productivity – Page 2 – Michele Christensen

Measure your results to improve them

From my book “Use Metrics to Know What Works“…

One of the hallmarks of successful entrepreneurs is that they take action. They don’t wait for the time to be perfect or for some mythical moment when everything lines up, they get busy and get going. This is a hugely important trait for success, but it can also be a curse. The problem is that many entrepreneurs are so action oriented that they go off in random directions with no plan. It’s not enough just to take action – you have to be taking action on the right things.

This is where a lot of entrepreneurs get into trouble. Yes, you do need to be taking consistent action, but if you don’t take some time first to determine what you should be doing there’s a good chance of not getting the results you want. The problem is that it is really hard for an action-oriented entrepreneur whose idea keeps him up at night to take a step back and do some research and planning. Later, the problem becomes taking the time to measure and analyze results when you would rather be doing more.

So many business operate like this:

Start doing something in hopes of growing your business
Sales don’t come as desired
Add another activity
Repeat

Can you see the problems with this approach? First, you can only repeat this cycle for so long. There is an absolute upper limit to the amount of activity that you can add to your business. At some point, you will run out of hours in the week. Second, if you keep adding new things without taking away anything you’ll end up with a bigger and bigger list of activities to keep up with. Your attention becomes split and you end up expending a lot of energy switching between and managing all your projects. Third and most serious is that you have absolutely no way to improve. There’s no feedback or indication of what’s working or not and how to improve. This is the biggest problem of all because testing, measuring and adapting is the only sure way you have of making sure you are on a path of continual improvement. Continuing to blindly add activities with no clear plan is like trying to get across town on your bicycle by pedaling faster and making random turns. If you don’t stop and consult a map before and during your trip, you won’t know if you are even heading in the right direction. All of that activity may actually be taking you further from your destination.

It’s almost impossible to get things just right on the first try. That’s where being action-oriented is an asset – as an action taker you just get out there and do something. However, the shortest path to success after you take action is to learn from that experience and adapt your next attempt.

When you take action with no planning, there is no way to measure and no way to close the loop. Everything you do will be just random shooting in the dark with no way to adapt and learn. Often the only feedback you get is “that didn’t work.”

For all of these reasons, metrics (i.e. measuring your results) is often one of the first areas I work on with my clients because we really can’t begin coaching and moving forward effectively until they have a feedback loop in place. As much as I wish I could, I simply can’t pull the right answers out of nothing. I need data to work with in the first place and a way to measure results once our ideas are implemented.

If you aren’t doing any metrics, or you want to see how metrics can help you, head over to the Kindle store and grab my book “Use Metrics to Know What Works.” This article is taken from Chapter 1, and the rest of the book teaches you not only the principles of metrics but how to do metrics for specific purposed in your business. Grab your copy here:

Use Metrics to Know What Works

(No Kindle device? No problem! You can download a free Kindle app for your phone or tablet, or install the free Kindle reader for your desktop.)

Learning without implementation accomplishes nothing

Ask Me Anything, Segment 8

(Prefer to read in stead of watch? Scroll down below the video player for the notes.)

Earlier this year, I gave my email subscribers the chance to ask me anything they wanted to about their business. In this video, I talk about the trap of learning too much and not implementing enough. Learning new skills to build your business is a great thing to do, but you have to implement what you learn for it to help your business grow. Learning without implementation does not help your business. This is Segment #8 in the Ask Me Anything series. You can find the entire series on my blog or YouTube Channel under Ask Me Anything. www.michelechristensen.com

(Note the event link I mentioned around the [2:00] minute mark does not show up on some views of this blog post. Here is the link: www.michelechristensen.com/blbp)

If you prefer to read instead of watch, here are the notes for this video:

Learning is fun, and implementing can be long, hard work so there is a big temptation to just keep learning and not take the time to implement.
The fun of doing new things begins when you finish them and they begin to work. If you want to be successful, you have to buckle down and implement what you are learning and not just jump to the next thing.
I attended a live weekend event last year and it took me 5 months to get everything from that event implemented. Make sure your time and money investment pays off when you attend a live event by implementing what you learn. For more information on the Big List, Big Profits event, click here.
The one thing to take from this video: implement what you learn or you are just wasting time.
If you like this tip, please go to www.michelechristensen.com and enter your name and email address so you can receive ongoing tips and strategies just for solopreneurs!

Use Metrics to Know What Works

Today is an exciting day! My newest Kindle book is now available!

(Can’t wait? Here’s the link!)

This book will teach you how to stop guessing, flying by the seat of your pants and running yourself ragged just to make a living.

In this book, I teach the basics of metrics, or using measurement to know what is and isn’t working. As a one-person operation, you simply cannot afford to be wasting time on things that don’t bring your results. Without a way to know for sure how well your efforts are paying off, how do you know where to spend your time?

This book is written specifically with you, the solopreneur, in mind. After laying out some general concepts on metrics, I show you where to start and exactly what to measure. The book even includes a downloadable starter kit with a tutorial video so you can get started right away.

Click the link below and grab your copy today:

Use Metrics to Know What Works

No Kindle device? No problem! You can get the free Kindle app for your smartphone or tablet or use the free Kindle desktop reader.

Get your book copy here

If you aren’t sure if this is for you, I invite you to imagine how great it would be if you knew you were working on the best thing you could be doing right now. That’s the confidence and clarity that measuring your result can bring. Get started today by downloading your book here.

Automate Your Grunt Work – free sample chapters!

One of the biggest problems solopreneurs face is how to get it all done. There’s so much to do, and only you to do it. Even if you use outsourced help, there is still an infinite amount of things you could do to grow your business and you can only do some of them.

Part of managing your workload is making sure you are working on the right things and not wasting time on activities that don’t produce results. For the activities that do add value or simply need to be done, I suggest automating as much as possible. Automation has several advantages over doing it yourself or having someone do it for you, and some of those advantages are:

Automation can run with little or no management. Once you set up an automated process, it can often run with no intervention by you indefinitely.
Automation is cheaper. Many of the tools I use are free or very inexpensive.
Automated process are generally error free. Even the best and most conscientious human will make mistakes, but computers don’t. A well-designed process can save you mistakes later.

I believe that automation is important enough to solopreneurs that I’ve written an entire book on the subject. I’d like to offer you a free sample, so you can see how automation can help your business be more streamlined. If you are interested in getting two complete chapters from my book “Automate Your Grunt Work,” fill in the form below and the chapters will be on their way!

Fear of Missing Out (#fomo)

Ask Me Anything, Segment 7

Earlier this year, I gave my email subscribers the chance to ask me anything they wanted to about their business. This video explains how “Fear of Missing Out” or #fomo can drive you to spend way too much time trying to learn new things instead of growing your business.

What to do with experts you don’t need now

Ask Me Anything, Segment 5

Earlier this year, I gave my email subscribers the chance to ask me anything about their business. In this video, I give you some ideas about what to do with experts who teach great information that you don’t need right now. I’ll be answering more questions over the coming weeks and months, so be sure to fill in your name and email address in the box below the video so you can get your questions answered in the next Ask Me Anything.

Save time by automatically pre-sorting your email

Almost everyone I know gets a lot of email. Being efficient at handling your email is a must for many professionals, and in this post I’ll give you one way you can use to save time by pre-sorting your email.

What’s pre-sorting?

One of the reasons that email can be so daunting is that what has to done to take care of an email isn’t always clear. An email might contain something to read, an invitation to decide on, a request for information or an actual task for you to do. You first have to determine the action that needs to be taken, and then you need to do that action. Sometimes, the action isn’t clear and sometimes there is more than one action to be taken.

In addition, emails can have different priorities. Anything from a customer or client should be a high priority. An interesting article may have a lower priority. Any bills to be paid that have to do with keeping you open for business have to be high priority.

Once you’ve established some rules about how to handle certain recurring emails, you can set up rules that separate your emails based on those rules. Anything with no set rule stays in your inbox until you deal with it.

How do I set this up?

Fortunately, Gmail has a simple way to do this using filters. When you find an email for which you’d like to set up a rule (filter), you open a drop down menu and follow a series of menus that tell Google what your criteria is and how to handle emails that meet that criteria. An example of a way you might use this is to create a filter for any email that comes from the domain of one of your customers. Emails from your customers could be labeled “customer,” and get higher priority than other email.

But what if I don’t want to use Gmail?

Gmail is hands-down the best email program I’ve used whether paid or free. However, some people feel that using an “@gmail” address makes them look less established. For the record, I don’t agree but since there are many people who do feel this way, I use an email that ends with my domain (“@michelechristensen” in my case). The good news is you can still use Gmail, the presorting feature and all the other cool things Gmail can do AND use your @mydomain email address.

One way to use Gmail and have your email come from @mydomain is to do a one-time setup that links the two addresses. In your host (where you get your @mydomain email from), set your email to forward to your Gmail account. In your Gmail settings, tell Gmail to use your @mydomain email address as the sender address.

Emails sent to your domain email address “pass through” that address and into your Gmail account, and when you reply your recipient sees an email from your domain not Gmail. Be sure to test this thoroughly to make sure it works and you don’t have any problem getting your email.

Here’s some help for you:

This pre-sorting is one of the automation strategies I share in my book “The Solopreneur’s Success Strategy: Automate Your Grunt Work.” In the chapter on pre-sorting your email, I give much more detailed instructions and you can get that chapter and one additional one for free! Enter your name and email address below and your free chapters will be on their way.

PS – Know someone who spends way too much time on their email? I’d love it if you sent them a link to this article

Back of the Bike Video – How to handle the unexpected

https://www.michelechristensen.com
Find out how you can be better prepared for unexpected things that pop up in your life and in your solopreneur business. Being prepared means you can say yes to great opportunities more often whether they are for work or for fun!

Time Management System for Solopreneurs

Ask Me Anything, Segment 2

Earlier this year, I gave my email subscribers the chance to ask me anything about their business. In this video, I answer a question about how to set up a time management system for solopreneurs. I’ll be answering more questions over the coming weeks and months.

If you want more information like this, including a chance to get your questions answered in the next “Ask Me Anything,” enter your name and email below for regular email updates from me.

How to use Timetrade

Ask Me Anything, Segment 1

Earlier this year, I gave my email subscribers the chance to ask me anything about their business. In this video, I answer the first question, and I’ll be answering more over the coming weeks and months. The question has to do with time management systems and Timetrade.

If you want more information like this, including a chance to get your questions answered in the next “Ask Me Anything,” enter your name and email below for regular email updates from me.