Tag: time management

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.



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?

Begin your day the night before

A good day starts the day beforeOne of the biggest factors in whether or not I have an enjoyable, productive day is how I end the day before. As a solopreneur, your personal life and business life tend to blend together, so some of these ideas relate to non-work things.


Do a little planning

One of my biggest productivity killers is staring at my to-do list and trying to figure out what to work on before I’ve even gotten anything done. I have a hard time getting into gear when I have to wade through dozens of tasks just to figure out what to do before I can even do anything. To combat this, I get my tasks and priorities lined up the night before. It’s the last work item I tackle for the day, so at whatever time I decide to quit for the day I spend 5-10 minutes making sure I can hit the ground running the next day.

Know when to quit

As a solopreneur, you to-do list is massive and never-ending. You’ll never get it all done, so a big part of your time management has to be deciding what doesn’t get done. Part of this is knowing when to stop working for the day. Quite literally, you could be up all night and not get it all done or even feel on top of things, so it’s important to have a set time at which you stop working.  When I work in the evenings I try to make sure I have a set quitting time that gives me time to end my day, relax and get to bed on time.

Park on a downhill slope

This means that you leave your work in a condition that makes restarting easy.  In the time leading up to quitting time, try to find a good place to stop.  If there is no good place to stop, make sure to leave yourself some notes so you can jump back in without figuring out where you were.  You’d be surprised how much you can forget in one day, and spending 30 seconds leaving yourself well-positioned to restart can save many minutes of headaches later.

Have an end-of-day routine

Make a short list of what you need to do at the end of the day to start your next day off right.  Once you’ve wrapped up work, consider what personal chores would make your next morning run smoothly.  I like to set up my coffee the night before, and sometimes I set up a load of laundry so I can start it as soon as I get up.  You might want to pack your lunch, lay out your clothes or pack your bag for an early meeting.  Doing these tasks the day before can help you have less-hassled morning.

Sketch out a schedule

Be sure to peek at your schedule for the next day so you’re not caught unaware of an early obligation.  Create a rough outline of what you’ll be working on during which time windows.  You can always change your mind, but having a plan gives you something to work from.

What else?

What do you do at the end of the day to ensure a strong start to the next day?  Share it in the comments.

How to stay on track

Solopreneurs can use goals to help them focusSomeone asked me a question recently, and I thought it was such a great one that I decided to answer it here.  I was at a training, and when I mentioned that I coached entrepreneurs, the person I was talking to asked me “How do you keep them on track?  Entrepreneurs, myself included, are always changing gears.”

It’s a great question because he’s right – entrepreneurs are naturally drawn to new ideas and possibilities – bright, shiny objects anyone?  Enthusiasm for new ideas is one of an entrepreneur’s greatest gifts and also one of the greatest challenges.  Nobody goes into business with the desire to be bored.

Let me share a little of my philosophy first – I don’t “keep” people on track, because that implies force or power and I don’t believe entrepreneurs want or need that.  Entrepreneurs are naturally motivated and love results, so guidance and perspective are better tools than force for entrepreneurs.

What I do is help business owners get clear on what they want to accomplish and how to get there.  As they move forward, we tackle roadblocks together.  When the inevitable “next big thing” pops up, I remind them of where they said they wanted to go and we assess if this new thing fits into that goal.  If it does, we figure out how to fit it into the current plan.  If it doesn’t, we talk about whether or not the original goal still fits.  The beauty of running your own business is that you get to decide what the goals are and when to change them.

A word of caution – if you change your goals too often, you may end up never reaching them.  I think this is one of the biggest hurdles entrepreneurs face – being able to stay with something after it gets boring but before it produces results.  Most new projects go through the “darkest before the dawn” phase where the newness has worn off and finishing the project becomes a slog through tedium to get to the finish line.  This is the worst time to give up – when completion is just around the corner.

This is a great example of how strategy and planning in a business pay off.  If you start with a goal and a plan to get there, you have a criteria against which to weigh any potential new ideas.  If the new idea fits, then use it.  If it doesn’t, you have the option of changing your goal or your plan but do it intentionally and not because you got bored.

 

How to schedule your day for flexibility and productivity

Scheduling your day makes a solopreneur more flexibleIn my last post, I talked about how to keep your personal life from getting in the way of your  business success.  This post is about how to schedule your day to accommodate both business and personal tasks while being flexible and productive.

First, it’s important to commit to a practice of scheduling your day, so let me explain some of the benefits.  You’ll be able to get  a clear view of what you did and did not get done in a day and adjust your next day accordingly.  You’ll be able to look at a bird’s eye view of the 16 or so waking hours you have available and decide how to use them based on your current priorities.  If you don’t already have it, you’ll get a sense of when is a good time of day for different activities.  You’ll keep activities that tend to expand, like social media marketing, down to an appropriate amount of time.  You’ll be able to prioritize the few things that you really need to get done.

I do this as part of my end-of-day routine when things are fresh in my mind.  For some reason, having my day laid out before I wake up lets me hit the ground running.  If I’m feeling bad about something I didn’t get done, I can put it on my schedule for the next day and let it go for the night.   Of course I give in to temptation and skip my scheduling sometimes, and I always pay the price the next day.

You can put your schedule wherever it suits you – paper, spreadsheet, day planner, etc.  I like to use a spreadsheet with one line per activity with start and end times.  I would not recommend your main calendar – this is far more detailed than would fit on most calendars.

I always start my day with the same things.  I’m best in the morning, so those first few hours are set aside for high-priority projects, and that means whatever is most important to be working on will get some uninterrupted high-quality time before anything else can get in the way.  Consider putting in some time on high-priority work even before you check email or other messages.

Next, add in the “big rocks,” i.e. those big things you have to work around like appointments, meals, errands, fitness, etc.

Designate some time for personal tasks and for miscellaneous business tasks and handling email, messages, mail, etc.

Schedule in your breaks with a start and end time.  Taking breaks is critical to being productive, but you do need to set an end time or it’s too easy to waste a lot of time.

Just like the first few hours of the day are set, so should the last few.  Give yourself some time to wrap up your day, schedule the next day, do any before bed tasks, and finally some time to relax so you are in low gear when it’s time to go to bed.

Sounds great, right, except for inevitable last-minute things that pop up?  The irony is that having a schedule helps you to be more flexible.  You have a plan to deviate from.  You know what you are giving up (or have to make up) if you say yes to something new.  Being your own boss means that not only do you make your schedule, but you can change it too.

How do you schedule your day?  Does it help you to be more flexible?  Tell me about it in the comments.

 

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