong

I keep a list of my possible HLAs in the back of my Full Focus Planner. It saves me from having to pull something out of thin air when I do my weekly planning.

I also force myself (and my team!) to start with a verb. Simply writing a list of topics is imprecise. Putting an action verb in front of the topic helps to focus efforts.

High leverage activities keep me out of the weeds and focused on what’s really important — moving my business forward! Use these and other examples of high leverage activities to turn your goal-setting from “just one more thing” to a truly impactful practice for yourself and your organization.

Make the most of your planning with my three-hour Full Focus Planner course!

As you think about these examples of high leverage activities, what comes to your mind as appropriate for your business?