<aside> 💡 Welcome! This template was created to help you manage your many projects and priorities as a Chief of Staff.
My recommendation is to fill it out on your own first, adding in what the task is, what kind of work it is, and your proposed solution. For example, for the Admin Backlog example I gave below, I proposed delegating this to an EA to free up your and your Exec's time from doing mundane tasks.
Once you have filled out this table, share your Roadmap with your Exec. Work together during your 1:1 to prioritize projects. Not only will this give your Exec visibility in how much you're juggling, but it will also help you understand what the most urgent priorities are. Finally, when new projects arise, you can ask your Exec where on the priority list the new project falls. I also recommend tracking it in your shared Action Tracker (whether it's on Notion, or Asana, or something else. Just be sure to mark these as deliverables or milestones so it's explicitly clear that you're on track.)
Be sure to establish with your Exec: what does success as a CoS look like to them? Make sure you reach a mutual agreement on this definition of success. For example, Matt and I agreed that my primary goal as his Chief of Staff is to enable him to feel like a Superhuman. This means that everything I do has to enable that: from delegating mundane tasks to someone else so he doesn't get bogged down, to focusing him on important things that tap into his Zone of Genius like Strategy and Coaching. Therefore, all my projects either clear off his plate of tedious work, or they enable him to double down on things he really enjoys doing. I delegate out things I don't enjoy or aren't in my Zone of Genius where possible, and take care of the things that are (this includes most Operational work that I love doing, but Matt dislikes doing.) It's a win-win!
Lastly, regarding the tracker: you can toggle the different views. Anything marked "currently on plate" are active projects. You can also see all projects (including Delegated and Completed tasks.) Feel free to play around with the different Tags, and sort the priority according to 0 being most urgent and 1000 being the least.
Happy planning!
-Regina
</aside>
Regina Gerbeaux (@_rpgbx) is an executive coach to some of the fastest scaling startups in the world. Prior to that, she was COO of companyOS/Mochary Method, Chief of Staff to Matt Mochary, and Head of Operations at On Deck.
Regina was the first person Matt taught to coach using his coaching methodology. She now enjoys open-sourcing her write-ups about operational excellence and providing tactical templates and frameworks to use from an operator point of view. If you are interested in getting coached by her, reach out here.
If she’s not busy making Notion templates, reading, writing, eating, or sleeping, you can find her likely at a 6am Orangetheory class, out on a hike, or on Twitter (or writing about herself in the third person and trying not to get weirded out by it. Like right now.)