Building an MVP System: Managing Time Better

Example of how someone may build a “minimal viable product” version of their system, taking the first incremental step towards their goal.

In a previous post, we examined the trap of trying to build a perfect system for the aspirational version of yourself rather than your current self and identified steps to building a system for achieving the first incremental step towards your goal. In this series of posts, we will take a look at examples of building this MVP system for the first incremental step. For this first post in the series, we will take a look at the steps to achieve a goal of “Manage My Time Better.”

First, let’s review the steps of how you can produce an MVP system for achieving your goals:

1. Identify and clearly define your goals.
2. Clarify your goals by asking why you want to achieve what you want to achieve, then ask why that is the reason; refine your goal and its definition accordingly.
3. Make a road map and break down the steps you will need to reach your goal.
4. Figure out the small steps that you can take right now towards that goal.
5. Craft your system for achieving just that small, incremental step.
6. Implement the system, including a timeline for when you check in with yourself.

Manage My Time Better

Think of a person whose current system for keeping track of important dates and appointments relies on the kindness of their spouse to track and tell them when something is coming up. This person wants to manage their time better, so they go out and buy a planner for the first time then immediately try to schedule the next several weeks of their life.

This person fully expects to carry that planner around everywhere with them (even though they have never carried around a planner before), to keep it up to date with each new obligation or engagement (another new habit), and to do a strict and thorough review each morning — even though their current morning routine consists solely of a (i) shower, (ii) getting dressed, (iii) brushing their teeth, and (iv) coffee before getting off to work.

You can see the problem. The person has, sadly, designed for failure. While they could very well do everything they set out to do, it is more likely that they will fall off on their efforts at some point, then another, and another, until it cascades into them giving up altogether.

Now put yourself into this person’s shoes and pretend you have the same goal and obstacles, and let us examine how you would build an MVP system for the first incremental step.

Step 1: Identify and Clearly Define Your Goal

At this point you know you want to “manage your time better,” but what does that actually mean? Right now it is vague, and vague goals tend to invite over-complicated solutions before you even know what problem you are solving.

Someone — like our imaginary person — might try to get ahead of this by jumping straight to an elaborate system. Maybe they go out and buy that physical planner and also grab a set of highlighters, colored pens, and stickers to create a beautifully organized daily spread. Or maybe they go digital and spend an entire weekend diving deep into their online calendar, inputting everything at once and expecting one tool to handle birthdays, phone calls, appointments, work deadlines, and personal to-do tasks all in one place.

The problem with both approaches is that they skip the actual work of defining what the goal is. “Manage my time better” could mean a number of different things. Does it mean being more productive at work? Does it mean being more reliable to the people around you? Does it mean taking the mental burden of tracking everything off of your spouse? Each of those is a meaningfully different, albeit related, goal, and the system you build for one may look nothing like the system you build for another.

So before you go buying planners or color-coding your Google Calendar, stop and ask yourself what managing your time better actually looks like for you.

In this case, let us say that your goal is to be more reliable to those around you.

Step 2: Clarify Your Goal by Asking Why

Let’s say you sit with that question and realize the reason you want to manage your time better is because you want to be more reliable. Your spouse has told you more than once that they wish you could get yourself together, and you have missed a few things that resulted in consequences for the both of you: maybe a missed bill payment or deadline to submit a substantial refund. Worse, you have also missed important things and your friends and family assume that you do not value their time as much as your own because you are often late or completely absent from events and get-togethers.

Now ask yourself why being more reliable matters to you. Maybe it is because you do not want to be the person who forgets their kid’s parent-teacher conference or who has to be reminded three times about a dentist appointment. You want the people in your life to trust that when you say you will handle something, it gets handled. You want these people in your life to feel like they can rely on you to take care of important matters and show up when you say you will. That is the why.

With that clarity, your goal is no longer “manage my time better.” It becomes something closer to “become someone who reliably remembers and follows through on the tasks, calls, and appointments.”

Step 3: Make a Road Map

Now that you know where you are headed, you can start mapping out the steps to get there. Your destination is a place where you reliably remember and appropriately schedule and follow through on the tasks, calls, and appointments you need to track.

It is worth pausing here to note that when you have a well-defined goal, the steps that follow may be simpler than you might expect. The next couple of steps in this checklist may even seem to blend together, and that is fine.

Step 4: Figure Out the Smallest Thing You Can Do Right Now

After careful thought, evaluating what has worked and has not worked for you in the past, as well as what your habits currently are, you think the smallest meaningful thing you could do is probably just getting all of your stuff into one place. Not a complicated calendar system. Not a shared calendar synced with your spouse. And not separate task lists organized by category or context. Just everything into one place.

No more checking in with your spouse, then your online calendar, and then looking for the random post-it note you have on the wall just to know if you are free on Saturday. Just one place that you look at and just know. It may not be the most efficient — knowing what you might be doing next April might be a bit tedious — but it is potentially a good first incremental step.

Step 5: Craft Your System

If you are a romantic you might, once again, be tempted to go out and buy a nice notebook and a fountain pen to carry around with you to write everything in one place. There is nothing inherently wrong with that impulse, but in this scenario you already do not carry around a notebook. Adding something else new to your daily routine will be adding a new source of friction for implementing your system. Instead, the simplest option is probably something you already have on you at all times — your phone. Most phones come with a reminders app or tasks app already built in, and all the better if yours has a voice assistant. But even the notes app might be the simplest thing to implement, and that is fine.

The system here is almost deceptively simple, and that is entirely the point.

Every time you have a new task, appointment, call, or anything else you need to remember, you pull out your phone — or just speak to it — and set a reminder for an amount of time before that thing needs to happen. That is it.

No time tracking. No journaling. No elaborate planner spreads or morning reviews or weekly check-ins. You are not trying to build a habit of sitting down each day to go over your schedule — that is a system for a future version of you. The simplest thing for you to do is just get it recorded, all in one place, consistently.

Step 6: Implement the System and Set a Check-In Timeline

Give this system at least three weeks. That is enough time for it to start feeling like a routine and for you to run into real situations where it either works or it does not. At the end of those three weeks, sit down and honestly evaluate it.

• Are you catching things you used to miss?
• What do you find yourself doing when you open it?
• Are you able to consistently add things every time something comes up?
• Is your spouse noticing that they are carrying less of the mental load?
• Do you feel like you are recording too much or too little?

It may seem ridiculous to expect any changes from just remembering to write everything down, but there is some method to the seeming madness. If you are writing things down every time something comes up, you are not only reinforcing your memory by writing it down but you are opening and maybe even reviewing your list. Maybe that is enough. If it is conducive to the life that you want to live and you feel you have achieved your goal, maybe it does not need any more. But if you feel it is coming up short in some areas, you can modify what you are doing based on your own feedback.

From here, you figure out whether your system needs to be revised, refined, or if it is ready to evolve to the next step. Maybe you need to set a reminder so you get notified when it is approaching. Maybe you realize you need a quick weekly scan or daily morning scan to see what is coming up. Whatever you discover, you will be making that call from experience because you took the critical first step. Moreover, you have already established a simple new habit and the next step will be easier and less overwhelming than trying to reinvent yourself overnight. From this MVP you are able to build the next part of your system and move towards the person you want to be.