440 - Pink versus Purple Work

On the last podcast, I taught you about how to create a plan for your work. In this next series of podcasts, I will be taking you behind the scenes and sharing how the Friday Workbox system was organically developed from my own experiences. Today, I want to teach you how I think about the pink and purple slash pocket topics in my Friday Workbox.

I am the daughter of a salesman father and an entrepreneur mother. I also have been a classroom teacher, so when I look back on my own work history, I can see the ways I am different from other business owners. I am also highly analytical about how I work, and I am extremely productivity minded.

My earliest work included over twenty direct sales businesses. In observing successful direct sales leaders, they were good at selling their products, providing VIP customer service, and creating a team who also had these skills.

Because of my interest in productivity, I not only adopted these skills, but I focused my efforts on my most profitable customers. I had the same earnings and success with a team that was only 25% as large as the other industry leaders, and with only 20% of the typical customer base. I don't like to waste time, materials, or effort.

Throughout my working years, I am able to educate, sell, and support my customers. Over time, I have realized that I am successful in these things because I think of my business as having a total of four pillars. In this and upcoming podcasts, I will share with you how pink, purple, blue, and green colors correlate with different parts of your work and how they build upon each other.

PINK = POTENTIAL

When I turn to my Friday Workbox, all of the different ideas, dreams, possibilities, and potential goes into pink slash pockets. These are not commitments or goals, they are dreams and ideas. Sometimes, they become active right away, other times they take years to materialize. They are truly about potential; things that may happen in the future. Because the possibilities are endless, collect as many pink slash pockets as inspire you. By keeping my possibilities in pink slash pockets, I physically review them quarterly and update, add, dream, and rethink how they may apply to my business.

PURPLE = PROJECTS

In the Friday Workbox system, purple are the actionable, goal-oriented, deadline-driven, dollars-committed, projects. Once your pink item becomes an actionable project with a deadline, and other people become involved, it moves to a purple slash pocket. Most people can only take action and make progress on one to five slash pockets at any one time. As your team grows, you can increase your capacity by having other people complete purple projects at the same time and increase your impact.

Any kind of business or work requires both pink and purple working together. In some workplaces this is potential leads being upgraded to actual customers. In other jobs, this is article ideas turned into publications. Both together are required to sustain your business. Once you have a cycle of both, you can move onto the next step of work - blue. Check back next week for more on that!