The Productivity Pyramid: Capture the Power of Inner Peace and Success

George Wright III (0:07)

Okay, welcome back to The Franklin Planner Podcast. My name is George Wright III. I'm here with my co-host, John Harding. John, how are you?

John Harding (0:14)

Doing great, George. I'm excited to be with you today to talk about the productivity pyramid.

George Wright III (0:20)

Yeah, so am I. We've had so many requests from individuals, the productivity pyramid. It's one of the most foundational concepts of Franklin Planner.

I think people want this topic because they want to have progress in all areas of their life, their health, their finances, their relationships, work, purpose. But all those priorities don't always translate to daily action. So tell us what is so important about the productivity pyramid before we get going here because I think that we want to make sure everyone has a context for how to use this whether they're a Franklin Planner user or not.

John Harding (0:54)

This is an awesome companion tool to the Time Matrix.

Whether you've heard of the productivity pyramid or not, we're going to share it today. It's a simple model. A lot of times when people think about planning, they often picture appointments and lists of things. But we're going to go deeper today and we're going to tie it together. George, you get through a day and it could have been a day overflowing with how busy you are, even a bunch of important things. But this is something that will really help you that when you come to the end of a day, you can really say, hey, I really got the things that line up with what matters most to me. It puts you in the driver's seat ahead of the game, and then after the day to really be going where you want to go. Even though you can't predict everything. So it's a cool model that we're going to go through.

George Wright III (1:56)

That's awesome. Yeah. And I think it would be good for us and for our listeners to start with the big picture and why this framework is so central to the Franklin Planner approach, but also in their everyday lives. So talk to us about why does the productivity pyramid matter, but maybe even break down the four levels, and then we'll drive deeper into each of those levels.

John Harding (2:18)

I'd love to do that. And as I was planning for this, there's just kind of a simplicity to it, that as you work through it and even reviewing it, it gave me insights. Think about this for a minute, a little behind the context of why.

When people think they look ahead and they think about what they want in the years ahead, there's research from Pew and also some others, the retire AARP and others. But here's some of the things that people typically think about when they think about the years ahead. They talk about their health. They talk about having financial security. They talk about close relationships. They talk about also making a difference, their purpose, service, and also time to enjoy things, sometimes travel, leisure kinds of things. So as they think about that, and so that kind of a picture really calls to question, how do we do that?

What do we do next Tuesday or next week? So as we think about the different parts of someone's life, and how they hope to create it, and lead it, and live it well, this is what the productivity pyramid is all about. Now, I'd like to put out there one, if I were to think of Hiram Smith, who I knew fairly well, I heard him speak before I joined Franklin Planner, through when I was at Deloitte, IBM, Price Waterhouse, they were starting to use The Franklin Planner, and Hiram would come and speak. Then after I joined Franklin Planner and was on the what we call the Senior Management Team, I spent a lot of time. I don't know how many times I have heard Hiram W. Smith describe what we're going to walk through in a few minutes today, but it was powerful and he had one conclusion, kind of one in his words, but I'm just going to give you his quote. I'd just like to kind of pose it to you as a practical question.

And this sets it up.

How do the things people, the things that people care about, so think about the things, those could be people, goal, your mission, your dreams.

We say are most important to us. How do they make their way into your daily life? And what Hiram's promise, as he started in the middle and at the end of what he taught, the power of this planner and this pyramid is really a system that you work through continually when you use writing down and thinking and drawing out of you inspiration. And it was that the way you would live your life daily and weekly, but at the end of a day, as you looked at what you did, you could see that what you did lined up with what you valued, and the term he used was inner peace. That that would bring you inner peace to live according to your values. So that's the Hiram Smith. We'll say, what's the benefit of what we're going to talk about? I'm going to also give you some Stephen Covey quotes. But that's, what are we looking for? And we might say, hey, you define, you put that in your words, but whatever for you is what you want to accomplish. And most people do want to be in charge of their life rather than have someone else or circumstance come upon you. So it's kind of that lead your life, inner peace, and do the things with the people, you know, that matter most to you. So then you asked me to outline the pyramid. Well, let me give it to you. Imagine a pyramid that has, you know, this hard, strong base. And it's one of the most sturdy structures, as we'll talk about, that we have. Imagine four levels. At the base of this is what we call governing values. And we're going to start there as we talk about it. You go up one level, and you have your goals. You could think short-term, long-term goals. You go up one more level, and it's how to apply those values and goals and what you do on a weekly basis, kind of a weekly perspective. And then the top of this pyramid is, and would be, your daily actions. So governing values, goals, weekly planning, and what you do daily. That makes up the structure of the pyramid that we'll explain today.