Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method (RPM) Software Hacks

Hacking Robbins Rapid Planning Method (RPM) digitally with (almost) free tools Asana & Google Calendar

Pssst… If you believe that your business is a force for good, check out my edit at the end of this post?
~Luke


I am a Tony Robbins fan.

I was exposed to the Time Of Your Life program early this year and love RPM (Results, Purpose, MAP [Massive Action Plan]).

Full respect and credit where it is due, that’s to the big man himself. Thank you Tony.

With my focus on digital technology VS a paper system. I was challenged as to how I would implement RPM into my life.

Searching the web for software to run RPM was fruitless and admittedly I wasted far too much time in that quest. When I resigned to there being no solution I decided to work out how I could use the tools I already use to do the job.

I use Asana for project and task management in my branding agency. If you are unfamiliar with Asana, it is a free tool (for small groups) with a mobile app and web interface.

It’s perfect for capturing tasks & actions on the fly, and organising and prioritising later.

I have jumped ahead of myself. If you are not familiar with RPM, my first recommendation is to learn from the master.

Get your hands on the Time Of Your Life program. It will change your life. Like my coach said, if you think you haven’t got time to do it, that’s exactly why you must!

As a quick overview RPM is about starting any task, project or piece of work by defining three elements. With these three set you are much more likely to get the result you want.

Results – What is the Outcome or Results you really want, and are committed to achieving?  << Seeing the end game makes success possible

Purpose – Why do you want to achieve these results? << A why that is meaningful to you will drive you to complete it. It is where the power lives.

MAP (Massive Action Plan) – What are the specific actions you will take to get the outcome? << Create your clear and achievable actions to get the outcome you want.

It goes far beyond that of course, and there are better resources to explain the whole process.

What I intend to do here is show how I am implementing RPM as I have come to use it. With the tools I use, namely Asana & Google Calendar.

Asana is free for me (less than 15 in my team), but I do have a Google Apps account which costs me $5 per month.

So let’s get into it.

My starting point. Here’s what I have got:

  • My why for doing this!
  • My Categories of Improvement and Magnificent Seven for each – 6 personal & 6 professional.
  • A free Asana account
  • A Google Calendar.
  • An iPhone (always with me)
  • A laptop (to use for weekly planning)

The Results for this project (yes I RPM’d it) were: I want a process and tools that are easy to use and work with my life, enabling me to do my weekly and daily planning anywhere that I am.

The Purpose: Because I know RPM works and I know that for it to become a part of my routine I need it to be stupidly easy to implement and convenient to use on a daily basis.

MAP:

  1. Evaluate tools I use for capacity to recreate RPM.
  2. Commit to one or more that will do the job.
  3. Implement the process.
  4. Review after a week
  5. Refine and review.
  6. Document for others (here is where I am at).

Asana

I am going to assume you know how Asana works and dive into my process. You can subscribe and learn on the Asana site, or watch some YouTube how to’s.

I have my personal assistant and the rest of my team in Asana which helps me to delegate the tasks easily come planning time. Don’t have an assistant? GET ONE! 🙂

Here’s the sequence

  1. Setup your Asana
    1. Project – My RPM Planner
    2. Task Category – Use these as projects (I have some defaults there matching my Areas for Improvement:
      1. Have your RPM set in each.
    3. Calendar Sync – So it shows up in the Google Calendar
  2. Capture
    1. Phone or Desktop
    2. Open Asana, view the My RPM Planner – Tap add new task, enter the text and repeat for everything you think  of as it happens. Free yourself!
  3. Weekly Planning
    1. Do this Friday to Sunday (or it won’t show in the Calendar on Monday)
    2. Open Google Calendar & Asana Calendar view of your tasks and see what needs to be brought forward.
    3. Check Gmail for uncaptured tasks
    4. Capture everything new
    5. Review your Capture list in My RPM Planner in Asana
    6. Create new Task Categories (as projects)
    7. Drag the tasks into their Task Categories (project groups)
    8. Rename them with the project reference name and the (Time/MT) for completion
    9. Add any necessary detail into the description
    10. Create fixed appointments where they are necessary, but don’t do your whole week like that!
    11. Delegate/Assign where possible
    12. Add a Deadline date (you will shift these around in a moment)
    13. Switch to Calendar view and review the MT you’ve created for each day
    14. Drag around the items based on the priority and MT, personally I only commit to 6 hours of MT per day. I am working on that becoming 4!
    15. Done! Go pat yourself on the back!
  4. Day Planning
    1. Open Google Calendar – You will see your Asana tasks sitting above the day.
    2. You can click on the item to launch the task in Asana if you need a refresher on the Results, Purpose & MAP – You may come up with a simpler way to do it! 🙂
    3. Add task to your calendar using the button that says that
      1. Click “find a time” and map it in according to the time you’ve specified for it.
    4. Repeat until your day is planned!
    5. Now go crush the day!
  5. Recap / Celebrate
    1. At the end of the day launch Asana and tick off what you have done.
    2. Move anything important but undone into the future
    3. Journal the milestones you have achieved
    4. Celebrate your successes!

That’s it. Simple right?

Let me know how you go, any ideas you have that can improve this process, and just to say hi, because you too are a Tony Robbins fan (and an awesome person).

[EDIT]:

Do you believe that your business is a force for good?

If so, You Freakin Rock my friend! We are kindred spirits (awesome!).

I’ve started a private Facebook group for like minds to help each other increase our positive impact on the planet. And I’d like you to be a part of it.

If you’re up for it. Make your move and say “Yes” here.

Warmly, Luke

P.S. Find out more about me via my homepage.

luke

I'm Luke Faccini, a brand storyteller and strategist in Brisbane Australia.



I help conscious business people articulate and tell their authentic brand story to connect with their tribe. I love branding, business, and people with purpose.



My purpose is Helping Good Businesses Become Better Brands.

Want to know how easy it is to be healthy and full of energy?

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17 responses to “Tony Robbins’ Rapid Planning Method (RPM) Software Hacks”

  1. Michael says:

    Great information here, thanks. I did TOYL but have been struggling to find a decent way to implement it digitally.

    I don’t quite follow how you link your RPM Plan to your projects that you highlight in Asana though. I would have assumed that all of your todos would be in the RPM Plan, unless I’m missing something?

    Thanks,

    Michael

    • luke says:

      Thanks Michael, I appreciate the comment. I think I understand your question, but feel free to clarify if I haven’t.

      You are right with your assumption, all my todos stay in the RPM Planner project. The beauty of Asana is that a task can be associated to multiple projects AND remain a single task that gets updated as the one across all projects. So depending on how you want to do your project planning, you can have other projects to group the related todos in.

      Warmly, Luke

  2. Simon Kallu says:

    I love this thanks! I’ve been struggling with reperforming the rpm and having a scaleable system my team can use. I love rpm but having a Filofax or planner is not cool.

    The only bits I can see being a struggle are the adding up of time. The link to results and purpose for each task being time consuming – would it be better to just put this on the project title instead of each task?

    A great follow up video would be around how to leverage team members and check they have done stuff! Where you make meeting notes and integrate seamlessly into this process and how to run stand up meetings via team Rpm s in asana. Have you been to business mastery mate?

    • luke says:

      Hey Simon, great questions and suggestions for a follow up video.

      The time for me is relevant only when I am finding the time on my day. So having it on the calendar title works brilliantly for me. I have learned that keeping the task name short helps make that time visible when planning too. But whatever works for you.

      I have a habit of looking at the notifications section in Asana which has all the status changes in the tasks. We have a strong values based culture where we celebrate “timeliness and clarity”, so this doesn’t require too much follow up.

      Business Mastery, not yet! Looking at doing DWD in Florida and Business Mastery in Fiji next year. How about you?

      P.S. Goals I have as an external process. I designed them in Indesign and output a PDF that I can flick through on my phone.

  3. Simon Kallu says:

    Oh and where do you store your goals etc is that in a different asana project? Where did you make notes through the rpm process? Cheers!

  4. Simon Kallu says:

    Awesome man very helpful. And is your weekly rpm rolling or do you create a new one each week and archive old one?

  5. Nickolai says:

    Hi Simon and Luke,

    I absolutely love RPM but also struggle to “digitalize” it. I wish there was a dedicated software for it. I have seen people using Evernote too, but it lacks features and ways to link it to goals.

    Luke let’s just imagine there was digital version of RPM. If you should use it what would the most important features be?

  6. Thanks for sharing this. I love the system but not so much the paper based format. I’ve been searching for an alternative for a while so thanks for sharing your hard work. I’ve been playing around with Asana desktop and App. Great stuff.
    PS I’ve been to BM which has really helped me and I’m planning on doing DWD in Australia

  7. Rick Raymond says:

    Awesome I am going to give this a try. I have been using Tony Robins actual RPM software that was discontinued it has a steep learning curve. Works great in the end with one problem I want to export the days to my phone’s calendar cant figure out how so I will try this.

  8. Angela says:

    I’ve used Asana in the past but stopped using it since I thought it was time consuming to get to know it. Because of your information it has become a nice reintroduction and a good reason to use it again. So Thank you for this blog post. It helps me a lot in creating a digital RPM version.

  9. Leon Plavin says:

    Have you tried Google Tasks instead of Asana? It seems to have most of functionality with added benefit of instant synch with Google calendar..

    Leon

  10. Nick says:

    Nice idea!

    I believe they may release a digital version of RPM box set. Hopefully we’ll see that!

    I still believe from several research studies that hand writing all this out rather than typing it as you retain up to 70% more than typing.

    I’m trying to see if I can implement some form of PDF version from my physical rpm set.

    • luke says:

      I get that. I use a physical notepad to explore my thoughts during the day. But need digital for capture and organization.

  11. Nick says:

    Was thinking more on this and love how you implement all of it.

    Is there any way to set up Asana with columns and layout EXACTLY like in the physical version? And does Asana let you use apple pencil to write in all the spaces? Physical writing you retain 70% more than typing

    Thoughts?

    • luke says:

      Glad you liked it Nick. I love the tactile aspect of writing and always have a notebook and clutch pencil in front of me (and way too many whiteboards!), so relate to the writing point you raise.

      I have not used Asana for this for years now since moving to ClickUp, so cannot advise you what’s possible there anymore.

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