The Ice Matrix is a simple, quantifiable framework designed to transform overwhelm into actionable steps by prioritizing projects based on their potential impact, confidence in achieving them, and ease of execution.
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Brad Castanzo here. Thanks for picking
up the Ice Matrix training. I'm going to
share something with you that has been
uh pivotal in my career, in my personal
life, and it's a way to put your most
important projects on ice. And by that,
I mean transform overwhelm into action
with this very simple framework. It's
been used for years by some of the top
uh companies, consulting companies
around. I did not create this. I've used
this and every single one of my clients
that I sit down with, we work one-on-one
together. This forms kind of the the the
critical aspect of the
uh projects that we execute together.
So, if you're like most people, you've
got both personal and professional
projects, ideas, and things that you
want to accomplish. Most likely, there's
too many. And there's an opportunity
cost to working on the wrong things. How
do you know what to work on now, next,
or never? Do you guess? Is it
subjective? I'm going to show you how to
quantify that and put an objective
aspect to it. This is not rocket
science. It is very simple and you don't
even have to do any math. So, I'm going
to come down here and show you that
there's three aspects to this. Quantify
your decisions, use it everywhere, and
generate clarity in the sea of chaos.
All you have to understand is
impact, confidence, and ease. So the
impact is what is the potential value of
this project to your business or to your
life or to your career however you're
using this one to 10. 10 is the highest
obviously uh if it is something that
will dramatically like double your
business or or improve your health right
probably in 10 personally. Let's say you
are a smoker. If you were to give up
smoking right like let's say that's an
idea what impact would that have on your
life? Probably a nine or a 10. If you
are doing a business thing and you're
like, "Oh, let's redesign a logo." What
impact would that have? Probably a one
or a two, unless your logo is terrible.
What's your confidence in that estimate?
Right? If the This is the one that trips
most people up. I may give something an
idea a 10 on the level of impact, but my
confidence is low. Maybe it's an idea, a
hairbrained idea that I had that I've
never tried. I don't know if anybody
else has done it, but it just might
work. My confidence might be a two or
three or a one. But if it's something
that another business has done, another
colleague has done or for instance I use
this example stop smoking then perhaps
you know it's a 10 impact and your
confidence in that estimate would be 10
like that means yes absolutely I know
that if I can quit smoking impact would
be 10 but the ease once more this is the
inverse of effort if it's 10 it's super
duper easy if it's one it's pretty hard
to do for instance maybe stopping
smoking would be a one or a two but Um,
maybe something like just going for a
walk every single day. Well, that's
easy. I can do that, right? I want to
get in shape. Um, do that. Maybe if it's
professional, uh, ease would be a 10
would be something I can push a button
and install, you know, a new thing or
send an a certain type of email that's
worked for other people, copy paste,
send it out, get sales versus create an
entire new u division of my business.
For instance, that might be very
expensive, take a lot of time. Maybe
that's a one. All you have to do is
score them one to 10 impact, confidence,
and ease, and then multiply them
together for your score, which will then
sort. I'll show you some examples below.
You can use this professionally with
product features, marketing campaigns,
where to allocate resources, or
evaluating your strategy. You can use it
personally, home projects, financial
decisions, career growth, family
activities, health goals. You can have
an ice matrix for every aspect of your
life or just one. Don't over complicate
this. First thing you want to do,
brainstorm ideas. When I'm working with
a client, that's the first thing we do.
We're typically working on how to grow
their business or do something with
artificial intelligence. We capture
everything. We include both immediate
tasks and long-term aspirations. And
then we group similar ideas together.
Then we put them on a simple uh matrix
like this. Add project, add an AI agent
to the site. Well, probably have a great
impact on that and a pretty good degree
of confidence. Seen other people do it.
probably worked for me. And the level of
uh ease about a seven. The there's
software out there that makes this
fairly easy these days. Redesigning your
website, launching a podcast. Now, these
are just examples. I didn't score these
based upon any real metric. I just
wanted to put some basic numbers there.
And the math behind this is super
complex. 8 * 7 * 7 7 * 9 * 3 6 * 5 * 2.
Right? That's 6 * 5 is 30 * 2 is 20. And
notice they are sorted in this order.
That is how hard this is. But I'm going
to go into a little bit more in depth.
You want to categorize these results
then to find the projects or project
that you're going to do now, next, and
then never or not yet. Okay. Come down
here. We're going to start small. Create
create a tracker. Well, you don't have
to create one. I'm going to give you one
here in a second. And then you're going
to review this weekly, monthly,
quarterly, or check them off as they get
done. And then share this. Tell your
other uh colleagues, tell your friends,
tell your family members how you're
doing this because this is what adds a
little bit of um you know method to the
madness. And here's an example of using
it for personal growth. All right, let's
say I want to complete an online coding
course, then build a daily meditation
habit, network with industry leaders,
write a non-fiction ebook, learn
Chinese, right? This is how you do it.
Score them and then sort them by the
scores. This you do instinctually, but
sometimes when you're working with maybe
a coach or a consultant, maybe you're
working with me, which by the way, let
me know if you're interested. Brad
accelerated intelligence.ai, send me an
email. We will come up with the ideas,
we'll put them on the project plan,
we'll score them out, and then we create
a execution plan for each one. Most
importantly, if for instance, these are
the two big ones, we don't move on to
these until we knock these dominoes
down. Really simple stuff. Now, I've got
an ice template for you. I'm going to
show you how it works. It's in Google
Sheets. You can click right here and
access it. When you click here, it'll
probably ask you to make a copy first.
So, all you need is a free Google
account. I think most people have one.
If not, just sign up for one. Um, you'll
click make a copy and then this copy
will be editable. It'll go inside your
uh Google Drive and it'll look like
this. Okay. So, we've got uh another
some examples. AI support bot, phone
appointment, setter, social media, GPT,
write a book with AI, employee wiki bot.
You could put a description of what it
is. Now, I have something I call the
five bucket framework. This has to do
with AI. So, um oftentimes when I'm
working with my uh clients, we talk
about the five buckets that AI helps you
thinking, creating, communicating,
analyzing, and automating. You don't
have to use this. I just put them here.
If you want more information on that,
send me an email. Reply to the email
I've already sent you, and ask for the
five bucket framework. I'll forward it
to you. And here, as you can see, I put
arbitrary numbers. It you don't even
have to type it in. You just grab it and
put what you want in here. If I take
this to a seven, you'll notice this
jumps up. Now, the first time you're
going to do this, you're going to see
the instructions here. Super hard
instructions. There's only six, right?
Actually, I take that back. There's
seven, but this is the important one.
When you're done with this, so for
instance, I'm going to show you this. If
this guy comes out here and it's a nine,
and then this is a 10, we're going to
jump this up. Now, all of a sudden, this
is higher. The only thing you got to do,
highlight them all, click data, sort range,
range, advanced.
advanced.
Data has a header row. Sort by the ice
total. I think it's Z to A. Sometimes I
mess this up. Boom. And it sorts them
right back where you want them to go.
Just like that. That's all you have to
do. And now you got your project plans.
This is the demo. I don't advise editing
this because it's just the demo. Here
is your actual one. Come up with your
projects. Come up with your problems.
Decide if you want to solve it. If you
don't want to use the uh bucket thing,
just uh you can hide it or delete it.
It's up to you. But if you're working in
AI, you'll probably want to keep that.
If you don't have any AI projects, you
got a business you want to once more,
hit me up. And then just go through
here. They're all set to one. Give it
its numbers. And there you go. Now, this
is not rocket science, but if you do it,
it'll take your productivity to the
moon. I just made that metaphor up.
Thought it was pretty cool. And so, with
that, I'll end this training. Most
important thing is use it. Come up with
all your ideas, put them on here. Way
better than a to-do list. In fact, this
is really the next evolution of a to-do
list, and it's um super powerful. Hope
you like this. Let me know. Thanks a lot.
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