Heloise and I have worked together since the early-90s…

She was first a marketer, then a publisher, at a company called Agora Inc…

While I was a copywriter, then a publisher, too, at the very same company.

Her strengths lie more in strategy, and mine more on the creative and ideas side. .

So we are pretty in sync when it comes to running a business (which is why we’re still together over 30 years later!)

And since we started Canonbury way back in 2003, we’ve planned our product launches based on one principle.

Which goes like this…

Whatever time frame you give yourself for something, you’ll always fill it up with work.

For instance, let’s say I come up with a great idea for a new digital marketing training programme this week.

Heloise and I could decide to launch this in, say, September 2026, and give ourselves a year to do it.

We’d probably fill that year with tasks and still be rushing at the end to get it ready for publication!

However, let’s say we decided to launch this January.

We’d find that the same thing happened…

We’d fill up that time period with tasks that would get us to that launch goal…. but NINE MONTHS earlier.

There’s actually a name for this – Parkinson’s Law.

It comes from C. Northcote Parkinson’s 1955 essay in The Economist, in which he wrote:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

He was poking fun at bureaucracy, showing that even when there isn’t more work to do, organisations will find ways to occupy all the time, resources and budget that they’ve got.

But this idea actually works well in reality when it comes to starting a business or launching a product.

Give yourself a year… and it’ll take a year.

Give yourself 3 months…. and it’ll take 3 months.

So what we’ve always done right from the get-go, is set ambitious launch dates, and found ways to make sure we carry out all the necessary steps to hit the target.

That way we can launch MULTIPLE products over one year and set up additional income streams.

Of course, you need to be realistic.

You can’t just say – “I’ll launch in 2 weeks’ time” and magically achieve your aim unless it is, physically, possible.

You need to understand what essentials you MUST have in place for the launch – at a bare minimum – with an idea of how long these elements usually take.

Then you can fix an ambitious – but ACHIEVEABLE – launch date.

But there are huge advantages to doing this…

• You force yourself to break down a large goal into steps which is a crucial success strategy.
• You give yourself a massive motivational push, and maintain a strong sense of urgency throughout the project as you strive to hit each goal on the way….
• You avoid procrastination, focussing instead only on what’s important and essential.
• You get much faster results from your business project, meaning that you get to enjoy the money and satisfaction much earlier (making you more likely to stick with it long-term.)
• AND crucially you can free up your time to add new income streams for additional projects!

So today I thought I’d run you through some tools and techniques you can use to set a launch date, plan and execute effectively.

Step 1: Decide On Your Goal

First, decide exactly what you’re launching.

Is it an email newsletter? An eBook? A digital course? An Amazon FBA business? An Etsy product?

Be clear on what the product or service is going to be and give yourself an idea of what the finished item entails.

You can use ChatGPT or another AI tool for this:

“I am planning on creating a [service/product]. Please break down for me the elements required, for instance, planning, research, calculations, writing, designing, production, manufacture, listing and marketing.”

The answer might seem like a lot of work – but here’s where the next step comes in….

Step 2. Strip the Goal Down to Essentials

Most people approach a new business or product with trepidation, thinking that everything has to be perfect before they begin.

So they indulge in endless preparation, research, tinkering and tweaking…

Months go by… sometimes years…

The result is that by the time they’re ready, the opportunity’s gone cold, the market has moved on, or they’ve lost interest.

So I recommend that you follow my old mentor Michael Masterson’s ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ method.

• Ready – get the bare minimum viable version of your idea together.
• Fire – launch it. Put it in front of an audience. See if people buy and what they think (you can even offer a discounted or free ‘beta’ version)/
• Aim – adjust, refine, and improve the product based on feedback and sales.

To work out what the bare minimum required is, ask yourself:

• What is your audience and how are you going to reach them to announce your launch (eg, Facebook adverts, squeeze page, email list)?
• What resources do you have in order to publish, create or deliver the product, (eg, tech tools, time, money, email broadcasting system, website, Amazon seller account)? And what resources will you need to get hold of (and how long will that take).
• What deliverables must exist on the day of launch (eg, written content, cover, landing page, order form, email promotion)?

Once you’ve listed these out, you’ve got the basics – a target audience, a way to reach them, a basic product and the tools for creating it.

Step 3: Estimate Timeframes

Before you set a target you need a rough idea of how long the elements might take.

For this, I recommend using AI.

Ask ChatGPT: “I’m creating a product/service that requires the following essential elements [list them]. Break down for me how long each element is likely to take”.

If you plan to use AI in the project, then add: “I’ll be using AI tools for the following elements: [List those tasks you’ll delegate to AI].

You might get some estimates like these…

Short eBook (5–10k words): 2–3 weeks, or 3–5 days if you lean on AI.

Cover design (Canva): 1 day.

Formatting eBook/slides: 2–3 days.

Landing page build: 2–3 days.

Payment setup: 1 day.

Email sequence (5–7 emails): 3–5 days (much quicker with AI).

Marketing prep: 2–3 days for social posts; 1–2 weeks for affiliate outreach.

Now you can take this information into the next step.

Step 4: Work backwards from the deadline

Fix a plausible but ambitious launch date – the soonest you can possibly make it without it being totally INSANE!

Then reverse engineer the project from that date, bearing in mind the likely timings for each element.

So if your launch is going to be on the 1st February, you’d mark that as Day 0.

Then it might go something like this:

• Day –1: proofread, test, final tweaks
• Day –7: all content locked, sales page complete, marketing schedule fixed
• Day –14: design/formatting done, graphics ready, tech tested
• Day –30: content creation finished, drafts reviewed, teasers going out
• Day –60: planning phase, pricing decided, validation done, back-end set up

You can make this plan much more detailed, but the point is that you work BACKWARDS from the target launch to the present.

Again, you can use AI with this prompt: “I’m going to give you the essential tasks I need for my product launch. I have X hours per day to work on tasks, usually between [time] and [time] and also [x hours] on [weekend]. I want to launch on [date]. Please reverse engineer a schedule of tasks from that date to [insert your start date].”

There are also some digital tools that can help:

• Asana – a project management that Heloise and I use regularly. It include checklists, job boards, and calendars with templates for campaigns and launches.
• Notion – an all-in-one dashboard where you can upload tasks, drafts, assets, and even AI brainstorming.
• Trello – another organisational tool that includes a Planner.
• Smartsheet – this tool has a ready-made Product Launch Plan template, so you can just plug in your dates and it builds the reverse-engineered schedule for you.

These tools all make it easy to plan your first product launch in one place without dealing with multiple documents and scraps of paper!

Whether you try one or not. I do encourage you to use this product launch technique…

Even if you’re in the early stages of starting an online business, setting yourself an ambitious launch date is a powerful trick.

It makes success much more likely – and gets you results much faster.

What do you think? Is this something you might try?

If you have any more questions about the process, let me know!