Lately, I’ve been thinking about a conversation I had with a friend and client -- someone I really trust when it comes to business strategy.

We sat down to map out my biggest opportunities and priorities… and he led me through a process that completely blew my mind. It was so powerful, I knew I had to share it with you.

With just a few questions and a spreadsheet (which I’ll give you below), it’s like the priorities were yanked right out of me in a way I just wasn’t seeing before.

In less than an hour, I had crystal clarity on what I should focus on for the entire year.

Suddenly, I could see exactly where and HOW to focus my time to triple my income, build my list and grow my authority.

It was like my year (and my business) suddenly made total sense to me.

If you’re anything like me – with a million ideas and opportunities flying through your head at any moment – this was nothing short of miraculous….

And the most amazing part of it was that my friend’s business decision making model used a simple Excel spreadsheet!

I’ve never put “spreadsheets” and “inspiration” in the same sentence before and it feels a little funny, but he’s designed a template that kind of acts like a Ouija board – you ask a question and it guides you to the answer.

But instead of relying on some dispossessed ghost with a death wish, it uses YOU -- your core values and what you want to achieve in your business -- as a way to filter and rank the opportunities you have in front of you.

He’s essentially designed a spreadsheet template that takes the guesswork out of defining your priorities and making decisions so you have more to go on than the feelings of the moment.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Click here to download Mynder’s “Opportunity Filter” business decision making model and the sample template I filled out to determine my top business priorities.

Step 2: Choose 5-7 evaluation criteria that you’d like to use to gauge your business opportunities.

These can include core values, profitability, impact, and goals for the year or quarter. Place them at the top of each column of the blank template where it says “Evaluation Criteria #1” etc.

If you look at my sample template, you’ll see that the criteria I use are:

• Life/Work Balance and Personal Freedom
• Internal: Personal Satisfaction (business as an expression of who I am and what I care about)
• External: Making a big impact on my following and positioning my brand
• Revenue/Profitability
• Build My List
• Develop Partnerships and Future Opportunities

Step 3: Identify 5 or more opportunities in your business that you want to prioritize.

These can include both processes and initiatives. Processes include things like getting your business systems up and running or implementing a social media marketing plan. Initiatives include big projects such as events or product launches. Place these opportunity into the rows labeled “Opportunity #1” etc.

Step 4: Now for the fun part! It’s time to rank each opportunity by each evaluation criteria.

On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being utter fulfillment and 1 being steer clear), how much does that opportunity allow you to fulfill that criteria?

If you look at my sample template, you’ll see that the criteria I use are:

1. Life/Work Balance and Personal Freedom
2. Internal: Personal Satisfaction (business as an expression of who I am and what I care about)
3. External: Making a big impact on my following and positioning my brand
4. Revenue/Profitability
5. Build My List
6. Develop Partnerships and Future Opportunities

Step 5: Once you’ve ranked each opportunity, it’s time to add up the numbers in the total assessment column and see which ones comes out the highest.

Step 6 (optional): In life, not all things are created equally. If some criteria are much more important to you than others, than feel free to weight each criteria.

Weighting allows you to fine-tune the evaluation process to reflect what’s most important to you (and give a little help to your pet projects). I recommend giving each criteria weighting a percentage of the whole so they add up to 100%.

NOTE: With the weighting, my top 2 priorities stayed the same, while the remaining 4 shifted.

That’s it for today. If you’ve found this valuable, show some appreciation by leaving a comment below.