Rapid Planning Method (Tony Robbins)
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NEW As managers or students, most of us are accustomed to use To-Do Lists nowadays. In a world overloaded with information, powered by internet and smartphone, literally everyone and everything is trying to grab our attention. If we don't focus, we will surely get lost. Here a To-Do List comes in handy for our survival from the abundance of stimuli.
Unfortunately traditional
To-Do Lists have a serious drawback. Even if we ticked-off all our To-Dos, we might still end up with a situation and feeling of
no meaningful accomplishment throughout the day.
Below I summarize a
time management method that can make your time spending more efficient and effective while also avoiding the issue of no meaningful accomplishment.

The Rapid Planning Method
The Rapid Planning Method (RPM) is a very practical system of focused thinking developed by renowned life coach and author Tony Robbins. He also calls it
Result Planning Method. The first three letters of the three words are key to understand the method:
R = Result-Oriented
P = Purpose Driven
M = Massive Action Plan (MAP)
Taken together, RPM is a way of thinking for
conditioning your brain to focus on the results that you're after and on your purposes in life. It helps you determine the outcome you want, connect it to your purpose, and devise an action plan to achieve it
How to Think in the RPM Way?
In order to think in RPM way you need to practice your life outcomes in the prescribed sequence.
The sequence of R → P → M is critical. As Tony Robbins says, "If you don't know what you want, why you want it, and then create a plan for how to get to it, in that order, your actions will not be sustainable through life's challenges."
So in order to start practicing RPM, first you'll need to identify the results/outcomes you want to see in the areas you cherish to thrive.
Next, this will be followed by a strong purpose, why you want those outcomes or results?
And finally you'll need to map all the steps you have to take in order to achieve your desired outcome: a Massive Action Plan.
The system sounds very simple and straight-forward. But initially you will find it difficult to actually apply the mechanism. But if you force your mind to think this way a few times, it will become rapid once you get accustomed to this.
3 Steps to Rapid Planning Method. Process
- CAPTURE THE THINGS THAT ARE A MUST TO ACCOMPLISH: Get everything out of your head and put them in front of you in writing. But keep in mind that the human mind cannot focus on many things at once. Usually we cannot process more than 10 items at once.
- CHUNK THE LIST TO GIVE THE THINGS A SHAPE: Chunking, as Tony Robbins described, is a process of turning a lot to a little by grouping together information into ideally-sized pieces. When you have captured all the things you need to accomplish in your life, it is time to give those a meaning. Chunking will let you find the meaning. Chunking is important, in Tony's own word because, "When people don't reach their goals, it's often not because of ability. It's because of the way they're focusing on the number of items, or rather, the way they are "chunking" things." How you do the chunking is entirely up to you.
Here is a simple example: you might see inside all the scattered items in your captured list that some are related to your Health, some may be related to Finance and some to your Passion. Thus you can chunk items under a Health, Finance and Passion category respectively.
- CREATE RPM BLOCKS: When you know the specific and measurable goals in your life, and a compelling reasons for those, you can now create an "RPM block" for each area your chunked. You can use the following sample format to do it:
Implications of the Rapid Planning Method
According to Tony Robbins, if you can answer these 3 questions for yourself, you can achieve anything you want. But the sequence is critical. In fact, even if you can only do the first 2, you'll achieve more than 90% of the people around you. Where focus goes, energy flows. RPM will shift your focus from non-enjoyable things that one has to do to opportunities to what makes a difference.
Taken as a whole, RPM is like a To-Do List, but one that really matters considering the results you wish to achieve and your purpose in life.
Experiences with the Rapid Planning Method
In my life, I have seen many people having following characteristic: They are overlooking the supposed results and the underlying reasons for doing certain things they are doing. I have seen a colleague performing some legacy activities for years without ever trying to internalize the rationale behind it. When I was put in charge of doing the same thing, I thought in another way and applied RPM. I found no meaning to perform this activity. Then I asked my boss why I was supposed to do this? He agreed these activities were nothing but time-wasting. Perhaps in the past there used to be a reason to do it. But because my colleague wasn't result-oriented nor purpose driven, he never asked the first two questions of RPM. I am convinced smart people should think in an RPM way.
⇨ Give RPM a try in your life. Please add your builds to Robbin's Rapid Planning Method below. Thanks!
Sources:
Robbins, T. (2014), "Workbook for Rapid Planning Method"
Chandra, D. (2020), "Rapid Planning Method: What Do I Want?"