Today, I have a system in place that in less than two hours per week has brought me a persistent level of focus, clarity and confidence.

Considering the hours, if not days, I used to spend deciding what to do, and when to do it, it’s a dramatic improvement.

In 90 days, I make more progress than I used to get done in a full year. But it wasn't always like that.

Six years ago, I wasn’t confident with my direction, or clear about my goals. I didn’t have good habits or a personal planning or productivity system in place.

Even when I was getting things done, there wasn't a clear direction. It was a random walk: three steps forward, two steps back, three steps to the right. On average, I ended up right back where I started.

All the while, I saw other people around me, people I could relate to, that were doing the things I knew to be important: moving fast, making decisions quickly, identifying the highest leverage areas and focusing on them.

In a sense, "knowing what to do" wasn't the problem

I knew that I needed to be able to prioritize single projects for long periods of time, but not so long that I ignored feedback from the market and myself.

But the feeling that I was missing out on a better opportunity, or disappointing someone persisted.

I knew that whatever I was scared of was the important thing to do.

But I found myself avoiding it or not even knowing what it was. Instead of getting on the phone and making a cold call or publishing an article, I was “doing research.”

The personal productivity systems I found were insufficient.

For one, they didn’t teach me how to figure out what to do; they told me how to do what I was told.

Most books and systems assume you're employed in a traditional top-down, command and control organization where someone above you tells you what to do. In an entrepreneurial environment, where no one is telling you what to do, the responsibility for setting your priorities falls on your shoulders. If I had clarity about what exactly to do, actually doing the work wasn’t that hard. If I knew that writing a report was the most important thing, figuring out how to write the report was easy. It was choosing from the huge universe of possibilities that was hard.

They also don’t make room for the unexpected.

Sometimes you do need to be ready to pounce when big opportunities come up. Or to change course quickly if one tactic stops working, or another proves more effective. But how do you know when to pivot and when to keep plowing?

We all know that if we try and work on too many different projects/concepts, none of them will excel. However, when you're interested in pursuing many different paths, how do you choose? When do you branch out, if ever?

Under what conditions should the smaller goals that are in pursuit of the larger ones be revised?

And what if you know what to do, but you’re just scared to do it?

Most productivity books and systems don’t even mention the concept of emotional work, what Steve Pressfield has called “The Resistance.” The elephant in the room! I had come to realize that not all work is created equal and I knew that I had to be doing the difficult emotional work of fighting The Resistance.

But over the last half decade, I discovered a system that did work for me.

Now, I’m clear about what my long-term goals are and how they align with my values and principles.

I’m clear about the highest leverage tasks I can be doing this quarter, this month, this week and today, to take me towards those goals.

I used to allow interruptions to eat away my day, now I have at least three hours blocked off every day to focus on the single most important task to accomplish my long term goals.

I worry far less than I used to that I’m “missing out” on other opportunities, or letting things fall through the cracks. I know my priorities, why they're my priorities and what would be so important as to change them.

I can look back at the last year and see measurable progress toward a goal, and meaningful changes in my life.

How did I do it?

I kept trying-and-failing at implementing the systems in the productivity books I was reading.

But, I noticed some things worked. So I kept those.

I began to deconstruct and analyze research from unconventional sources like stoic philosophy, behavioral economics, positive psychology, risk management, improvisational theatre and investing. I began to think about how I could apply the lessons from those sources to my own life. How could I take the best systems that had existed for the last century, filter them through the lens of research done in the past decade and then codify it all into a simple, easy-to-follow system.

It began to work for me. So I started writing about it.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve published a series of essays on my system that have received the biggest response of anything I’ve ever written. I got emails from venture capitalists, founders, hedge fund managers, authors and everything in between saying the systems had worked for them.

So, I started teaching it to others.

Frankly, I was surprised at how well it worked. Russ Perry cited it as a primary factor in how he grew a multiple 6 figure business in 106 days.

After hearing about Russ's story, more people started reaching out to me. I taught them the system and they started seeing results.

At this point, I knew it worked, and not just for me. For dozens of people in all different life situations: single, married, employed, freelancers, entrepreneurs and investors.

I want to offer that system to you, in The Effective Entrepreneur.

Stop wondering which direction to go, or changing directions erratically - get clear on your the right things to do for your business and move consistently towards your goals.

Stop worrying you're neglecting another opportunity or letting someone down when you focus - gain a sense of confidence in your goals, and rest easy, knowing you’re taking big strides toward them.

Stop avoiding the fear. Learn to recognize it as a signal that you’re doing something powerfuland important. Learn to lean into it, and dance with it toward your goals.

In short, this a system for getting clear on the vision of your life that exists in your head, and turning it into a reality.

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What would it be like to wake up every morning completely clear about your direction?

How much more could you accomplish if you could trustthat all your resources were moving in the right direction, like a crew team all rowing the same direction?

How much more creative force could you bring to bear on moving the needle in your business and life if you weren't distracted by worry that something lurked in your inbox, or that you were working on the wrong things?

How much more at-ease would you feel seeing the success of others around you if you could rest assured that your goals were the right ones, and that your efforts were getting you closer?

How much is The Effective Entrepreneur?

I want to share something I got in an email recently:

“I recently had an epiphany that my idea, which has been bouncing around for two years, will be successful. As a result, I’ve done more in the last two weekends than I’ve done in the last two years.”

How much time have you wasted lacking clarity, confidence and conviction? Either procrastinating on doing the most important work or bouncing from shiny object to shiny object without making real progress?

What's an hour of your time worth? A week?

I charge thousands of dollars to teach this material to private clients and the average graduate-level university writing class costs an average of $1500. I intentionally didn’t charge that kind of money for this course because I wanted to make this accessible to as many people as I could.

Think about how much time you spend spinning your wheels because you’re juggling too many priorities at once or avoiding the emotional work that really impacts your life.

How much more could you accomplish if you had a system to overcome that?

If the result is you get back even one single day lost lacking clarity and confidence, will that make it worth it? I hope you’ll join me and find out.