A Guide to Managing Work, Creativity, and Life with Priority-Zero
A Guide to Managing Work, Creativity, and Life with Priority-Zero
If you’re in the habit of wearing multiple hats, you already know how quickly things can spiral out of control. It often starts small with a forgotten appointment, or a school notice that got buried in your inbox, or something else that completely slipped your mind. Before long, you`re running around trying desperately to put out a whole bunch of spot fires you literally had no idea were coming.
There just doesn`t seem to be any way to escape the chaos, and no matter which way you turn, there`s never ever even a single way out, anywhere in sight. You`re doomed to keep repeating this pattern over, and over again. Or at least, that’s how it feels.
Imagine if you could break it all down into manageable segments. Everything from your work, creative interests, and personal life, into tidy and clear little mini-lives that you could plan for individually, on their own terms, while still keeping sight of how they all come together in the big picture of your overall life? What if there was a system you could use that didn’t make things more complicated, but made them easier to control and manage instead?
Wouldn`t that be like taking a deep breath of fresh air? Well, Priority-Zero is that breath of fresh air, and you probably didn`t even know it existed.
If you’re in the habit of wearing multiple hats, you already know how quickly things can spiral out of control. It often starts small with a forgotten appointment, or a school notice that got buried in your inbox, or something else that completely slipped your mind. Before long, you`re running around trying desperately to put out a whole bunch of spot fires you literally had no idea were coming.
There just doesn`t seem to be any way to escape the chaos, and no matter which way you turn, there`s never ever even a single way out, anywhere in sight. You`re doomed to keep repeating this pattern over, and over again. Or at least, that’s how it feels.
Imagine if you could break it all down into manageable segments. Everything from your work, creative interests, and personal life, into tidy and clear little mini-lives that you could plan for individually, on their own terms, while still keeping sight of how they all come together in the big picture of your overall life? What if there was a system you could use that didn’t make things more complicated, but made them easier to control and manage instead?
Wouldn`t that be like taking a deep breath of fresh air? Well, Priority-Zero is that breath of fresh air, and you probably didn`t even know it existed.
"So what the #&@% is Priority-Zero?" I hear you ask. Well, sit back, take your shoes off and relax, because I`m going to tell you all about it, and how it`s the answer to all your problems.
The Night Before
So picture this:
It`s Sunday evening, and you`re about to hit the hay with that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach you`ve become more than accustomed to. If you were a child again, you`d be inconsolable. But you`re not. You`re a grown up now, and you have to face all the horrors of your reality with a brave face whether you want to or not. The next thing you know, Monday morning is already here, and the rigmarole is all set to do its thing.
You somehow get through the daily saga of getting the rest of the household up and going by barking orders at them non-stop until you find yourself in your car alone long enough to take a deep breath and feel your extremities again. But this reprieve is only momentary, as you now have to psyche yourself up to battle the morning traffic to get to work.
Something You Never Expected
You finally arrive at your desk, grateful for the giant latte that somehow materialised in your hand on the way in without even realising it. And now for the fun to begin. But wait! What`s this? You`d almost forgotten about that new app you signed up for a free trial with on Friday, that`s now sitting there smiling at you as you wake your screen up again, right where you left it. You click on Action Stations almost instinctively, and nearly fall out of your chair.
The memories start flooding back, and you recall having played around with it to see what it could do. You remember dividing your life up into three distinct groups. The first was Bean There, Done That, which is of course your consulting business. The second was your alter-ego Nova Synth who is deeply immersed in writing a novel about a sci-fi story you`ve been bursting to tell since as far back as you can remember. And the third was Drone Spotting, which is something you enjoy doing at night in the hope that you`ll actually see one some time, and that it`ll turn out to be an alien visitor you just know is out there looking for you.
Suddenly, It All Starts Making Sense
But the absolutely best thing of all is that the few minutes you spent scheduling various deliverables for the projects you`d created for each are now right there before you in The Plan, arranged in the order you`d scheduled them for today, so you don`t even have to think about where to start, or the things you need to get done! And, as if that wasn`t enough, there`s also an alarm you can set to make sure you don`t go over the time you`d allocated for each activity. And you can even record the time you spend doing each, so that you can look back at the end of the week to see how well you managed to stick to your plan!
You know you need to schedule various meetings with clients who are waiting for updates, with your team to find out where they`re all at, and also slot in a chat with your Mum, who you haven`t spoken with for a while. But you hate being disturbed when you`re "in the zone" with work, so you now go to your Activity Schedule and start dragging and dropping deliverables from all of your projects into their appropriate days and times so everything is planned out and under control.
You know you need to schedule various meetings with clients who are waiting for updates, with your team to find out where they`re all at, and also slot in a chat with your Mum, who you haven`t spoken with for a while. But you hate being disturbed when you`re "in the zone" with work, so you now go to your Activity Schedule and start dragging and dropping deliverables from all of your projects into their appropriate days and times so everything is planned out and under control.
A Miraculous Transformation
As the screen comes to life, there`s another amazing shock waiting for you! All of your existing events and meetings from your Outlook and Google Calendars have been miraculously imported into your schedule, so you can now plan your activities around them and avoid the kinds of clashes you used to have to put up with, that always brought you close to tears. You blissfully continue to plan out all the things you need to do based on how long you think it`ll take you to complete each, and suddenly, the calm light of being organised washes over you, and for the first time in a long time, you feel in charge.
Now that you`ve completed your time estimates, and set out your plan, you can reach up over to the Meetings and Appointments button, select an organisation, category or persona you`d set up previously, click a single button and automatically generate a PZShortLink to send to everybody who needs to check in with you to book a time. And the best thing about it is that your availability now reflects the real times you`re available, where you haven`t set time aside to work on something, or have another meeting scheduled, or just want to enjoy some time to yourself!
Just as easily, you can send out video meeting requests to whoever you like for whatever you need to, all from the one convenient place. When they accept, the meeting will automatically slot itself into your schedule, so that it`s there right in front of you, together with all the other activities you planned.
An Unexpected Call
All of a sudden, your phone rings. It`s a client, with a new project for you! But can you handle it with everything else you`ve got going on? Let`s have a look, shall we? Again, you reach for a button at the top of the screen, and this time it`s the Workload button, which shows you exactly how much work you`ve already got and what proportion of the coming four weeks they`ll take up, and how much of those weeks you`ve already scheduled to meet your existing deadlines.
Right now, it looks like you`ve got more than enough to work on, but can see that you`ll start freeing up some time in about three weeks. And you`re in luck! Your client is a reasonable person and knows someone who is as good at what they do as you will obviously be busy. They`re more than happy for you to start on their project in three weeks, so you book them in and set up it up in your Action Stations, ready to go when the time comes!
Many Hands Make Light Work
This new project needs a fixed price quote, so you immediately start dreading having to find time to do all of that, because you know it can be a tedious and drawn out affair. But wait a second, once you`ve created the project, and all its deliverables with their individual time estimates, you head over to the Billing section, hit the Auto-Quote button, select the client, and hey presto, a quote magically appears right before your eyes for all the deliverables you marked billable. You can see that your regular hourly rate has already been applied, and all you now need to do is send it off to the client for approval! That took a total of about 5 minutes, and you`re good to go!
But you noticed there were some things in the quote that you would need to bring others in to help you with. What now? Well, luckily for you Priority-Zero has an inbuilt invitation system that you can use to email people you know to join you in your project. And if you need something done that you or your existing contacts aren`t able to do, all you need to do is head over to the Directory and find someone who`d be more than happy to do it!
Once you`ve assembled your team, all you need to do is assign the appropriate deliverable from your project to them, and that will appear as a new project in their Action Stations, ready for them to add their own deliverables to, and then plan, schedule, time and evaluate their progress for each of them.
But even better than all of that, the Teams & Collab section is the place that all members of your team can have a complete and transparent view of the entire project, and the planned and completed deliverables of every other team member. They can also add notes to each others` deliverables, and ask questions that can either be answered and resolved by other team members straight away, or if they remain unresolved, can be carried over to the team meeting for further discussion. So there`s no distracting peripheral chatter, and everyone is focussed on what needs to be done.
Going back to your existing projects, you realise that the hours you used to spend putting invoices together for time-billed projects will now be a thing of the past. All you need to do now is enter a date range and select the client. All recorded time for billable deliverables you`ve been working on will automatically be added to your invoice in seconds, and all you`ll need to do then, is send it off to your client.
Act, Achieve and Improve - Looking Back to Move Forward
Imagine how good it would be to be able to look back over the week, month, year or even the last few days to see not just where all your time went, but where you did better than you expected, or slightly worse than what you were hoping. Imagine the power that would give you to do better and keep improving.
If your business is based on time estimates that make up your quotes for projects, then how absolutely wonderful would it be to be able to see which ones you made more money on because you finished earlier than you expected, or lost money on because they took longer? Imagine if you could see exactly where you under-quoted so you can make sure that you learn from past experiences and improve as a result.
If your business is based on time estimates that make up your quotes for projects, then how absolutely wonderful would it be to be able to see which ones you made more money on because you finished earlier than you expected, or lost money on because they took longer? Imagine if you could see exactly where you under-quoted so you can make sure that you learn from past experiences and improve as a result.
That`s what the Reports section does. A range of charts, tables and downloadable data are available that help you to keep track not just of your activity, but more importantly of your productivity, and gives you a factual basis on which to improve.
If you`re a project owner, then you will also have access to all of these detailed reports for every member of your team.
The Joy of Being Sorted and the Excitement of a Newfound Tomorrow
So now you know what Priority-Zero is. And if you’ve already started using it, you’re probably beginning to realise just how powerful it can be. Not just for you, but for anyone who wants to feel more organised and in control.
Whether you’re an artist, a writer, a freelancer, consultant, coach, mentor, solopreneur, small business owner, or even someone working full time while trying to get a side hustle off the ground - it doesn’t matter. The ability to zoom into the details of your life, then zoom back out to see the whole symphony taking shape, is a pleasure like no other.
No more Sunday night dread. No more drowning in a turbulent ocean of forgotten goals and missed opportunities.
Priority-Zero is the one system you need to tame the chaos, and finally make space for the life you want to live.
TL;DR – So What the #&@% is Priority-Zero?
Priority-Zero is a tool for all kinds of people. It can be used for work, creative projects, life and personal things, and anything else you can think of.
It lets you break your life down into as many different parts as you need (like your business, work, side projects, or personal stuff), plan out your time, keep track of everything, and actually see how it all fits together.
You can:
• Create and manage projects for anything you`re working on
• Schedule tasks on a built-in calendar that also shows your meetings and events
• Track your time, set alarms, and record how long things actually take
• Generate quotes and invoices without spreadsheets or separate tools
• Invite people to help on projects and assign them their own tasks
• Share your real availability with booking links that reflect your actual workload
• See reports that show how your week went and where your time really went
It’s not flashy or overcomplicated. It’s just a quiet, solid system that helps you stay on top of everything without losing your mind.
If you’ve ever thought, "There’s got to be a better way to manage all this", this might just be it.
Don`t believe me? See for yourself.