Learnings and Missteps

You Can Plan Forever, But Nothing Changes Until You Commit To One Next Step

• Jesus Hernandez • Season 3

Share episode

Planning feels great until reality shows up. We’ve all sketched beautiful lists, only to watch them dissolve under meetings, family needs, and the next urgent fire. Today we turn planning into progress by committing to a simple, visual flow that respects your bandwidth and fuels momentum: brain dump, weigh impact vs effort with the DAMN Matrix, then sequence one big rock at a time.

We start by pulling every idea out of your head and onto a surface—career moves, skills you want to learn, health goals, neglected projects, and relationship investments. Once the fog becomes visible, we score each item for impact and effort so the real priorities stand out. High impact and low effort rise to the top for fast wins; high impact and high effort follow to channel that momentum into meaningful outcomes. Low impact items get an honest review, so time‑sinks don’t quietly steal your focus.

From there, we make the critical shift from options to order. Instead of juggling five priorities and delivering average results, we pick a single next move and “walk the plank” one task at a time. We cap Month One at eight items—two per week—to match real capacity and protect existing commitments. No date‑drama yet: sequence first, schedule later. This self‑first framework isn’t selfish for its own sake; it’s how you refill your energy and show up stronger for your team, your clients, and your family. Progress becomes visible, resentment fades, and your calendar starts reflecting what you value, not just what’s loud.

If you want the Daily Domination Board and templates, drop “DD” or scan the QR to grab them. Want a deeper dive? Comment “webinar” and we’ll send the invite. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a momentum reset, and leave a review with the one high‑impact, low‑effort win you’ll start this week.

Get the blueprint to Plan, Commit, and Execute your way into optimal performance: https://www.depthbuilder.com/time-management-webinar-sign-up-page

Download a PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be
https://www.depthbuilder.com/books

SPEAKER_00:

I want to like slap you across the face and wake you up just a little bit because planning don't mean nothing without commitment. So today we're going to close the loop on the whole walking the plank thing. Here's a little kind of overview or maybe replay summary of the deal. And we started off with the brain dump, getting the big ideas, goals, projects, things that we've been neglecting and delaying, getting them out of our heads so that we can view them. And then last time we jumped into the damn matrix, which helps us like weigh the things and give them some weight, give them some value, looking at them objectively as one thing at a time. And today we're going to go into commitment. So I'll be walking you through what that actually looks like and you know, kind of why I use the thing and how it's helped me in my career. If you're a first timer, I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and I want to help you leave this world better than you found it. And the best way I know to do that is with this self-first framework. And again, specifically, we're just talking about future planning today. It's the process that has helped me bring my crazy, wild, enormous ideas to life. And I say enormous because they were way bigger than I thought they were going to end up being. And it took a lot more time, but it's helped me keep my business like from going off the rails and helped me continue to serve. And so, anyways, it's helped me tremendously. I know for a fact that it is helping some other like major, major players out there in the industry also lead their team successfully, get clear in their head, be more present for their families and for all the other things that you know it's super, super easy for us to neglect. Um, now I gotta tell you, the tool that we're gonna be looking at, this little template is available to you. And so if you want the tool, all you're gonna do is drop double D in the comments, or let's see if I could do this fancy part. Where is it? Where is it? I gotta I got a fancy QR code. Boom! So you can scan that QR code, you know, do the clicking. Once you scan the QR code, you'll get the daily domination board instantly, you know, some more clicking, and then the follow-up emails, you'll get uh the framework that we're going over today. So, anyways, if you want that, go get that. Now, if you are out there in the omniverse, glad that you're here. Let me know that you're there, let me know where you're calling in from. And uh the silent lurkers out there, you know I love you. And if it's helpful to you, if you got more questions about this time management thing, um, how it can work for you, if like especially if you're in construction, because you know that's kind of my my sweet spot there. I spent a little bit of time there, and these this whole system uh is designed to like accommodate the craziness that we deal with in our industry. Let's go to let's do a quick review. I know I flashed the thing, but I want to make sure I don't want to like get you lost in the middle of it so that at least you can like start working through this thing uh while you're on the call or right after the call this morning. So here is the deal, right? So the first thing we do, and this is specifically for future planning. Okay, we're not talking about scheduling, so don't worry about your calendar, don't worry about any of that stuff because you start worrying about that, and your brain is gonna lock up and be like, oh my god, I don't have time to do it. Like, don't worry about that. We're not making any commitments, we're not locking it in yet. When you're when you're doing the brain dump, all you're doing is getting those things out of your head, the goals, the projects, the ideas that you've been neglecting, or you keep putting them off. We want to see them all. We want you to see them all so that you can say, Oh, the list ain't that bad. Or like, okay, there's a big list. Where do I start? And so that's the first phase, right? Get it out of your head. Things around business and professional growth, personal growth, meaningful connections and relationships. Those are the buckets I think through. You can totally, totally customize and use this system, this method in your own way as you choose. I know I just talked to Jordan, my brother Jordan out there, um, and he's absolutely using kind of the same mental models, but he's using a different um a different medium to like work through the things. And so get the thinking, man. The thinking is the deal. It's not the tools necessarily, but I do have tools available for you. So we do the brain dump, get it all out of our head. Then the next step, which was last our last live stream, is run them through the damn matrix. And the reason we want to run them through the damn matrix is so that we can set ourselves up to start building momentum. Now, I want to be clear why momentum is important, is because these are things that we've been delaying, procrastinating, deprioritizing for a long time. And so the easiest way to get going, and also they're probably the things that other people in your world are saying, Why are you doing that? You shouldn't do that. Don't you have other things like all of this stuff? These are those super secret little things that you would just want to make progress on but have it. And so now we want to build momentum so that we can get comfortable with valuing ourselves so that we can build comfort with putting ourselves first and eventually you know get some major, major strides and start making progress, not just for everybody else anymore, but for ourselves as well. And so that's what the purpose of the damn matrix. We dump all the stuff in here and we weigh them based on impact and effort. If you want all the details in there, let me know in the comments. You want to want the replay to to whatever. I'll I got them on YouTube, baby. So I'll give you the links and go back and consume all of that good stuff. And so that brings us to today what we're gonna be talking about. So once we've got it all out of our head, and if you notice, everything here is super, super visual, and that's so that we can see it and we can manipulate it. Look at these stickies, I can move them around any way I want, and the sky does not fall down. We've already given them weight, and it is commitment time. So the planning is getting it out of our head so we could see it, weighing, giving some weight or some value in terms of impact and effort for the different ideas, projects, goals, dreams, all of the above, giving them some weight, and then we can use that information to transition into commitment, to transition into this is what I'm going to do first, this is what I'm going to do second, this is what I'm going to do third. Again, we're not worried about calendar yet. At the end of the call, I'm gonna give you a little sprinkle in a little hint about the calendar part. But right now, we're committing to the sequence. Okay, so folks, if you got comments, of course, if you're a frequent offender, you've been here multiple times and you've been jacking around with the South First framework and you've you're stuck and you got a question that maybe is not pertinent to what we're talking about uh today. Don't worry about it. Ask me a question. I want to answer it. Uh, if you have cheat codes, if you have a personal thing that you do specifically around future planning, like long-term planning and prioritizing the things, drop it in the comments, man, because we could all benefit from more cheat codes, right? Especially the world shakers out there. Um, we can't help but be compelled to serve people and create a better experience and improve the quality of life of others. So any tools that we could add to our toolbox is super, super appreciated. For me, anyways, I know for damn sure. For other people, maybe I'm speaking out of turn. So, anyways, we're gonna go back to the deal. So we just did the review and I stopped at the damn matrix, right? Because the damn matrix, D A M N, right? So it's do these first. Anything that is in that first, that top left-hand quadrant means it's high impact, low effort, super quick. In the A quadrant, you do those after the first. Simple. Those are also going to be high impact, but they're gonna be higher effort, right? It's gonna take more resources, more time, more energy, burn more calories, whatever it is. Uh, but you want to do those second because we're looking at building momentum. So, we in order to do momentum, when you're a lazy person like me, it's all about the the quick wins, right? What is the things gonna have the highest impact with the least amount of effort? I want to do those first. Then we get into the third quadrant, which is M. Maybe you do those next, right? Because they don't have high impact, they're lower impact, but they're also low effort. So it could be a nice, you know, way to get a point up on the board. And then the fourth quadrant is in need to evaluate. These are things that are gonna have low impact and they're gonna take high effort. And so, what does that mean? You're gonna spend a lot of time, a lot of grief, a lot of irritation, and also you're gonna be putting other things off to get this thing done because you got to pick. And if they're not gonna have a lot of impact, do you do you really wanna do them? And I'll give you like a super, super uh cheat code that I learned as a result of using this method. Is I almost never even find the time to work on any of the things that are in the low impact, high effort box. Because I have a big crazy wild brain and I'm overly optimistic most of the time, and I overestimate my capabilities to do things within a short period of time. And so, what that means is the stuff that I have in the uh the D box and the A box, those things end up being bigger than I expected, and they take more time and they have the impact I want. The other stuff becomes like trivial. It's like, okay, I'll just let them fall off. Nobody's gonna be mad at me, nobody's gonna call my mom. So, anyways, that's the idea. All of these little sticky notes on here, they're just these are just my cheap, lazy example way of showing this is where the task lands in terms of high impact and high effort. And if you want more on that, like I said earlier, let me know in the comments if you want the link to the replay where we go deep deep on the damn matrix. I'll give it to you so you can go watch that and and kind of nerd out on that. So now, oh, the scary time. If I have any commitment folks out there, if this is the time where you start saying, Oh, I don't know, but what if again? All we're gonna think about is the sequence. What am I gonna do first? What am I gonna do second? What am I gonna do third? Period. We're not worried about do I have the time? How long is it getting? We're not worried about any of that. We're just going to walk the plank. If you've ever seen them old pirate movies, right? You get on the plank and one at a time, one person walks off the plank, then another one off the plank. Because for me, and I know some super awesome people like Megan, she's like a super, super genius, dynamo genius, and she can micro, I'm sorry, multitask. I'm not a great multitasker, but I mean, I can do multiple things at the same time, but my delivery or execution of those multiple things is mediocre. If I want to do something like to the best of my ability, I can only do one at a time. And because life and careers and everything else, um, this thing, this method helps me get clear and feel good about okay, I have all these things that I want to do, learn, accomplish, and I'm at least moving the ball, I'm at least making forward progress. I may not finish the thing, it may not be 100% complete. I usually discover that it's gonna take a few years to make that thing actually happen, and that's okay as long as I'm making progress, and so focusing on one big rock at a time is the secret, and so what I do because I'm a dopamine fiend, I am a dopamine junkie. If I got any dopamine junkies out there, give me a shout out or a thumbs up in the comments um because I want to recognize you and because I don't want to be the only one, right? I'm a dopamine fiend, and so being able to see the impact of my efforts fuels me up, and I just want more of it. Because of that, I start with my high impact activities and the ones that are gonna take or require the least amount of effort, and so what I do is super, super simple, and this is what I'm recommending to you out there in the omniverse is I go to the D-Box and from the damn matrix, I'm in the D-box and I'm looking at okay, this little black task, whatever it is, doesn't matter, that one is the highest impact with the least amount of effort. So, guess what? I'm gonna do very simple. I'm gonna drag that bad boy down here, and in month one, again, it doesn't matter what month, that's the first thing that I'm going to start that I'm going to commit time to, not finish, not like just commit time to it to start it. That's the game because we're talking about momentum. And then I come back over here and I say, Oh, okay, what do I want to do next? Well, this one has high impact and got a little bit more effort, but I'm gonna make that one second, and then this one, you know, make doesn't have as much impact, but it's gonna be easier. So I'm gonna drop that black boy down here, and then I'm gonna go to the next one, and like that's that's the trick. And I just keep on going down the path. Now I know this this might seem trivial, but I'm gonna I'm gonna expand on it a little bit more because right again, I want to remind you like this whole thing is only about visualizing your big ideas, your big goals, the things that bring you fulfillment and are gonna help you grow into the promise you're intended to be, and visualizing them and giving them some sort of prioritization, some sort of sequence, um, so that you can start valuing yourself. All right. And so before I go any further, I've got a little webinar. Um, and you're you're if you want to see the webinar to learn more of like the whole system, you'll get downloadables and you know all kinds of templates that you want that you could just start using without the workshop. But if you want to learn more about the workshop to figure out if it's right for you or if it's right for your team, for your company, come to the webinar. You don't know I'm crazy. We're gonna have a little bit of fun, we'll have some face-to-face interaction, answer all your questions. So if you're interested, let me know. Drop, I don't know, webinar in the comments or whatever, and I'll get you the invite so that we can hang out for a little bit. Back to the point. We went over the deal, right? Real quick, I'm gonna show you again. Here we are, the damn matrix. We get the stuff out of our head, we we give it weight in terms of impact and effort. Super simple, man, like not complicated. And then based on we take everything from the D-box and we put them in order one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and then we continue and go and and fill it out as much as you're comfortable with, right? Now, I will tell you, and I know for some of us out there, we're seeing this, and it's like, ooh, it gives us a little bit of anxiety. But what if, what if, what if? That's natural, and that's okay. Again, this is just about getting it out of your head so that you can see it. And then when you start prioritizing it, guess what? If I make a priority and I put it in this order and it doesn't work out the way I want it, guess what I get to do? I can change it, I can move it around, but ultimately it helps me look at it from the perspective, okay, these are all the things that I've been wanting to do and get done and learn and etc. And I'm going to make a decision to put one ahead of the other. Why am I making that decision? Based on the current conditions, based on everything that's going on in my life, there's a reason for the sequence. And when those conditions change, guess what? You could change it. And so it's very, it kind of the reason this works for me, and I've seen it work for a lot of people, is because it's not like the high pressure, under duress, what's your five-year plan? Break it into small buckets, like no, no, no, no, no. What are the things that you want to do, learn, and accomplish? The things that you have been putting off health, sleep, exercise, learning AI like there's a bazillion things out there that everybody, especially folks like you, are wanting to learn and spend or invest more time in, but life gets in the way, the job gets in the way because you're a freaking high performer and you're gonna make stuff happen, but you're making stuff happen for everybody else. This thing is about continuing to make stuff happen for everybody else and start making stuff happen for you. So get it out of your head, run it through the damn matrix, then we put that bad boy in order by walking the plank. So I'm gonna go back to that real quick. Um, hopefully, I'm not talking too fast because I get excited about this stuff and then it doesn't make sense. All right, here we go. So you might be wondering, oh my goodness, Jesse, but what do I do about these things? Now that I see there's a month one there and a month two, does this mean that I have to finish everything? What if I don't finish it? Uh uh, I know, I understand. You're not gonna get graded. I'm not gonna take you to the principal's office, right? This is just all about you getting clear, period. And so you'll notice down here. Let's see how many stickies do we have in there? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So there's just enough space for eight. And let me show you why. The reason these blocks, again, if you're using the mural uh tool, it'll work perfectly. If you're using your own, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. You could use whatever, you could do it on paper, doesn't matter. It's the thinking. But now I have my the reason I have eight blocks, only space for only eight blocks in month one, is because I know if I open my calendar right now, I am not gonna be able to do any of those things to starting tomorrow, right? It may and I and because I got plenty of things to do already. And I also know that I can't just commit all my time to these great, beautiful, magical ideas because then I will fail, I'll start losing credibility, and I will fail to deliver to the people that I am committed to serving. So I maximize eight, like the limit is eight for me, it could be more or less for you. Actually, Craig, he's a make it happener, and he said, Man, I'm doing two or three this month. Perfect, like you understand the conditions of your life. But the reason I limit it to eight is because I'm only going to attempt or like commit time to two stickies per week. Okay. So let me go back to this again. This this might seem a little kindergarten y, um, but I'm telling you, uh, if if you're a psychopath like me and and you struggle with kind of executing and having big ideas and overcommitting yourself and stressing yourself out. Out, this is the way, man. So again, I walked the plank, I pulled everything from the damn matrix. I decided in order which one am I gonna do first? Which am I gonna do second, third, fourth, and so on. The next step is getting it into our calendar, which the next live stream. Guess what we're gonna talk about? We're gonna talk about the strategically selfish scheduling, right? Because I know, I already know. You're rolling your eyes over there saying, Jesse, yeah, but I got all these things going on, I got all kinds of stuff. I got, I got, you don't understand. I do understand. I know that part of what kills um me investing in myself, uh, me taking care of better, taking better care of myself is a function of already being overcommitted, of already having too many things on my plate. Too what's the too many Ps on my plate? And so what we're gonna have to do now is like really just go into our calendar and find the next available point, the next available space, the next empty space to commit, right? To lock it in, to take a take an action on the thing that you have been deprioritizing. So if that doesn't make sense, please ask me, drop your question out there uh in the comments. Um, because it makes perfect sense in my head, but I I also know that like I'm kind of weird, right? So it may not be translating, and I understand that. But overview, get it out of your head, right? Maybe you don't want to come to the to the webinar, and maybe you're not in a position where you can pay and sign up for like the full workshop. But here's the thinking get your stuff out of your head, write it down in a notebook, get sticky notes. I got these little baby sticky notes that you could, you know, they're super cheap, super easy. Just get them out till you could see them, get on a whiteboard, doesn't matter. Get the stuff out of your head, and then after you get it out of your head, give it weight. I'm gonna recommend that you evaluate each idea, each task that you want to start or a project that you want to begin. Evaluate them in terms of impact and effort. The higher impact, the lower effort things, those are I'm gonna start first because it feels real good. Like that instant gratification is built in, which will start this reinforcing loop so that you can continue like executing and and doing the other stuff. And for some people, the idea of being selfish is a challenge, and I get it. But here's another that my cheat code, anyways, is I know that like the idea of focusing on me first is not good. I get it, but I also know that I am not going to serve the people in my community worth a damn if I don't take care of myself. I also know that when I'm learning and growing and expanding my comfort zone, it gives me the a certain kind of energy so that I can better serve my people. And so this is what I'm proposing to you is if you start putting yourself first, start taking care of yourself, start making progress on those private, kind of uh important only to you ideas, you will show up in a much better, more intentional, more present, and available way for your people, for the people that you're already showing up for. And if you're like in the deep end, the way I was, it's also gonna, if you got that resentment where you're frustrated because you always gotta worry about the kids and you always gotta worry about the car, you always gotta worry about cleaning, you always gotta worry about the meetings, you always like if you're there, guess what? You've been neglecting yourself. That's why your resentment is like all these dead people, I wish people would just, right? If you've ever said that, I'm gonna tell you this system, this method is something you should try. I can't guarantee you that it's gonna work, but I can guarantee you if you don't do anything differently for next year, guess what you're gonna be saying next year? The same damn thing. You're gonna be pissed off, you're gonna be irritated and disappointed. All right, folks, I appreciate y'all being here. Um, like I said, I want to help you leave this world better than I found it, or better than you found it, better than we found it. Um, and this whole self first framework is all about that. It's secret, it's kind of different because we're focusing on me as ourselves, our own individuals. But I promise you, the end result that I've lived is by doing that, I have discovered deeper and more meaningful ways to serve others. And I want the same thing for you.