Agile Results

F Focus

Well, you know how your to-do list has forty items, and at the end of the day you’ve somehow done none of the ones that mattered? How you can be busy from morning to night and still feel like you lost?

That’s activity without outcomes. The list was running you.

The Rule of 3 is the discipline of biting off three things — three wins for the day, three for the week, three for the month, three for the year — and letting the vital few lead.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: your working memory holds about three or four things — three fits in your head with no list, no app, no system overhead. You can hold today’s three while you’re in the corridor, in the meeting, in the queue.

Three is also scope management, which is where JD’s software roots show: a release ships because somebody decided what it is NOT. A day is a release. Forty items isn’t a plan, it’s a wish; three outcomes is a plan.

And the rule is fractal — the same move works at every scale. Three for today nests inside three for the week, inside three for the month, inside three for the year. One discipline, every horizon.

S Story

T Tool · Pick Your Three

This week, practice Pick Your Three.

Each morning — before email, before your phone, before anyone else’s agenda — write down three wins for today.

Wins, not tasks: “ship the draft,” not “work on the draft.”

That’s the whole tool. If you do nothing else from this system all week, do this once a day.

F Focus

Well, you know how weeks just… happen to you? Monday arrives, the inbox sets the agenda, Friday closes without a verdict, and next Monday it all repeats?

That’s a week without a rhythm — seven days of weather.

Monday Vision, Daily Wins, Friday Reflection is the heartbeat of Agile Results: Monday you envision, each day you win, Friday you reflect. Plan, act, learn — every single week.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: this is a feedback loop run at the smallest sustainable cadence. On Monday you ask one question: “what three things would I want to have achieved by Friday?” Each day you name the day’s three. On Friday you ask two more: three things going well, three things to improve.

The Friday reflection is what turns a list into a SYSTEM — do it, review it, improve it. Without the review, you just repeat your weeks; with it, your weeks compound.

And the pattern hands you a fresh start every Monday. Whatever last week was, you drop what isn’t working, travel light, and begin again. You can’t fall irrecoverably behind in a system that restarts every seven days.

S Story

T Tool · The Bookends

This week, install The Bookends.

Two ten-minute calendar anchors: Monday morning — write the week’s three wins, say them out loud. Friday afternoon — write three things that went well and three to improve.

Don’t optimise the middle of the week yet. Just install the bookends and let the week hang between them.

F Focus

Well, you know how by Wednesday you can’t remember what this week was supposed to be FOR? The days are full, but the week has no plot?

A week with no named wins is a week that gets narrated afterwards — by whatever happened to fill it.

3 Wins for the Week gives the week a story in advance: the three outcomes that would make you glad on Friday.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: the week is the perfect unit — big enough for meaningful work, small enough to see whole. A year is too far to feel; a day is too small to carry a real result. The week is where intention and reality actually meet.

Wins are outcomes, not activities. “Have the difficult conversation” is a win; “think about the difficult conversation” is an activity wearing a win’s clothes. JD’s test is simple: would Friday-you point at it and say THAT happened?

And when the week floods — it will — the three wins are what pull you back. Overwhelm is mostly the absence of a shortlist.

S Story

T Tool · Friday’s Verdict

This week, write Friday’s Verdict — on Monday.

Complete the sentence: “By Friday, I’ll be glad if ___, ___ and ___.”

Put it where you’ll see it every day — top of your notebook, a sticky on the monitor.

When something shiny lands midweek, hold it against the sentence. The sentence gets a vote.

F Focus

Well, you know how some days you only find out what the day was about by what it took from you? You were in it from seven till eleven, and somehow it was never yours?

A day with no named wins belongs to whoever asks first.

3 Wins for Today gives the day a shape before the world does: three outcomes, chosen by you, first thing.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: deciding once, in the morning, beats deciding forty times all day. Every “what should I do now?” moment costs willpower; three named wins answer most of those moments in advance.

It’s also a fresh start, every single day. Yesterday’s wreckage doesn’t carry: you wake up, you pick three, the scoreboard is clean. A bad day costs exactly one day.

And wins put a finish line on the day. “Inbox zero forever” is a treadmill; “these three, today” is a race you can actually run — and winning days, daily, is how momentum is made.

S Story

T Tool · Three Before Anything

This week, practice Three Before Anything.

Before email, before your phone, before the news: write today’s three wins.

In the evening, tick what landed — and if something else won the day instead, just notice what it was. No judgement; that’s data for Friday.

F Focus

Well, you know how your goals live in seventeen places — three apps, two notebooks, a drawer, your head — and therefore, effectively, nowhere?

What you can’t see can’t steer you.

Scannable Outcomes is your whole game at a glance: the results you want, organised by the areas of your life, on one page you can read in five seconds.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: JD organises outcomes by hot spots — the heat map of your life. Work hot spots, personal hot spots, and the life set: mind, body, emotions, career, finance, relationships, fun. Under each, the few outcomes you actually want.

The glance is the point. This isn’t a filing system, it’s a dashboard — it exists so that while you grind the small stuff, the big picture stays in view. A glance a day quietly re-aims a hundred small choices.

And the hot-spot layout makes neglect visible. Life is a portfolio; the scan shows you which holding is starving before the starving becomes a crisis.

S Story

T Tool · One Page of Hot Spots

This week, build One Page of Hot Spots.

List your hot spots — work, personal, and the life set (mind, body, emotions, career, finance, relationships, fun). Under each, one to three outcomes you want. All of it on ONE page or one screen.

If it doesn’t fit on one page, it isn’t scannable — cut until it is.

Then scan it each morning, right after your three wins. Five seconds. That’s the practice.

F Focus

Well, you know how a task expands to fill whatever time you give it? And a day with no walls becomes one long task you never finish?

Open-ended work is a lie you tell your calendar.

TimeBoxing is the fix: fix the time, flex the scope. The work gets a box; the box gets a wall; the wall does the work.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: a deadline is a forcing function. Inside a fixed box, you instinctively do the most important part first — the box does the prioritising for you. Without a box, polish eats the schedule.

Boxes also protect breadth. JD boxes administration, execution, think time, AND relationships — because the alternative is that one hot spot quietly eats the others. The box isn’t just how work gets done; it’s how the rest of your life keeps existing while it does.

And boxes end. A day made of boxes finishes; a day made of open roads just stops, somewhere, exhausted. “Good enough for now, shipped from inside the box” beats “perfect, never.”

S Story

T Tool · One Box a Day

This week, run One Box a Day.

Pick the piece of work that drifts the most. Give it a box: forty-five to ninety minutes, in the calendar, with a hard end.

Start when the box starts. Stop when it ends — actually stop. Ship whatever exists.

Notice what the wall made you do first. That’s the box doing your prioritising.

F Focus

Well, you know how two equally “productive” days can leave you flying after one and hollow after the other? Same hours, same effort — completely different you at six o’clock?

That’s because the budget that matters isn’t time. It’s energy.

Strong Week is designing the week around what makes you strong: in JD’s words, spend more time on activities that make you strong, and less on activities that make you weak.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: it’s not the time you spend, it’s the energy you leverage. An hour of your strongest work in your strongest slot is worth a morning of fog — so find your power hours and spend them on the work that matters most, not on email.

Weak-making work can’t always be dropped — but it can be contained: batched, scheduled early while resolve is high, and capped. JD’s rule of thumb is to keep it to around twenty percent of the week.

This is strengths-based design, not weakness-fixing. You don’t become great by sanding down every flaw; you become great by arranging the week so your strengths get the prime slots — and the rest gets a box.

S Story

T Tool · The Energy Audit

This week, run The Energy Audit.

For three days, mark each block of your day + or − : did it make you stronger or drain you?

Then move ONE thing: batch a draining task into a single early box, or reserve one power hour — your best slot — for the work that matters most.

One move. Next week, another. That’s how the strong week gets built.

F Focus

Well, you know how everything arrives claiming to be urgent? And treating it all equally means the genuinely important queues behind the merely loud?

An inbox without a door policy runs your day for you.

Triage is the front door: every incoming item gets a fast verdict — MUST, SHOULD or COULD — and a route: do it now, queue it, schedule it, delegate it, or delete it.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: triage is deciding, not doing. The cost of an undecided item isn’t the work it represents — it’s the ambient guilt of carrying it unread and unresolved. A one-minute verdict ends that.

The queue is a feature, not a failure. Deferring something WITH a place it lives beats both doing everything now and silently dropping things. SHOULD and COULD go to the queue; the weekly review re-opens the queue on your terms.

And triage is what protects the Rule of 3. Your three wins die without a door policy — every untriaged arrival is a candidate thief of the day you already chose.

S Story

T Tool · The Door Policy

This week, enforce The Door Policy.

Every incoming item — email, message, request, idea — gets a verdict in under a minute: MUST, SHOULD or COULD.

Then a route: do it now (only if it’s a two-minute MUST), queue it, schedule it, delegate it, or delete it.

Nothing stays unread-and-undecided. Decided is the new done.

F Focus

Well, you know how new skills die in the gap between a weekend of enthusiasm and a year of vague intention? Too short to stick, too long to start?

The month is the missing middle.

Monthly Sprints: pick ONE thing to improve — a skill, a habit, a hot spot — and sprint it for thirty days.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: thirty days is long enough to actually experiment — to try, fail, adjust and see real movement — and short enough to commit to honestly. Nobody can promise a year; anybody can promise a month.

One sprint at a time. The improvement gets your spare attention all month, which is how it survives the third week, where enthusiasm usually goes to die.

And the month-end is a fresh start with three legitimate exits: continue (it’s working), switch (something matters more), stop (it told you what you needed to know). All three are wins — the sprint’s job was to find out.

S Story

T Tool · Name One Sprint

This week, Name One Sprint.

Pick one thing to get better at this month. Define what “better” looks like in thirty days — one sentence.

Choose the smallest daily rep that moves it. Do the rep.

Put a note in your diary thirty days out: continue, switch, or stop?

F Focus

Well, you know how “I’m just not good at this” ends the conversation with yourself before it starts? How one bad result can feel like a verdict on who you are?

Verdicts close cases. And you’re not a closed case.

Growth Mindset is the working assumption the whole system runs on: ability is buildable, results are feedback, and the next rep changes you.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: every practice in Agile Results assumes you can improve through practice — that’s what the reflections, reviews and sprints are FOR. Friday Reflection is pointless if results are verdicts; it’s priceless if results are data.

JD’s framing is progress, not perfection. The system is deliberately forgiving — fresh start daily, weekly, monthly — because a system you can fail permanently is a system you’ll quit.

And action creates inspiration, not the other way round. You don’t think your way into believing you can improve; you rep your way into it. The belief follows the evidence, and you manufacture the evidence.

S Story

T Tool · The Yet Edit

This week, practice The Yet Edit.

Catch one “I can’t do X” — out loud or in your head — and append the word: “yet.”

Then name the next rep: the one small action that moves X.

One word, one rep. That’s a growth mindset in working clothes.

F Focus

Well, you know how one list holds “buy milk,” “restructure the department” and “maybe learn Spanish”? And how a list like that helps with none of them?

A list that mixes horizons breeds avoidance — you scan it, flinch, and open email instead.

Action Lists keep doing separate from storing: short, current, actionable lists you work FROM — today’s three wins and their supporting actions — with everything else living somewhere else.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: a list you act on has rules. Short — it fits a card. Current — it’s today’s, not the archaeological record of every intention you’ve ever had. Actionable — every line starts with a verb you could do right now.

Today’s list is disposable on purpose. You write it fresh each morning and let yesterday’s version go — the fresh start applies to the paperwork too. The queue (from Triage) holds the rest; the weekly review reopens the queue.

JD goes one step further with scripts: recurring work written once as a step-by-step sequence, so the list thinks so you don’t have to. The system works for you — you’re the driver.

S Story

T Tool · The Two-List Split

This week, run The Two-List Split.

One card or screen for TODAY: your three wins plus the few actions that serve them. Nothing else.

Everything else goes to the queue — which you review weekly, not hourly.

Rewrite today’s list fresh each morning. Throw yesterday’s away. It finished when the day did.

F Focus

Well, you know how good ideas die of homelessness? The quote you loved, the link you’d definitely read later, the insight from the meeting — gone, because they had nowhere to live?

Your head is for having ideas, not for housing them.

Reference Collections are the homes: organised places for the non-actionable-but-valuable — insights, ideas, quotes, notes, checklists — out of your head and findable when you need them.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: reference is the opposite of action, and mixing them ruins both. Action lists stay short because reference has somewhere else to go; reference stays rich because it isn’t pretending to be a to-do.

Collections support decisions. When the question comes — what worked last time, what was that idea, where’s the checklist — you consult instead of reconstruct. Collect once, use forever.

And collections compound. A year of captured insights is a private library in your own voice; five years of it is a second brain that knows your patterns better than you remember them.

S Story

T Tool · Three Homes

This week, build Three Homes.

Create (or clean out) three collections: IDEAS, REFERENCE (notes and checklists), and INSPIRATION (quotes and sparks).

Then the rule: every keeper you meet this week goes into its home within a minute of meeting it.

A minute to file, forever to find. That’s the trade.

F Focus

Well, you know how systems quietly rot? The list you stop reading, the habit that drifts, the ritual that becomes a chore you skip without deciding to?

A system that can’t see itself can’t last.

The Review Cycle is the system reviewing the system: at the end of each lap of the twelve practices, you step back and ask what worked, what didn’t, and what to change — then start the next lap lighter.

A Approach

Here’s the thinking: the whole of Agile Results runs on one loop — do it, review it, improve it. Friday Reflection runs that loop on the week. The Review Cycle runs it on the system itself.

JD builds continuous improvement into the method on purpose: drop what isn’t working, travel light, carry forward only what earns its place. The review is what makes the other twelve durable — without it they’re twelve good ideas slowly going stale; with it they’re a system that fits you better every lap.

And it’s forgiving by design. Progress, not perfection: the lap review isn’t an exam you can fail, it’s a fresh start you can steer.

S Story

T Tool · The Lap Review

This week, run The Lap Review.

Three questions, three lines:

What worked this lap? (Keep it.) What didn’t? (Drop it — travel light.) What will I try next lap? (One change, not five.)

Write the three lines down. Then start lap two — fresh.