Tag: productivity

Strategy and growing your business

Solopreneurs must work strategically I talk a lot about strategy, and that’s because it’s truly one of the most important foundations to your success.  What is strategy and why is it so important?  How can it help you?



Strategy is having an idea of how something will help your business before you start doing it.  This applies both to big, sweeping changes like adding a new marketing technique and it also applies to one-time things like attending an expo.  Having a strategy makes it so much more likely you will succeed, and even if you don’t you’ll know it sooner and not get sidetracked for as long as you would without strategy.

New business owners often have a fire to get started, and as a result they start off running hard and just doing as many things as they can to build their business.  The idea of actually asking if something is a good idea to be doing in the first place seems pointless.  It’s easy to get into such a frenzy of doing that it’s hard to even find a few minutes to ask if you should be doing something.

Strategy helps you decide what to do and set some goals around what you expect to accomplish.  Most business activities have increasing sales as their ultimate goal but there are many intermediate steps.  One strategy might be to increase traffic to your website using social media.  This would ultimately increase sales (all other things being equal), but it’s an intermediate step.  If your strategy is to increase sales by increasing traffic using social media then you know what your social media activity is supposed to accomplish before you even start doing it.  Using some traffic measurements, you can tell how well it is working by measuring how much traffic you sent to your site before and after you started using social media.

One of the best things strategy can do is to steer you when you are off course.  What if you social media strategy, as you’ve defined it, isn’t paying off?  That’s not as good as it working great, but it’s much better that you know and can change course.  If your efforts aren’t working, you need to change what you are doing or find something new to do.

Strategy doesn’t have to be a big deal.  It doesn’t have to be formal or complex.  Just make sure you know why you are doing any business activity and what you hope to get from it.  Have a way to measure if your efforts are working, and know when to change course or pull the plug.

How do you use simple strategy in your business?  Tell me about it in the comments.



Solopreneurs and burnout

Solopreneurs need to avoid burnoutBurnout is a very real risk for solopreneurs.  We wear all the hats in the business, and it’s so easy to just get caught up in the treadmill of never ending work.  It’s easy to buy into the myth that if you just work harder somehow it will all get done.  However, it’s simply not possible to ever get everything done.  No matter how much you do, there’s always more you could be doing so the work is never actually done.



What you can do is set limits on how much you work and make good choices about what to leave undone.  Otherwise, burnout is a very real possibility.  Over the long haul, burnout can sap your enthusiasm for your work and leave you tired, worn down and unable to focus.

The long term effects are tragic, but what about the short term effects?  Sure it’s fine to push yourself for a short while but working long hours and not taking time off has a very real risk in the short run.  In the short run, not taking time off can cause you to temporarily lose focus.  You might find yourself forgetting why you walked into a room, going to the store for 3 things and not being able to remember them, sleeping poorly or feeling lethargic.  These minor effects might not seem too serious, but expanded into other areas of your life the lack of focus might mean you don’t pay attention while driving, miss appointments, or skip medications.  These effects can be serious or even deadly.

One of the recurring themes I come across in my work is that business owners work too hard for it to be sustainable.  As I’ve mentioned, a short push is okay but when you get into months of long weeks there are very real risks.  Sometimes when I point this out, I get the impression that the other person thinks I’m patronizing them or trying to butter them up about being such a hard worker.  The truth is when I see someone working too hard for their own health and safety I feel like it’s important to point it out.   I feel like sometimes I spot it because I’ve done it to myself as well.  I’ve never had a serious incident, but have had more than my share of absentmindedness due to burnout.  Two people close to me have had car accidents because of burnout.

I talk about burnout and working too hard a lot.  Please don’t think I’m patronizing.  It’s a very real risk in the long run.  If you burn out and leave your business, the world won’t get what you have to offer.  You also put yourself and others at risk when you can’t focus.  Take regular breaks, take days off and take vacations.  Always remember that the work will never be all done.

Have you had burnout?  How did it impair you?  Share it in the comments, and tell me how you’ll prevent burnout in the future.



Step 1, Set a Deadline

Creating deadlines can help solopreneursI’ve recently made a significant change in the way I manage projects and it has helped my productivity greatly!  In this article, I’ll share the change with you and how it’s helping me.



First, some background…

I used to decide on a project to complete for my business, figure out the scope of it, outline the steps to complete it and then set a target completion date.  I based the estimated completion date on how long I thought the project would take and how much time I could put in daily or weekly.  This worked pretty well, but I found that it didn’t always lead to spending the right amount of time on a project.  How much time you spend on something should be proportional to the importance of it, and not necessarily proportional to how long it could take if done perfectly.  Deciding what to do and how to do and THEN setting a time target meant that I could easily decide to spend weeks making a small website tweak that didn’t increase sales, profit or customer satisfaction.  I didn’t really put this together at the time I was doing it.  In the years I was a corporate project manager, this is more or less how we did it and it worked great.

The impetus for change…

I’ve had a big project I’ve wanted to complete since last fall.  When I say big, I mean big both in terms of scope and in terms of how it will change my business.  (Stay tuned, details coming soon!)  It just dragged on and on, and in the meantime it isn’t available for people to buy so nobody is benefiting from it.  It kept growing in scope as I worked on it (sound familiar? : )  ).  I kept finding more and more to include in it.  Finally, the exasperation got too great and I took a hard look at the project and decided to make some changes and get it done.

What I changed…

I picked a day on which to complete it and then downsized the scope so that I could meet that deadline.  I realized that this project was something that could grow without any natural limit, so I had to place a limit on it myself.  Once I picked the day it would be done, I worked backward to put some milestones in place.  I’m just a few days away from that first milestone, and it looks like I’ll make it but only barely.

The Result…

The results of this one very small change (picking a deadline and adjusting the project to meet it) have been amazing.  I feel so much more energized on this project because I know it will be out in the world soon rather than at some distant date in the future.  It’s easier to get to work on it knowing my time on it is finite.  Somehow, just knowing I’ll get the satisfaction of having it done in a short time makes it so much more enjoyable to work on.

Conclusion…

Even though I had years of experience as a project manager, this was a big shift for me.  If you aren’t managing your projects at all, I invite you to try setting deadlines and milestones to help you get some big things done.

What do you have lagging that you need a boost to complete?  Share it in the comments and tell me if setting a deadline helped you get it done.

Deciding what to work on and how much time to spend on it is one of my favorite things to coach on!  Click here to set up some time for us to sort through everything that’s on your plate.



What are you saying no to?

Solopreneurs must learn to say noI see a lot of attention being paid to the idea of saying yes to opportunities that come you way.  A lot of people see this as a path to success with ease – watch for opportunities to come you way and then take them.  I agree with this to a point – jump right in when the opportunity is right!  What about when the opportunity isn’t a good fit?  Should you still accept a chance to do something simply because it showed up without you working for it?



Business opportunities are everywhere, and some show up because you worked for them and some show up without any effort by you.  There’s more to do in your business than you could ever possibly get done, so by necessity you will have to turn down some projects you may want to do.  Given the imbalance of the how much discretionary time a business owner has and how many things they could be doing, they will have to turn down a lot in the course of their business life.

In these discarded opportunities lies one of the keys to success – choose very carefully what you will and will not do.  It’s really important to say yes and jump into the right projects, but it’s equally important to say no and move on from the wrong projects.

Your time and energy are finite, and you can only get to a finite number of projects in your business.  Starting too many or having too many going at once is a surefire way to get none of them done, have them take too long or have the quality suffer.  You’d be better off picking a few and completing them at a level of quality that your customers will appreciate.  Partially done, poorly done or abandoned projects never made anyone’s bottom line grow!

Throughout your business life, you’ll be bombarded with things you want to create, products you want to sell, content you want to write and more.  If you’re like many entrepreneurs, you can think of more ideas in a day than you can do in a year.  That means that you’ll only ever be able to actually complete a very small portion of all those projects.  The bad news is that those numbers can feel really disappointing.  The good news is that you can cherry pick only the best ones to implement.  Keep an inventory of all those great ideas and things you want to do and when it comes time to add something new to your work, pick the best and leave the mediocrity behind.



Will you really remember it?

Solopreneurs should not keep a task list in their headsLately, I’ve heard from a few successful business people that they don’t keep much of a to-do list because “If it’s important, I’ll remember it.”  Is this really true?  Is it a good way to run your business?



In both cases, the logic was something along the lines of running your business (and life) more intuitively and trusting your mind to call up the important items and leave the rest behind.  It sounds nice, and who doesn’t want to have that kind of freedom?

My first concern with this type of task management is that it’s an inefficient use of your best resource, your mind.  Lists can easily be kept on paper or in a tech resource, and both of these are very well suited to keeping large amounts of data.  Your brain isn’t.  Humans have good retention for just a handful of things at a time, and then it gets hazy.  How much more creative and productive are you when the slate is cleared, your mind free and you are calm?

The second problem with this approach is that it can cause stress if you don’t have absolute faith in your mind’s ability to choose and call up the best thing to be working on.  Maybe some people’s minds can do this and they are absolutely comfortable with that trust, but if you have any doubt at all you run the risk of using valuable brain power to keep track of things that could easily be stored elsewhere.  I don’t doubt that most people’s minds can call up some tasks to work on, but I know what I go through to pick the best thing to do right now and it’s not a simple decision.  I’m not sure anyone’s mind can be trusted to do long-term planning and to weigh all the factors in deciding what to work on.

My third and biggest concern with this is the waste of brilliant ideas!  How often does an idea come to you at an odd time when you would never expect genius to strike?  It happens to me a lot.  I often tell my clients to let me stew on something and I’ll answer them in a few days.   Later, while I’m folding laundry, doing dishes or driving I’ll get  great idea out of nowhere and the problem is solved.  If you don’t record them somewhere, you run the risk of losing them forever and that’s pretty sad.   Record it in some central place, and you have a stockpile of great ideas just waiting for you to act on them.

As with most things, the right answer is what works best for you.  It’s important to make sure that whatever method you use to pick your next tasks is one that supports you doing your important work in the world and doesn’t hinder you.



An owner’s manual for YOU

Your biggest solopreneur asset is YOUThis post may not seem totally business focused because it’s about personal well-being and taking care of yourself.  However, for solopreneurs personal well-being is inseparable from business success.  You can’t give others your best when you feel lousy and are running on empty.  You can’t fill someone’s cup if your pitcher is empty.  So if your want a successful solopreneur business, your self-care must be a high priority.



One of my favorite concepts in self-care is the idea of creating an owner’s manual for you.  You have an owner’s manual for every car, appliance, electronic device and major purchase, so why not have one for your biggest asset – YOU? By the way, your owner’s manual doesn’t have to be written out but it does help to think of it just like the documentation that comes with big purchases.  It’s also important to remember that your owner’s manual is full of recommendations, not laws.  You can decide how closely to follow the manual, but if you at least know whats in it you can make informed choices. What goes into your owner’s manual?  It’s a personal list of best practices for YOU.  It’s the habits, choices and practices that make you perform and feel best.  It’s those things that life feels incomplete without. Here’s a few points to get you started on your owner’s manual, and some examples from mine:

  • Bedtime routine – what do you do before bed to help you sleep?  Here’s one of mine: If I watch TV in the few hours before bed, I have to avoid high-intensity shows or I have restless sleep.
  • Sleep – how much?  When?  Naps or not?
  • Food – which foods work great and which are not so great?  Which foods do you love but know are not supporting your health?
  • Exercise – how much?  What activities?  How often?  One of my favorite exercises is to do heavy weights at the gym.  I feel like I can do anything when I leave!
  • Environment – what do you need around you to feel your best?  I find when my space is not in order, it is mirrored in the way my brain works.
  • Social time vs. alone time – how much time do you need with other people?  How much time do you need alone?  Both are important to well-being.
  • Unscheduled time – how much time do you need with nothing planned?  I was surprised to learn how important this one is.  I need at least a few hours a week with nothing scheduled when I’m free to do whatever I want.
  • Quiet vs. noise – How much of each is best for you?  I love background music, but I do need to spend some time in total silence.
  • Other – are there any things you need that might not be so important for someone else?  Don’t negate their importance just because other people don’t find them relevant.

What do you need to be your best?  Start your owner’s manual today by leaving one item from your manual in the comments.

One surprising way to get those tough projects done

Solopreneurs need some clock-free timeHave you ever had a project drag on and not get done?  Everyone has.  It’s part of being a business owner.  Some of what we do isn’t fun, but has to get done anyway.  I often find projects get hard and tedious about half to two-thirds of the way through.  Right when we’re most tempted to give up is worst time to give up – you lose all of the effort you’ve already put in and get none of the reward of completing the project.



There’s lots of hacks to help you get through projects.  Mindmap your remaining tasks, list your remaining tasks, reward yourself for each milestone, chunk it down and work in small bits of time every day, get some help, scale the project down, etc.  Here’s another hack to add to that list:

Turn the clock off

What does that mean?  As solopreneurs, we have to watch our time really carefully.  Our tasks and projects have to be completed in the right amount of time in order to be profitable.  Things that tend to expand must be contained.  We may have to consider how many hours something will take in order to set a price for it.  We have more we want to do than we could ever actually get done, so every decision about what to do or leave undone has a time component.

In other words, as solopreneurs we spend a lot of time watching time.  It can be exhausting, and even worse it can deaden your enthusiasm right when you need it most.

When you reach the dead zone on a big job and you’ve tried all the other tricks to get moving again, try separating the project from time.  Hide all the clocks around, and just go to work.  Don’t worry about how long you’ve been working, how much longer you have to go or how long it takes.  Just do what needs to be done.  Sometimes you’ll find that you can actually make big progress on something when you’re not under the thumb of time.  It frees you up to take as long as you need, even if it’s a long time.  It takes away the pressure of time deadlines which may let you do great work.  You may even find that a project you were dreading suddenly becomes more fun (or at least less dreadful) without having to watch every minute you spend on it.

How do you get away from time pressure?  Do you ever get away from it?  How does it change your work?  Tell me about it in the comments.



Access the gold in your head

An entrepreneur's ideas are goldIf you are like most entrepreneurs, you probably have a gold mine inside your brain right now.  One of the things that makes entrepreneurs different from people not drawn to that path is IDEAS!  We live ideas.  We work ideas.  We’re addicted to or at least strongly drawn to new ideas.  We can come up with more ideas in a day than we could implement in a year.



Unless you have a process for capturing and processing these ideas, chances are they are pinging around in your head going to waste.  Nobody benefits from them and they don’t make you any money unless the ideas are out of your head and implemented.

I recommend having ways to capture all your ideas on a regular basis, but sometimes it might still help to do a big clearing out.  Even in a well-kept home, clutter can still accumulate, and your brain is no different.  Lots of ideas and thoughts are coming in on a regular basis, and if you don’t take some time to clear out your brain will become overly full and you may begin to feel like you can’t think.

I know when I’ve got too much in my head.  It feels like one of the machines that mixes the lottery balls before they are picked – there’s just hundreds of things clamoring, bouncing and demanding my attention.  I know when that happens I have to clear some space.

So how do you clear your head and get your golden ideas out?

I call it a brain download.  Some people call this process a brain dump, but I don’t like the implication of the word “dump.”  It’s where we take trash and hazardous waste, not valuable things like great ideas.  A download on the other hand implies value.  We download songs we like, books we want to read and information to improve our lives and businesses.

The only rule is that you can do this process however it works for you, but here are some tips to get you started.

  • I like to use old-fashion paper and pen.  Yes, you lose the advantage of having on a computer document, but there’s something about connecting pen to hand to brain that really fuels my thinking.
  • Start with a full, blank sheet of paper.  A big easel pad (2 feet by 3 feet or so) is especially inviting, but anything letter sized or bigger works.
  • Use colored pens, markers, crayons, or just a plain pen – whatever works for you.  One warning – don’t get caught up in color coding or making a design with your writing.
  • This is about quantity and completeness, not quality or accuracy.
  • Gather your paper and pen and start writing!  Anything that’s in your head, whether it’s recorded elsewhere or not is fair game.  Include ideas, to-do items, things to research, things that bug you right now, anything else you think of.
  • This is just for you, so spelling, grammar, neatness, etc. don’t count.
  • You’ll know you’re done when several minutes pass and you can’t think of anything else to add.  Your brain might feel light, empty or like something’s missing.

When you’re done, you’ll have a big, sloppy page and a neat, empty brain ready to tackle the next big thing.

I recommend that you put away your paper for a day and see if any stragglers pop up that you can add.

The last step is the one most often overlooked.  Most entrepreneurs will be on to the next thing and their massive to-do list right away and this paper will be forgotten and that’s a huge waste!  The last step is to process everything on your paper and put it in the correct place where it can be acted on at the right time and the threat of forgetting is gone.  Some examples: ideas can go onto an idea list, to-do items in your task manager, an upcoming birthday added to your calendar, additional thoughts on a current project added to that project material.

Do you see how it works?  Get your valuable ideas out of your head to where they can be acted on and in the process clear your magnificent mind for bigger and better things.

Tell me how you clear your head in the comments.  What positive results do you get from your process?

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