Learnings and Missteps

How To Stop Doing More And Start Doing What Matters

• Jesus Hernandez • Season 3

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Want a year that actually changes your life? We break down a practical system to stop chasing busywork and start stacking wins that matter. It starts with a guilt-free brain dump to pull every idea, project, and half-finished goal out of your head so you can judge them by outcome, not overwhelm. From there, we introduce the Damn Matrix, a four-quadrant method that ranks your work by impact and effort. High impact, low effort goes first. High impact, high effort gets planned next. Low impact items wait their turn. The real twist: we score by the value of starting, not the fantasy of finishing, so momentum arrives early and fuels the bigger climbs.

Curveballs still happen, and we name them: rabid squirrels. Instead of letting emergencies swallow your day, we use the Daily Domination board to label, log, and move them through Done, then review weekly to spot patterns. When the same sources trigger fire drills, you design guardrails—clear expectations, calendar buffers, and ready-made responses. We also get honest about what overcommitment costs: sleep, exercise, and nutrition. The fix is counterintuitive and effective—shrink the number of daily targets so you stay calm, kind, and focused, even when plans shift.

All of this lives inside a self-first framework: plan, commit, execute. We plan across a year, then break it into thirds and months to see where impact compounds. We commit on the calendar to protect deep work and life habits. We execute daily with a simple workflow that tracks progress and interruptions without guilt. You’ll leave with a repeatable way to prioritize for impact, start sooner, and sustain energy so results stack without burning you out.

If this helps, share it with a friend who’s drowning in to-dos, hit follow for more practical tools, and leave a review telling us one high-impact, low-effort move you’ll start this week. Your next breakthrough begins with what you choose to start today.


Set the stage for an amazing new year with the Self First Framework.

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SPEAKER_00:

What's going on, folks? I want you to make next year like your super duper ultimate breakthrough year. So we're going to talk about the damn matrix. And it is the tool that I use to maximize momentum in like all the things that we do. If you were here on the last call, we did the first wave of guilt-free future planning. And this is the second wave. And so if you need a reminder, we'll do a little refresher here in a second. But I want to make sure you understand that the Dam Matrix is the tool that I use and I want to help you use or introduce you to so that you can prioritize for impact. Because you know, some of us have been in some situations, maybe had a year or two, or maybe a string of years where doing the things just kind of wasn't enough or didn't get to the point that we wanted it to be. All right. So I threatened you. I said we are going to prioritize for impact. And why impact? Because there's a lot of things I can do that are super, super easy, right? I could like if I have a 15-20 list thing to do today or this month or for the year, uh, it's very easy for me to attack the things that are that are easy to check off. Now, some people that helps them with momentum. That does not help me with momentum. It just exhausts me because I only have a certain amount of energy and I need to give it to the most impactful things. If I give it to like wishy-washy stuff, that's an easy, you know, my PPC, my percent complete is gonna be high, but the impact I had is low. That's no weno for me. It's not sustainable. And particularly when it comes to long-term planning. And when I'm talking about long-term planning, for me, that time horizon has expanded. And it has expanded through reps, repetition. There was a time where long-term planning for me was more than a week, and then it was two weeks. I couldn't, if you ask me what my five-year plan was, I had no damn answer because I was just trying to make sure I had money for gas and food next week. And so over the years, I've been able to like expand what that time horizon is and what long-term planning means to me. And so for me, when I'm talking about long-term planning, it's very simple, especially at the end of the year, because we've got a brand new year coming out in front of us. And if we don't want to repeat uh the same experience, we got to do something a little bit different. And so on December, which is my birthday in December, is when I do my long-term planning. And I think about the entire year. After I do that, then I go back to that plan and I look at it in quarters. Okay, what do I want? Well, actually, I look at it in thirds now. It's you know, four months at a time. There's a bunch of weirdness about that. And if you're interested, hit me up, or maybe we'll talk about it on the after party. But I think of my years in thirds now, and then I do monthly, right? And so what we talked about at our last live stream was the first phase of long-term planning. So the first phase of long-term planning or guilt-free future planning, this is a quick review in case you missed it, is simply to get all the stuff out of your head. The big, giant, important things, the ideas, the goals, the projects, the skills that you want to build, all of the things that never really happen because tomorrow, because I'm busy, because I have all these other things. It's really just about getting them out of your head, right? If you haven't started them, or more importantly, if you started them but haven't finished them and they've just kind of been dying on the vine there, getting them out of your head in terms of whether they're business or professional, personal growth, or like relationships and maintaining connection with important human beings, whatever that is, or building new connections, getting them out of your head so that you can see them. The reason that is super, super important is because when we keep it all in our head, they kind of get all distorted and they're bigger and heavier than what they actually are. And then we just pile more and pile more and pile more, and it creates this stress or this static in our mind that kind of handcuffs us and keeps us from making decisions to actually make progress on the thing. So, phase one, if you want to watch the replay, I'll put a link in the thing so you can watch the replay from the last live stream, is just getting that out of your head so that you can see all the things that you have. And I promise, well, I have a double promise. The first part of that promise is when you start getting them out of your head, you're gonna feel a little bit of like, oh my god, there's all these things, there's so many things I'm never gonna finish. That's okay. Take a breath. It's not the end of the world because guess what? If you haven't started them yet, nobody cares, nobody's gonna judge you, nobody's gonna be disappointed in you. This is all you, and then after you get it out of your head, then you can say, Oh, these things aren't that big. Like, they don't all have the same massive weight that they used to when they're in my head. Now, there are some that are more impactful or more urgent, more important, and then there's some that are kind of like, man, that's not as big as I thought it was. It was trying to like a little chihuahua. There's a whole lot of bark, but not much bite to it. Unless they bite you, then it's a different thing. So the idea is get it out of head so you can visually see the things. Now, once you've done that, dun dun dun, that's where the damn matrix comes into play. And why do I why am I calling it the damn matrix? Because it's about doing the damn thing. You all have goals, we all have objectives, and it really just comes down to doing the damn thing. And what keeps us that my assertion, my whole theory philosophy about this stuff is the number one thing that keeps me and you from getting the damn thing done is between your ears. It's the things between your ears, the thoughts, the way you look at things, the way you visualize things, and the way you prioritize your don't. So that's why the self-first framework is designed and it's a hundred percent focused on you and how you think about time and how you manage yourself towards executing stuff. So I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna stop preaching here a little bit. Looks like we got a comment coming in. Oh, Miss Heather's got a heavy one. So Miss Heather says, Okay, serious questions. How do you deal with the rabid squirrels? Not regular squirrels, rabid squirrels. That's what I call the squirrels that come up that are actually necessary to handle immediately. They can't be put on the back burner or delayed. I've been dealing with the whole pack of rabbit squirrels lately. Oh my goodness. All right, Miss Heather, this is um a gifted and talented question. Super, super precise question. And I appreciate you like coloring it for me because the way I handle um the rabbit squirrels and the way I recommend everybody handle the rabbit squirrels is by using the daily domination uh framework or template, actually. Template's probably the better word. Um, and if you want the daily domination template, drop double D in the comments or scan the QR code, and it'll get you put whatever you need to do to sign up and get the thing, and you'll get a lot of extra cool stuff. But, anyways, back to your question, Miss Heather. The question is how do you deal with the rabbit squirrels? Those rabbit squirrels are the things that pop up that like unplanned, unanticipated, and they have to be addressed right away. So the way I handle them is doing them right, get them out of the way, get them done. Like that's they just have to be done. But in the daily domination board, I create a card and I identify it as a curveball. You could change the label on my on my board. I have it as a curveball. You could change the label to rabid squirrels, and what I do is that's okay. So it's gonna have that label, it's gonna have that particular color, and then I'll assign a name because there's always it's always coming from somebody, even me sometimes. So I'll type their little name in there, and then I'll kind of describe what the thing was because it wasn't planned, but it had to get done, and it took some of my energy and maybe got me off my flow a little bit, and I will continue to track those the rabid squirrels, because at the end of the week, so once I've put it in my Todo column, rabid squirrel, whatever the thing is, and I put it in my done column at the end of the week, or whatever frequency is appropriate, when I reflect and review like how many curveballs or rabid squirrels came in and bit me, where did they come from? That's the key for me, is because I track it and at the end of the week, or for me, I do it at the end of the week. For you, it's your call. I can see what from a broader time horizon instead of just in the moment, from a broader time horizon from a weak perspective, I can see how many people or where those rabbit squirrels are coming from. And what I've found over many, many years, they seem to come from the same people. And so then that gives me some insight. Like, okay, if this person, this individual in these circumstances, they are very likely to call me with the damn emergency, their hair's on fire, and I got to take care of it right away. Um, then I can come up with a plan to mitigate that. So if that helped, Ms. Heather, let me know. It is the way that is exactly how I handle the rabbit squirrels. And and I, you know what? I may be stealing that and integrating the rabid squirrel idea into the next uh workshop. So thank you for that question. That was super good. Um, oh wait, she's got to come back. She says, okay, that's how I handle them too. There have just been so many lately that doing those end up meaning other important things have to get dropped a hundred percent. Let's not talk about how long my to-do list has included making time for regular yoga, practice with no movement because of curveballs, rabbit swirls. And that's that's the reality of it, right? Is when things come and interrupt and disrupt our flow, something's gotta fall, right? I and my thinking is like, okay, which ball am I dropping today? Because something's got to give. What I typically do that I don't recommend is I just sacrifice sleep. So it's sleep, exercise, nutrition almost in that order of what I will sacrifice when my life is full of rabid squirrels. But I'm telling you, tracking it and like coming up with a mitigation plan after the fact help me manage that better so that I'm focused on sleep, my exercise, and my nutrition. Again, I'm not hopefully that didn't come across like I'm telling, oh yeah, how do you handle it? Just don't eat, just eat freaking mountains of fast food and don't sleep because that's not what I'm saying. So thank you again for the question, folks. If you got them, drop them. I'm happy, more than happy to answer them. And again, if you want to get the daily domination board, hit that QR code or drop double D in the comments. I'll hook you up with the link. We even have a testimonial here from a user, Mr. Jake Jones says, even better than just a list is to use the double D trello board to line everything out so that I have a record. Absolutely, man. Um, thank you, Jake. I appreciate it. Not just using it, uh, but like, I mean, not just talking about it, but actually using the damn thing. That's the whole freaking point. All right, so here we go. We are gonna go back to the damn matrix. Again, this is about prioritizing for impact. Okay, impact over effort wins in Jesse Land all the time, because for me, the fulfillment I get from having major impact is what keeps me alive, it's what keeps me focused. Uh, um, and I promise you, if you haven't, if like your prioritization style is just about getting things done and responding to the loudest uh cry baby out there, I understand I've lived that life, but it's not like reinforcing, it doesn't build momentum or energy, not for me, anyways. And so, if like you're tired of that, I got some fire for you. So the damn matrix, again, we talked about on the last call, we went over like getting all the stuff, our big projects, our big ideas, our unstarted, our unfinished dreams, getting them out of our head so we can see them. And so now what we're gonna do is we're gonna give weight to them. We're not prioritizing yet, we're giving weight to them, and we're giving them weight based on impact and effort. Because I said a bunch of times already, the damn matrix is designed to help us understand where we can have the greatest impact. Why? Because we have all been blessed with gifts and talents, and sharing those gifts and talents with the world is the whole freaking reason that we're here. So, what you would do is you would you'll go if you've already if you did your homework and you know you've done the thing, you would go to your buckets, right? And those ideas, goals, aspirations, projects, all of the above, and you would start pulling them one at a time, and you would weight them based on impact and effort. So if you did it, and and and I want to be clear, there's a there's a trip hazard here. Some people get kind of wrapped around. I want you to think about it in terms of starting, not completing, because I know the most impactful things that I want to do or have done, them freaking things are gigantic. And it some of them are gonna take me years to complete, some of them are gonna take me months or weeks. Um, but the most impactful stuff, there's a path, there's a journey, there's a ton of learning. So don't think about it in terms of like if I finish it, it'll be impactful. It's if I start it, okay? And the other thing, back to like the guilt-free part, this is from your perspective. It's not, I want you to think about it from terms of how what would bring you the most fulfillment, what would bring you the most happiness, not what other people expect from you, not what other people want from you, not what you think they're expecting, what you want. And I won't tell anybody, I promise, I'm not gonna tell anybody that you were being selfish. I'm I'm wiping all the guilt away from you. So, anyways, with that from that context, if you can do that, the next thing you do is drag those things, whatever those tasks are, and weigh them based on impact and effort. So you can see these little um, I don't know what you call them. Uh shoot, there's a math term for it. Anyway, on axis. So on this axis, up and down, you have high impact and low impact, right? So the top left quadrant is gonna be high impact things that are low effort, right? Meaning they're they're not gonna take a lot of uh a lot of effort, a lot of ghana, right? You just gotta do the thing, but they're gonna be very impactful. You would put those in the top left quadrant. Now, the next one, that so those would are the ones that you do first, right? You start making plans for them and taking action on things. The next one is on the top right quadrant, they're still high impact, but they're gonna be higher effort, so you're gonna take a little more effort, you know, maybe resources, research, who knows? You know, because they're your magic things. And so on the right quadrant, what we're gonna do is we're gonna weigh those, any of those ideas, project things that you have out there that are very impactful, but they're gonna take a lot of effort, and you might need to get a certification or you know, whatever it is. Put those in the top right quadrant. After that, we go down to the bottom left quadrant, which is M, maybe next, right? Now, these ideas, projects, whatever they are, they're gonna have you know, kind of moderate impact in on you, on your mental wellness, on your family, on your community. And they're not gonna have gigantic impact, but they're gonna have some, but they have low effort. So that's good, right? Because they're gonna be easy to like to just do them and get them out, get them rolling, introduce them into the world. Those kinds of ideas and projects, you're gonna put them on the bottom left quadrant. And then lastly, we have the ones that are super high effort, very, very low impact. Those go on the bottom right quadrant. Why? Because those, I mean, it's in my brain, it's super simple. If it's gonna take a lot of damn time and a lot of energy and a lot of resources for me to do something, but that something is gonna have like marginal impact, why would I do it? And and I'm gonna tell you, like, I'm not I'm not recommending this so that like you could stop doing it. I am recommending this um so that you can like really get clear what what has happened when I get these things out of my head and then I put them, run them through the damn matrix and weigh them based on impact and effort. What has happened every year, every single year, is the stuff that's high impact ends up taking up so much time and having the impact I want it to have, that the stuff that's on the bottom, I don't even touch them because like they're not gonna be as impactful. The ideas, the great, beautiful projects that that are that well, at least from my perspective, they end up taking so much damn time. I don't have the time, resources, or energy to do the other things. And so, what does that mean? That means there's some things that I was imagining I could do that I'm actually not doing anymore. I don't care about them as much anymore. But it also means all of the things that were super impactful, I have actually taken action on. And that brings me tremendous fulfillment. And it's the fulfillment that keeps me going forward, right? Like I'm a little bit selfish, not a little bit, I'm a lot of bit selfish, because I serve others because of the fulfillment it gives me. I share my gifts and talents because of the fulfillment it brings me. And so, sure, I'm a little bit selfless, right? I'm a servant, I want to serve others, I want to support and contribute to your path as much as you will allow me to, but I do it because it brings me fulfillment. So that is that's that's why I'm a selfish dude. Anyways, let's go to the comments. We got a comment coming in. Ah, we got Mr. Abbas. What's going on, my brother? Fierce supporter, um, coming in from the other side of the world. Oh, look at Heather, she's confessing. She says, Yes, Jake Jones, I have the double D trello board and it's been unruly late. You know what, Heather, here's another thing to think about. When one rabbit swirl disrupts my entire day or even multiple days, it's likely because I'm attempting to do too much in one day. I know, I know you're super, super high achiever, and that that math don't math in our head. What do you mean trying to do too much? And so what I would suggest consider evaluating. Like if you're if you're using the daily domination board, you know. When you list out your tasks for the day, how many tasks per day are you creating? Like at when you when you're planning for the day, how many tasks are you targeting? If you don't know that number, start paying attention to that and find out what that number is. And then get intentional about what an appropriate actionable number should be. And and quick example, I've said this a bunch of times, but if you're new here, I want to make sure you hear it. I used to have like 15 to 20 things on my list every day. And this was back when I had like a real job, not today. Um And what I found was I'm I'm competitive and I'm gonna get all my stuff done. But what that meant was if anything didn't go per plan, if there was anything, an unplanned call, man, I was like, what do you need? What do you want? I got to go like hurry, hurry, get to the point. So people didn't really like me. Um, and if I was traveling somewhere and I didn't get all the green lights, it was the end of the world. I was stressed, I was, I was like this all the time. And so what I started doing was shrinking that. And actually, I set a target 15. I was still kind of rude and mean to people. I got it down to 10, and 10 was like, okay, 10 targets, action items for the day gave me enough space to be nice and also challenged me to get all my freaking work done. So, anyways, Heather, back to you on the rabbit squirrels. It's possible, I don't know, but it is possible that you're you're fighting off a bigger chunk than is reasonable. Because here's the thing if it's cutting into your yoga and your sleep and your food and your meditating and all those other things, what it's acting like, it's no big deal. You know, I won't do yoga today. I'll only do five minutes instead of 10 minutes of meditation. I get it. I've done that. I'll only sleep six hours instead of or three hours instead of seven hours. Like I do that, I get it. The problem with that is when you're doing that, you are degrading like your amazingness because it's those things that make you amazing. It's those things that provide the experience to the people that you're serving that they appreciate and look forward to. And so the practice or the discipline is to guard that. My technique to do that is like set a limit on how many things that I'm taking on so that I can make sure that I'm, you know, getting my exercise in, sleeping, nutrition, doing all the magical things. All right, folks. So I'm gonna do a quick review, super, super high level. We talked about on the last live stream getting all the big ideas out of your head. And why am I like hammering this long-term planning? Because that's our new year, the end of the year is it's we're in it. We got two months left. You ain't gotta wait till December 31st and come up with your resolution that I don't know about you, but resolutions I was never like that was ineffective for me. This is what's effective for me. So get all the things, ideas, projects, dreams, goals, aspirations, get them all out of your head so that you can see them, right? You may not have this chart thing that that were that I'm flashing up on the screen. You can get it. If and all you got to do again, drop double D in the comments or check out this super fancy QR code here, and that'll give you access to to the daily domination template, and then there's an email sequence, so then you'll you'll start getting other downloads that you can put into practice, or you can use a damn piece of paper, like it's not that complicated. So, anyways, get it all your out of your head so you can see it, and then run it through the damn matrix, which is just a four-box framework, right? Impact and effort, weigh the thing, the idea, the hope that you want to have or bring into the world, and weigh it in terms of how much impact it's gonna have and how much effort it's gonna take. Anything that falls in the top left quadrant in the D in the D box, do those first because they're gonna have i high impact and it's not gonna take a lot of effort, energy, resources, etc. Anything that falls in the top right quadrant, the A box, don't mess around with those until after you did the ones in the first box, right? Just get those done because impact and impact is amazing. It's it's addictive and fueling, it's magical. After you get those rolling, I don't mean complete, but once you get them started, then you want to look at the stuff that's okay, it's it's high impact, it's gonna take a little more effort, but you got momentum, man. You're grooving, and neurons are gonna start connecting, and that'll help you like execute and deploy the other things that are in the other box. Uh, and then in terms of sequence, the idea would be anything that is low impact, but low effort, maybe consider them, but don't mess with them until you've done the D box and the A box. And then finally, after you've done all of those, then you start looking at the N box. You need to evaluate those because those are going to be very high effort with low, moderate to almost no impact, right? So anything there, don't throw it away. Just don't touch it yet until you've deployed and taken action on all the other stuff. That's the damn matrix, that's the framework. If you want more about like all of this super nerdy time management, self-management stuff. I've got a batch of self-first framework workshops coming up. Uh, let me know, like for real, for real. The framework it goes from plan, commit, execute, right? Plan, long-term planning, long vision plan. That's what we've been talking about here. Then we get into commitment, meaning making space in our schedule for the things. And then we get into daily execution, which are three different ways of thinking. And that I think that's the magical part. At least for me, it's been super magical. And I don't know, we've had over 50 some odd people go through the workshop. Just that simple delineation of planning and having a specific tool and framework to do the planning, sketch or committing and having a specific tool or framework for scheduling and committing, and then daily execution seems to help a bunch of people because what typically happens is we co-mingle all of it, and then our brain gets stuck, and then we get handcuffed and we don't make any progress. So you want to like know what that experience is about, and more importantly, get the tools and mental models to help you freaking kick butt in 2026. Hit me up because I've got these workshops coming and they're fun. Like, even even other people have fun, not just me. Look, Miss Yudie says, Yes, please, girl. I got you. I'll send you a link. So I appreciate y'all very much. Be kind to yourself, be cool, and we'll talk at you next time. Peace.