time management – Page 10 – Michele Christensen

How relevant are GTD contexts to the Solopreneur?

Sometimes the context for an activity is critical

(If you’re not familiar with GTD, it’s the productivity and time management system outlined in the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen.)

When I first read “Getting Things Done,” (“GTD“) I loved it. There were a handful of points that changed my life and the way I manage my time and one of them was contexts. The idea that our tasks occur in a physical setting or context, and that by segregating your to-do list into GTD contexts, you’ll have a ready-made list of tasks that are relevant to the context you are in. This idea helped me tremendously – when I was planning to go out and do errands, I had an errand list. If I was doing messy home repair, I had a home improvement list. If I was at my desk, I had an admin list.

It worked great for a while, but as is almost inevitable my life changed over time. My system no longer worked and I felt more scattered and stressed than I needed to be. When I looked at the problem, I realized that as someone who is self-employed and works from home, contexts aren’t all that important. Most of what I do both personally and professionally occurs at home in casual clothes. I do tag a few to-do items that I need to go out for or have some other noteworthy characteristic in their context, but for the most part, context is not very relevant to me. What is more relevant is blocking my time out for work and personal time, so that’s what I now do.

So the question is, how much do solopreneurs who work from home need GTD contexts? Do you use them or something similar? Is it a useful concept for you life right now? Why or why not?

Product review: Google tasks

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Google products. I use gmail even though my email appears to come from my domain. I use Picasa for photos, Google Calendar, Google keyword tool, Google analytics, Google docs and Google contacts. I love that almost everything they do, aside from being free, works great.

When I switched to an Android phone, I was stymied by what to do with my tasks and projects. I had been using a Blackberry before that, and while the task function wasn’t overly impressive I was able to make it work. If I wanted to stay with Google and make full use of the seamless sync between my desktop and phone it seemed that Google tasks was my only option. The problem was that Google tasks is such a low-feature system that I had to really do some serious work-arounds to get it to even come close to my needs. A lot of people were complaining about it, and it seemed really out of sync with the high level of quality of their other services. I decided to gamble and set myself up on Google tasks with the hope that soon they would upgrade the functionality and it would be as good as all the other products I use and love.

Almost a year later, I decided to switch again because it was just too hard to stay on top of everything I had to do with the system I was using at the time. There hadn’t been any pending upgrades to the task manager announced, and a year was the longest I was willing to wait. Things that are weak on Google tasks include:

There’s no way to put a recurring task in, so you can create a task that occurs every Monday, every 3 days, or 5 days after the last time you did it.
You can create several different lists of tasks, but only one can be viewed at a time, and if you want to view them on your calendar along with your appointments, only the list currently open in the tasks pane shows up. If you don’t think to check all of your task lists, you could be missing things you need to do today.
There is no way to add a tag or a priority to a task. This are pretty basic functions of most task managers, so it seemed like a big sacrifice to not have these functions.
There was no home-screen icon on the Android for tasks from Google like there was out-of-the-box for contacts, Gmail and calendar. It seems to me that a task function is an equally important sibling of these 3 and for some reason Google treats tasks differently.

After nearly a year of making due with a task manager that just wasn’t up to the job of managing my life, both personal and business, I finally gave in and decided to look for another option. This process will be the topic of a series of posts for which this post is first. I just love peeking into other people’s time management systems, so if you want a peek into mine, look out for the next post.

What task management system do you use and why? Do you sync it with your smartphone?

Are you an introvert?

If so, come out of hiding and treat yourself right!

I read this article this morning on how to care for an introvert, and in addition to giving tips on how to care for an introvert, there’s great information introverts can use to care for themselves. Have a read and come back to the rest of the post.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/2696/

First of all, let me say that I am an introvert. If you know me in real life, that may be shocking because I’m social, have friends, love to talk and even love public speaking. But as pointed out in the article, there’s a lot of incorrect ideas about what an introvert is. I’m not shy, housebound or miserable. I am exactly like the introvert described in the article. When I do social things, I need lots of time by myself to recover. There’s a limit to how many social events I can do in a day or a weekend.

You can tie this into your business by making sure your business aligns with your natural, comfortable personality type. I love working one-on-one with people, but only have so much energy for that. I realized late last year that I was spending too much time working one-on-one with people, and now I’m leading group programs and working on information products as well as working with just a few one-on-one clients.

Does your current business work for your personality? If you are an introvert, are you draining yourself by spending too much time with people? If you are an extrovert, are you feeling like you’re missing out because you spend too much time working alone at home? Have you adjusted your business to a better mix for you? If so, tell me about it in the comments.

If you recognize yourself here and want to adjust your business accordingly, let’s talk! Click here to schedule a free strategy session.

3 tips for using your cell phone as a business line

As solopreneurs, we’re always looking for ways to save money and be efficient. A great way to do this is to use your cell phone as your business line. If you continue to grow and expand your scope, there will probably come a time when you need a dedicated business line but it’s great to start with your cell. By using your cell, you’re ready anytime and anywhere to work and you save the expense of a second line. You also save juggling your contacts and managing two phone lines.

The drawback is that it may not seem very professional unless you handle it right. Here are 3 tips for using your cell phone as a business line:

Record a professional greeting that has your business name, hours if applicable, website and any other information you might want to convey. It’s fine for your friends to call your work number, but don’t have your business contact getting a fun but unprofessional greeting better used for friends. Make sure to listen to your greeting and make sure there aren’t background noises or any missed words. Spell any words that may not be obvious.
Use a professional greeting when you answer. I say “Michele speaking,” and it works great. It sounds professional and ready to do business and it saves the person asking for me. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I call a business and the person answering the phone sounds like they are bothered by my call. Make sure you sound upbeat and happy to get the call even if you’re not. Speak clearly and avoid those long messages used sometimes by stores such as “Good morning and thank you for calling ABC shoe store where your comfort is our mission. Come in now to see the new summer styles. Michele speaking, how can I help you?” People don’t hear half of it anyway and are just waiting impatiently for you to finish.
Don’t answer unless it’s a good time for you to take a call. If you get woken up, for goodness sakes don’t answer! Having woken someone up once at 9:45 in the morning, I can tell you it doesn’t make a good impression. If you’re in the car, at the gym, in a public bathroom, in a bar, in a meeting, etc. simply don’t answer. Let it go to voicemail and return the call when it’s good for you.

Have you ever called someone and got a bad impression of them? Tell me about it in the comments.

Minimize non-productive work

What does “non-productive work” even mean? If I’m working, isn’t that by definition productive? After all, I have to be on Facebook for my business don’t I? I have to go to that cocktail party networking mixer right? How can I stay informed if I don’t read blogs? That’s work, not goofing around right?

Well, yes, those things are work. To a degree. That’s why I suggest minimizing that time, not eliminating it.

The trap with these types of activities is that they are fun. Who wouldn’t rather got to a mixer in a trendy bar than stay home and write articles, work on strategy, balance your checkbook or file that pile. The problem is that these activities, in many cases, don’t pay off well enough to invest massive time in them. But they are fun, so it’s tempting to spend too much time on them and justify it because after all it is work you know.

What’s the answer?

Decide what you want from those efforts (leads, sales, contacts, traffic, etc) and see if you can find a way to get that. If not, give consideration to letting the activity go.
Challenge any preconceived notions you have about things you “have to” do. If you really can’t let something go, figure out the minimum you need to do to sustain your business and come up with the fastest, lowest effort way to do that (I favor checklists).
If you decide to hang onto an activity that doesn’t produce results, acknowledge that you are doing the activity primarily for fun. Enjoy it and celebrate the opportunity your business provides.
While you are evaluating the effectiveness of your activities, try to set some numeric goals. For example, if you say you want leads from your networking activities, now many would make it worthwhile? How will you keep track? How many hours of networking effort are you willing to put in for each lead? Which events are the generating the most leads?
If you choose to continue a low-results activity, make sure to pick the best of the available options. If you love social networking but don’t get much in the way of results from it, at least spend your time on the network where you get the most results.

What fun-but-not-productive activities are you considering modifying? Tell me about it in the comments. I’ll be sharing my big shift in this area soon!

Find an hour or more per week easily

Ok, here’s a quick tip that’s not strictly business.

I’ve known about home grocery delivery for years, but never tried it until today. I saved at least an hour and a half and a lot of energy. What could you do with an extra hour and a half and some extra energy every week?

Here’s the highlights:

It was only $6.95 for the delivery, and the driver wouldn’t even take a tip.
I was able to find a lot of the foods we eat, which is surprising because we keep a vegan household and don’t use many packaged foods. A partial list of what we got: almond milk, tofu, grapes, fresh tomatoes, cashews and canned beans.
The driver puts the bagged groceries on your kitchen table. No lugging bag after bag from the car!
The process was smooth and included options where you could specify your rules for substitutions. You could also make a request to the person picking your order.
They did miss two items, but one quick call and my credit card was credited.

So, back to business. What could you do with an hour and a half per week that would make this pay for itself? Considering taxes and overhead, you’d need to gross something like $14 for example to make this worthwhile. Leave a note in the comments and tell me if you’ve ever used this service or plan to, and more importantly what you did with the time and energy you gained. If you’re a business owner who doesn’t have a way to make at least $14 in a newly-found hour and a half, let’s talk! Click the link below to schedule your free strategy session today!

Yes, I want a free strategy session!

Make use of holiday slow time, part 3

This is part 3 of a 3 part series. Click here for part 2.

The final idea I have to share about making use of a slow time in your business is to use the time to create processes and systems for things you do regularly. I’ve seen many business owners get caught up in reinventing the wheel for tasks they do all the time. My rule is this: the first time you do a repeating task, write down the steps you think you need to do in order to complete the task. As you do the work, adjust your list and add notes to help you next time. The second time you do it, work from your list and again improve it based on what you learned. By the third time, you should have a pretty solid process that continues to change over time as needed. The more you can systematize and document repeating tasks, the more efficient you’ll be at doing them. You’ll be less overwhelmed and it will be easier to start. Finally, if the time comes for you to hire some help, you’ll have a process in which to train the person not just an ill-defined result you want.

Don’t get stuck on making your processes perfect. Paper is fine to start with (and maybe for a long time after). Don’t worry too much about formatting or formality. This isn’t for your customers, it’s just to make you more efficient.

Here are some ideas on processes you might want to start with:

sorting and filing paperwork
bank, credit card and cash reconciliations
data entry
compiling your newsletter
cleaning and maintenance
opening and closing if applicable

Give it a try! Leave a comment if you have any other processes you can write up.

Make use of holiday slow time, part 2

This is the second of a 3-part series on how you can use your time if business is slow right now. Click here for part 1.

If your business is slow right now, it’s a great time to set up your files for 2011. For the next few months, most of us will be in transition with files – not quite ready to store 2010 but in need of places for 2011 paperwork. Start by finishing any filing you have right now. Any files you keep by year (bank records, vendor payments, utility bills, etc) should be pulled out and boxed for storage but not removed from your workspace yet. You’ll need those 2010 files as the last of 2010 paperwork dribbles in during early January and you’ll probably need them to file your 2010 taxes. Set up new files for 2011 using the same categories if they worked well for you in 2010. It’s a great feeling to be ready when those first few transactions of the new year happen and you are ready for them. Keep your 2010 files nearby in their boxes until you stop getting 2010 paperwork and your taxes are filed. At that time, it’s a good bet you won’t need them much so you are safe moving them to less convenient storage.

Click here for the last part in the series where I’ll give you one more really useful thing you can do right now if you aren’t serving as many customers as usual.