Improve Focus and Productivity For Better Time Management

Business, Goals and Business Planning, Time Management, Working From Home

Improve Focus and Productivty for Better Time Management

Part III of the Time Management Series

Improving your focus and productivity so that you can manage your time better is within your grasp. It's all about knowing how to set goals, create well thought out to-do lists, and then implement the actionable schedule you create. With planning, mindfulness, and mindful dedication, you can become a very productive and focused person in all areas of your life.

Create and Set Smart Goals

If you want to be productive, and focus on your goals, learn how to set SMART goals. A SMART goal is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. When you ensure that your goals meet the criteria, it's easier to create a to-do list that leads to your desired results.

For example, if you want to keep your home organized, the first thing you need to do is write a SMART goal for it. Depending on your goal, it may look similar to this one below.

Smart Goal Example and Elements

"By December 20, 2020, every room in the house will be organized and decluttered for maximum productivity. All items unused the last year will be donated or thrown out; items kept will be organized for maximum usability. I will accomplish this by tackling one room per week in my home, including the garage and the car."

Identify which elements below have been included in the sample goal above to help you format goals for your personal needs.

Specific: Every room, including the car and the garage, will be organized and decluttered. Write down everything you're going to do as precisely as possible.
Measurable: It'll be done, one room a week, by December 20, 2020. Write down what constitutes done for each area. Go ahead and list out each room and what you will do in every room.
Achievable: There are 12 "rooms" when you add the garage and the car. I will list in the calendar one room and spell out what is to be done in each room for that month, each day, including putting the task list on each day of the month that I should be doing it.
Realistic: I know that I have 1 hour a day to devote to the organization and decluttering of my home.
Timely: One room will be done each week, at one hour of work per day, from 7 am until 8 am five days a week, and I will complete all rooms by December 20, 2020.

Go through your objectives and create SMART goals based on the result you want to achieve. Whether it's home, work, personal, or family issues, you can accomplish a lot by taking the time to truly get your goals into writing and then break them down. Be as precise as possible; this will allow you to create a useful task list.

Create Effective Task Lists

Once you have developed SMART goals, use those objectives to build your to-do list. The list will become your schedule that you put in your calendar. You'll use those entries to make daily task lists that help you get done with the things you've set an intention for doing.

Creating useful to-do lists will increase your productivity because it'll be clear what you need to do to complete any item on the list. You will know if it's a small step toward a bigger goal or just a step in your day that you want to hold yourself accountable for doing.

Choose the Right Tools & Technology – You know yourself best. What tools will you use? Don't waste your time trying to use something just because everyone else is using it. However, do give technology a chance because you never know when you'll find a tool that resonates with your way of doing things.

Write Actionable Tasks – When you write down your tasks, you want to write them down very specifically in actionable terms. Use words that truly describe the action you need to do to get to the result you want to reach. Instead of "clean the drawers," try "Clean out the top drawer in the master bath for 15 minutes by tossing anything not used for a year and organizing the rest in containers that make it easy to see what's in there."

Prioritize Your Lists – It's essential to know how to set priorities. It's easy to put things in order of due date. Therefore, assign due dates to anything you want to get done promptly.

Daily Scheduling – Your to-do list should only consist of the things you will do in that one day. For best results, you don't want to fill each day from wake up to sleep time because you'll run out of time. Put only the actions you're going to do that day on the list.

Set a Time Limit – Give yourself a time limit regarding when you should be done with the task and how long you think the task will last. Make the time limit realistic, and give yourself a slight buffer before and after each task.

Understand What You Need to Focus On

One thing that can be confusing is that busy is not the same thing as productive. You can be busy and be productive, just as you can be busy without ever being productive. Outside forces can also decrease your focus. For example, if you don't feel well, it will be hard to focus on anything.

Know the Goals and Results You Expect - If you have a business, you may want to focus on tracking the results from your Facebook Advertisement. If you are trying to lose weight, you may want to monitor your calories, micronutrients, and exercise. If you're going to learn a new language, you will want to track your lessons and practice sessions to find out if you're improving over time. Whatever you need to focus on will be due to the result you're hoping to achieve.

Focusing on the right thing often requires you to make an educated guess about the situation and track the results. You can always adjust as you move forward.

Prepare Your Brain for Each Task - One issue that many people have with getting things done is a lack of direction. They jump from one thing to the next without knowing why they're doing it or what the results should be from doing whatever it is that they're doing. If you want to be successful and productive, take the time to prepare your brain for each task that you need to do. Read my blog on Mastering Brain Power for Success

Stop Between Tasks - Give your mind enough time to transition between tasks. Setting up your day so that you don't overwork yourself in any area while getting things accomplished on time will help you focus more. When you plan for breaks in your day, you'll end up enjoying your day more, and you'll get more done too.

Review Your Actions - First, you need to ensure you have created SMART goals so that you have something to measure. Then use technology to measure the results of what you are doing. For example, if you are trying to get more traffic to your blogging site, you'll want to look at the traffic generating actions to compare what works and what doesn't. If you're trying to think more positively, it might take more work to track your negative thoughts and your positive ones, but you can do that too.

Discover Your Peak Time - Everyone has a time when they can do specific tasks better than others. There are day people and night people. Some thrive on a high-pressured deadline-driven day, and others do not. Find the way that works for you. The way that you enjoy working and get the most accomplished for each task. If you assign yourself the task during your peak time, you'll do that one thing best; you'll see more results.

Test and Adjust - Once you note what works and what doesn't work, do more of what is bringing the results that you want. Then track the results. Most things need a minimum of 21 days to find out if they're working in the way you want them to, but some ideas might take more time, even up to a year, to know if it's the most productive that delivers your desired result. Once you try the new plan, analyze it, and then adjust it if you need to so that you can make it even better.

For example, what if you could exercise only 30 minutes a day and get the same results as a 40-minute workout? What if you can eliminate a task because it doesn't produce results compared to another action you can take? How much time will you be saving then?

Know What Makes You Tick

One thing to keep in mind about improving your focus and productivity is that you'll need to take a deep dive into what makes you get excited about working to your full potential.

SWOT Analysis - What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Do this in each area of your life, personal, professional, spiritual, and social, each as needed.

Why Do You Get Up in The Morning? - As Simon Sinek suggests, "Start With Why." What inspires you to do what you do? What do you hope to achieve in your life overall? Try writing your obituary as if you die at 120 years old after living the life you really want to live. Remember to write it from the perspective of every critical aspect of your life.

What works best for you? - Do you learn better by doing, by touching, by watching, by example, or what?

Do you feel energized or drained after spending time with others? How do you communicate with others best? Are you a morning or night person? Knowing this about yourself is vital. All of these are things that you can improve or accept them and work around them.

For example, suppose during your discovery phase, you learn that you're spending 4 hours a day watching TV or surfing on the internet. It will be up to you to accept that this interferes with your productivity if you truly want to do better. No one can do that for you.

Likewise, if you discover that you're a night person, but you have to get up at 5 am every day for work, you may have to accept that this is not ideal until you can find another way to generate income. But you can still work around it by moving detailed tasks to later in the day when you're able to focus better.

When you apply the knowledge you have gathered about yourself to improve your focus and productivity, you will find it easier to manage your time. Whether you need to do the hard things in the morning or at night, it does not matter. The best solution is the one that works best for you and enables you to tap into your most productive times while reaching the most productive results.

Use the workbook along with the other guides in this series to take control and manage your time.

Part I – What Is Your Time Vampire

Part II – 12 Steps to Vanquish Your Time Vampires

Part III – Improve Focus and Productivity for Better Time Management

Part IV – The Truth About Procrastinating

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The Truth About Procrastinating

Business, Goals and Business Planning, Time Management, Working From Home

The Truth About Procrastinating

Part IV of our Time Management Series

Do you find yourself waiting until the last minute to finish that project? Have you ever pushed a task to the back burner and found other things to do instead, knowing that you need to get that one task done? I know I have and do. As a matter of fact, here I am, late on Sunday night, writing this to make sure it gets to your inbox by 8:00 am. Poor time management? No, it’s just procrastination, plain and simple.

Procrastination is an issue that many people use to put off doing something that they don’t want to do, or maybe they just don’t know how to start. And it is a destroyer of any time management system you may have in place.

People who procrastinate know that they must do something before a deadline but wait until the last moment to do it if they do it at all.

Types of Procrastinators

The six most common types of procrastinators all have various reasons for putting things off, but they are very different. You may find that you identify with more than one type because, for some people, it depends on the task they must do to determine the type of procrastination they practice.

One step in recognizing, halting, and turning around your procrastination habits is to identify the type of procrastination you’re experiencing for each task that you’re putting off. Once you do that, you can often find a way to halt that pattern and even change it to increase productivity.

The Perfectionist

If you have an article or speech due, do you find yourself writing, and rewriting, and rewriting, and rewriting? When you’re getting ready to go somewhere, do you find yourself messing with your hair so much, it ends up a disaster and you have to pull it back in a ponytail? It might feel good to say, “I’m a perfectionist,” but the truth is a lot less flattering. Whenever I was asked “what are your strengths” in an interview, I would tell them my strength is my weakness. I am a perfectionist. In my mind, this is a good thing as I want to make sure the work I am putting out there is my very best. But being a perfectionist is not only a time-waster, it’s procrastinating.

You may often feel as if you’re not good enough, you may even have imposter syndrome adding to the problem you’re experiencing. Perfectionists tend to put things off until the last minute, or may not even try because they cannot live up to the expectations that they’ve set for themselves.

To stop this type of procrastination, it’s crucial to learn to make realistic goals so that you can meet your own expectations.

The Idealist

This procrastinator will spend their time planning and organizing without getting results. Their plan is not realistic because they don’t think of the roadblocks and obstacles that might get in their way. The moment something goes awry, they give up.

This idealist also likes to think they need a muse, or the right emotion, or the perfect space, to do the work they need to do. They will put off getting started until everything is set just right.

To stop this type of procrastination, make solid, concrete goals, that are both challenging and realistic, but broken down into achievable easy to do steps.

The Worrywart

This type of procrastinator is very negative, all doom and gloom. They may suffer from general anxiety disorder. The worrywart turns everything into a tragic catastrophe and often have tons of drama going on. They are often resistant to change and tend to fear anything new or different or unfamiliar.

To stop this type of procrastination, first, determine if medical treatment is necessary for a general anxiety disorder. Then look strategically at a task or project, and plan for all possibilities. It is essential to accept that getting caught up in so many “what if” scenarios isn’t the real problem. When the circular thoughts get out of control, take it a step farther, and plan for those possibilities.

The Adrenaline Drama

Many people claim that they work better during a crisis and with deadlines. This type of procrastination means that the person may enjoy the adrenaline rush that accompanies the drama of putting things off until the last moment.

Often this person will say that they always do their best work under pressure. I’m one of those. I think I do my best work under pressure. Sadly, this is seen as a good thing by society. Tragically, it’s a lie. Even if you’ve done your best, and the work is good, at the last minute, you can always do better when you give yourself enough time.

To stop this type of procrastination, realize that choosing to do things at the last moment is a choice you’re making, not something you have to do. Reward yourself for setting up the project in advance and working on it a little at a time.

The Rebel

Many people who suffer from this type of procrastination simply hate deadlines, authority, and all expectations from others. They think of themselves as a free spirit.

The hallmark of this type of procrastination is that the person is overt about doing things their own way, including reinventing the wheel if they deem it necessary.

To stop this type of procrastination, understand that you do have choices, even when under someone else’s authority, such as with work, school, or even as an independent contractor with clients. Avoiding deadlines isn’t going to lead to success.

The People Pleaser

Many people are procrastinators only due to being overworked. They’ve overscheduled themselves to the point of overwhelm and then tend to miss deadlines or just not do anything because it’s so much, they don’t know where to start.

This type of person often does not know how to say no. They think they can do everything, yet they cannot. They don’t know how to set the right type of boundaries.

To stop this type of procrastination, you must learn to do is say no. Start saying no or at least, “let me check my calendar” before saying yes. It’s okay to have free time for yourself and to do the things you do well in the time necessary and set by you.

Regardless if you are experiencing one type or a combination of the types of procrastination, it’s important to identify when it’s happening. Once you name the type and your reasons, then you’ll be able to reverse it.

Are You Procrastinating?

We’ve all done it. You know you need to get out of bed, but you keep pushing the snooze button. You need to study for a test but suddenly want to clean the fridge. You need to write 5000 words for your book, but you surf the internet instead. You need to catch up on your bookkeeping, but you clean your email instead.

The list goes on and on. You may not know it, but you’re procrastinating. Let’s look at some signs that may help you figure out when you’re procrastinating. Being mindful of your thoughts and feelings is an excellent start to stopping procrastination habits.

You Have Negative Thoughts About the Task – Break down the work into smaller chunks and give yourself a tighter deadline to ward off the downward spiral of negative thinking.
You Find Things to Do Other Than What Needs to Be Done – Force yourself to start the task and stick to it. Add the other things like the dishes, cleaning the baseboards, or other busy tasks that don’t have deadlines looming, to your to-do list in order of importance so you can see for yourself that it can wait.
You Do Mindless Things Instead of What You Need to Do – This is classic procrastination. You find yourself spending four hours playing Words with Friends or other games, or mindlessly watching videos of cute puppies when you have something else to do. To limit this, set break timers. For example, take 15 minutes to check your Facebook. If you need more time, then schedule it for the end of the day, when you’ve completed your tasks.
You Avoid Seeing or Thinking About What You Need to Do – Keeping your “head in the sand” is not a positive or effective tactic for dealing with things. If you find yourself avoiding a task, especially if it’s important, like paying quarterly taxes, understand that by avoiding it you’re making a choice and it may have consequences.
You Keep Waiting for The Right Time That Never Comes – The right time will never come. Set up concrete steps that can help you realize your dreams, and implement them.
You Downgrade the Importance of The Thing – You have already determined the importance and priority of your tasks when you added them to your list. If you start making excuses or decide it isn’t important to do when you decided, you need to look at your overall objectives and re-do your task list accordingly.
You Keep Learning Instead of Implementing What You’ve Learned – The “professional student”. You like learning about things, but not so great at implementing. Learning is never a bad thing, but you need to set a goal to put what you’ve learned into practice. If you learn about marketing funnels but never do them, you’re never going to experience the benefits.
You Keep Making Yourself Busy – You know the person who is always busy but never seems to accomplish much. If that’s you, you’re always cleaning, but your house is always a mess. You’re always working, but you never finish anything you start because you’re always starting new projects, at the same time. To stop this, pick one thing to complete before saying yes again.

Tips to Stop Procrastination

Now that you know how to recognize the different types of procrastination that may be affecting your productivity and causing you to waste time, let’s talk about ways to stop putting things off and start managing your time.

Set SMART Goals

Set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-dependent.

An example of a smart goal:

“I will finish writing my 80,000-word (specific) romance novel by December 20^th, 2020 (timely) by writing 2000 words (realistic) a day five days a week, (measurable) Monday – Friday writing from 2 pm until 4 pm each day.” (attainable)

Plan Your Task List

Start with a planner and enter long-term and short-term planning that covers yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily planning. As you create your long- and short-term planning, you will start to identify potential roadblocks and will be able to plan actions to take in advance.

You can also take this time to determine which are urgent and important and must be completed by you, and which you might want to delegate or outsource.

Break Big Tasks Down

When you are being specific about your goals, remember that any big goals need to be broken down into smaller tasks. For example, if you are working on household organization and minimizing the things you have, don’t plan to do it all in one day. Instead, break it down to small daily tasks that will, over the course of the year, add up to an organized and decluttered home.

Develop Positive Habits

The best way to ensure that you end procrastination entirely is to replace your bad habits with good habits. For example, if you tend to press the snooze button each morning, move the alarm to a point where you cannot touch it or turn it off with your voice without fully getting up. If you tend to put off getting in your 10K steps, do that first thing instead of later. If you are always looking at the negative side of things, then come up with three positive thoughts each time you have a negative thought.

Visualize What Being Done Looks Like

One thing that can really help if you are a procrastinator is to practice visualizing what is being done and what it feels like to do that in the timeline given to the best of your ability. Don’t let that push you into perfectionism. Remember, perfection doesn’t exist and never will.

Ask Yourself: What’s the Worst That Can Happen?

One way to stop procrastination is to ask yourself what is the very worst that can happen. Go ahead and think about it. The trick here is to be realistic in your analysis of what the worst is that can happen. Say your biggest fear out loud, adjust your goal to account for possibilities, and move forward anyway.

Reward Yourself for a Job Done

Reward yourself when you succeed. Most people who set up and follow a plan overcome procrastination and become more productive. why not give yourself a reward for doing it?

Stopping procrastination requires that you first recognize it, and then accept that you’re doing it, and then make plans to stop doing it. Once you realize you’re procrastinating, you can figure out how to work around it and get the task done.

I hope you have enjoyed this four-part mini-series on Time Management as much as I enjoyed putting it together. I gave you a lot of thought-provoking information as well as tips to help you manage your time. To further help you, I have created a workbook you can use to help identify your time vampires, sets goals, and make a plan. The download link is below.

Use the workbook along with the other guides in this series to take control and manage your time.

Part I – What Is Your Time Vampire

Part II – 12 Steps to Vanquish Your Time Vampires

Part III – Improve Focus and Productivity for Better Time Management

Part IV – The Truth About Procrastinating

The Truth About Procrastinating Read More »

A Simple Guide to Creating a Realistic Business Plan

Business, Goals and Business Planning

A Simple Guide to Creating a Realistic Business Plan

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Pablo Picasso

I can start and end this post with Picasso's quote; it says it all. The truth is most businesses that fail, or owners that burn out do so due to a lack of planning.

Many small business owners think their home or small business does not need a real business plan because they are not trying to get a business loan. So why do you need to do all that planning? For starters, if you want to succeed, and you want it to be repeatable, and you want to avoid the potential for burnout, you must develop a business plan. A business plan will help you structure, run, and grow your business realistically and sustainably. And guess what? Creating a business plan isn’t even hard to do. So let’s learn how to make a one-page business plan for your home or small business right now.

Think of your business plan like an owner's manual; it should be specific to your business and include as much information as you need to help guide you with your business. Let's look at the below seven key elements that should be included in your one-page business plan.

Describe the Problem

You’ll want to write a detailed description of the problem you can solve for your customers, along with any relevant data describing how you can do that.

Your Product or Service

This is the solution to the problem above, so you’ll want to go through each product or service you offer and describe how it solves the customer's problem. Keep in mind that your plan does not have to be contained to only one page. If you have more than one solution, this area might take more than one page; however, going through this can help you with marketing later.

How You Make Money

This is considered your business model. Therefore, it is important to answer these five questions:

How will you make money?
How much will it cost you to make money?
What is the price the customer will pay for the solution?
How will the customer pay - online service such as PayPal or Stripe, check, cash?
What are the terms - payable on receipt, net 30 days? Will they need to pay before services are rendered, and if not, will you require a deposit?

Describe Your Customer

Understanding your target market is an essential component of your business plan and your business planning needs. Include a customer avatar through the buying journey. Talk about how many customers there are and how much you can earn from each customer throughout their life cycle.

Describe How You’re Different

What sets you apart from your competition? This is called your “competitive advantage” in business. It’s how you use your differences to stand out from the competition and create customer loyalty.

Describe Your Team

Even if it’s just you, it helps to write down all the tasks and roles to accomplish to make this business work. Then, include the technology you can use, such as email marketing software, funnel software, and other automation.

If you plan to outsource anything, write that down too. Maybe the first year you’re doing it yourself, but include financial metrics that trigger outsourcing or major software purchases.

Include Key Financial Metrics

You need to know what your budget is for marketing, software, outsourcing, and so forth. This is often called a Financial Summary in a business plan. You’ll want to include figures for now and your future as you forecast potential sales. Finally, you’ll want to add what funding you need right now to get started or to move forward with your business.

For now, focus on writing a summary of each section to see what needs to be done. Then, as you move forward, you can add more information to the plan, which may make it grow past the one page, but it will be a helpful exercise to help you keep on moving toward your goals.

And, as you move toward your goals, remember one of my favorite Yogi-isms, "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else." - Yogi Berra. Writing down a realistic business plan that balances with your entire life will help you see your goals and objectives more clearly and plainly, thus allowing you to really accomplish what you set out to do rather than keeping it as a dream.

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3 Tips to Avoid Small Team Burnout

Business, Goals and Business Planning, Helpful Tips

3 Tips to Avoid Small Team Burnout

A recent study found that staff members in small firms, with fewer than 10 employees, are less likely to take vacation days. One reason for this is that these employees are not sure if there is anyone who can cover for them during their absence. However, these small teams actually lose productivity and the quality of their work diminishes when they do not take time off.

If you own or manage a small team, create a workflow to accommodate for time off. Here are a few tips for filling in when a key player is on vacation or is suddenly away:

1. Set up a clear process for decision-making and hand over responsibilities while they are away

Create a workflow that includes assigning roles as well as delegating decisions to individuals who feel most comfortable with them. Then, set up a time with the delegates to review the goals for each position and any other pertinent information.

2. Keep Everyone Updated and in the Loop

When a planned vacation is on the horizon, it's easy enough to schedule some time with the delegate and get them up to speed. But what if someone has to leave for an emergency, such as medical or a death in the family? Obviously, there isn't time to brief whoever will be filling in. Add some extra time in your weekly staff meetings to highlight updates and keep everyone in the loop.

3. Create an easy way for team members to track what's getting done in their absence

Sometimes it's critical we stay in touch or be aware of what's happening in the office while out. Email is certainly one way, but not the most efficient. Using project management software like ClickUp or Asana will allow staff members to check in and track what's getting done, or decide if they need to put out any fire that suddenly pops up. Most project management programs today have chat functionality as well as a desktop version and mobile apps to help team members stay connected. You can find project management links and other helpful software tools on our Resource page.

Everyone needs downtime to maintain a work-life balance, but their time off should not bring your business to a halt. Developing your workflow to allow for planned, and unplanned, time off for your staff will help keep the team motivated and more engaged with their tasks at hand.

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Could You Be A Workaholic?

Business, Helpful Tips, Time Management

Could You Be A Workaholic?

I always knew I was a workaholic. Both my parents are Type-A personalities and I suspect, workaholics, so I come by it honestly. Today is National Workaholics day, so I thought I would dig into the phenomenon a little more, and was surprised to see it is a treatable condition!

Work addiction, often called workaholism, is a real mental health condition. Like any other addiction, work addiction is the inability to stop the behavior.

Some signs of a workaholic may include:

Working late and/or taking work home often and unnecessarily.
Checking messages at home, or at inappropriate times such as during family dinners, holidays.
Consistently canceling plans.
Your relationships are suffering because you are always working.
Lack of sleep or poor sleep.
You're defined by your work

Do not confuse workaholism with long hours, however, as there may be times you will need to work longer hours or cancel some plans, that doesn't necessarily mean you're a workaholic. The same goes if you just love your work so much you work more than an average "40-hour week", which means you're probably engaged, not a workaholic.

So then what is a workaholic? The dictionary defines a workaholic as a person who compulsively works hard and long hours. They might as well put my picture in the definition! It is not uncommon for me to put 18-hour days in, or to get up in the middle of the night and check email, or jot down notes for my blog. I've even been known to forget to eat! But this isn't something new for me. I've worked like this for as long as I can remember. I was always finding extra work to do, taking work home, and working long hours. I thought I was just a hard worker, trying to show my worth. Turns out I'm a bonafide workaholic (ok, tell me something I didn't know!)

Workaholism can become a serious condition, and if left untreated can lead to impaired cognitive functions stemming from sleep deprivation, affect mental and physical health, and even create conflict and discontent in your personal relationships. Ladders.com published indicators of workaholism to look out for. Take a look at these 5 signs of workaholism and see where you land:

1. Workaholics have anxiety

Do you gain a sense of comfort when working? Do you feel guilty or restless if you are not busy doing something? I personally can not, not, be doing something. I always have 10-15 or more computer windows and Chrome tabs open so I can easily and quickly switch between tasks rather than take any downtime.

2. Work is priority #1

Workaholics will put the job before and above all else. Holidays, family time, it doesn't matter. A workaholic spends little-to-no time connecting with others and will always arrange their schedules so work comes first.

3. No social life

As I mentioned above, a workaholic has very little time for socializing. Some may even stress out from the guilt of doing something for themselves. A workaholic must make themselves completely available and indispensable to their job and have oftentimes been accused of being a martyr.

4. Won't admit the problem

A workaholic cannot admit they have a problem, or they might not even realize it. Working long hours, "to the bone", is acceptable in our society and quite often expected.

5. They're unhappy

Oftentimes a workaholic doesn't even like their job, but they have a need to remain busy rather than have nothing to do.

If you find yourself in any of these signs there are some ways you can address the unhealthy behavior. Plan activities for the end of the workday, and don't cancel them. Other ways you can balance your work and home life are by reading books, listening to music, or doing something that prompts inspiration.

Could You Be A Workaholic? Read More »

Organizational Efficiency: Automate Your Business Finances

Bookkeeping, Business, Goals and Business Planning, Helpful Tips, Time Management

Organizational Efficiency: Automate Your Business Finances

Every business must figure out how they plan to keep track of income and expenses and set up benchmarks for planning purposes. In Organizational Efficiency: The Anatomy of your Business, I showed you how automating your business helps free up your valuable time to do more money-making activities. The poster child for automation is business finances. Think about it, most of your business finance tasks are recurring and rarely change, making it perfect for automation! The tools that exist today, such as Quickbooks and Xero, are easy to use, inexpensive, and work great. Today, most bookkeeping software, even Go Daddy’s version, will automatically book your purchases and income for you and categorize the expense, saving you hours! It doesn’t get much easier than that!

Below are some finance tasks you can easily automate:

Invoicing and Reminders

Send recurring invoices automatically based on the criteria you set up. You can also set up auto-reminders for invoices that might need a little tweaking before they go out.

What’s more, when your client clicks the invoice to pay, the software automatically records the payment.

Payroll

If you have employees, then you know how timely payroll can be! Investing in payroll software can save you time and money.

Depending on the size of your staff or how many contractors you have, having an automated system will help ensure your people are paid on time, and letting them self-manage their pay helps save you time. Look at your bookkeeping software to determine if there are add-ons to help automate this or try using SurePayRoll.

Bill Paying

Set up automatic payments through your bank or credit card company, so you don’t have to think about them every month. Another plus, automatic payments prevent late fees!

Storing Records and Receipts

Use receipt scanning apps like Wave to take a picture of your records and receipts so that it’s always there when you need it. Your accountant will thank you!!

Expense Management

Managing expenses, especially when you’re away from your office, is easy today with software like Zoho Expense and fylehq.com that help you collect receipts, appropriately book the expense, and so forth. Even your existing bookkeeping software may have an option.

Investing and Saving

The truth is, if you don’t invest and save on a regular basis, you won’t do it. Set up automatic transfers with your bank to send money to your investments and savings accounts, whether personal or business finances.

Automating your finances helps you avoid making the same steps over and over again. There is no reason to repeat tasks today when there is software available to do it for you. You can save hours each day by implementing these financial automation tips and tools.

Download our free Organizational Efficiency Workbook and start taking control of your time!

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Organizational Efficiency: The Anatomy of Your Business

Business, Goals and Business Planning, Time Management

Organizational Efficiency

The Anatomy of Your Business

The first thing to think about when you seek to make your days more manageable and more effective are the parts of your small business, the anatomy. What parts of your business are essential to your success? You'll need to look at your situation for each business to determine it, but this can get you started.

While all businesses share the same fundamental parts, some businesses, especially home solopreneurs, may place importance on different functions depending on their goals. But these potential essential parts of your small business bear consideration so that you can create a solid automation plan.

I will show you how you can create organizational efficiency in all areas of your business, no matter what your business type. This is not about starting a new business but rather how to achieve operational excellence in your business by minimizing waste and maximizing values. Make sure you download the accompanying Workbook and follow along to achieve organizational efficiency.

Organizational Efficiency Workbook

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What's Your Business Type?

Knowing how you have structured your business is vital to determine before you start your automation plans. For example, the way you run and automate an online store where people purchase products will be somewhat different from someone who offers courses or one-on-one personal services.

When you understand the core business, you will know what you sell, who you are selling it to, where your buyers are, and how to find them. You will also see how you're going to distribute the product or serve the customer. Additionally, you know how you stand out from the competition, and you use that to your advantage by differentiating yourself in the marketplace.

So, what is your business type?

Do you have an online store where you sell any type of product, physical or digital? There are many automation tips you can use for online stores.

Do you offer virtual services? Most businesses moved to virtual during the pandemic and continue to stay virtual due to convenience and cost savings. Services offered could range from administrative, one-on-one coaching, social media management, online business management, and so forth. As a service-based business, you will want to organize your business and market yourself differently from an online store where you don't speak to the customers directly yourself and sell products directly.

You may also offer only virtual support and consulting without providing direct service. For example, you may coach your clients to create a sales page, set up a freebie, or set up a discovery call, but you don't do it yourself; you advise them on what to do, and the client with their team does it. This is an entirely different business structure than a business that does the services directly or delivers the product directly.

Suppose you offer classes and "how-to" information to your customers via courses, classes, and content. If you have a business that provides classes, either self-paced or teacher-led, this is a training business. A training business sometimes needs more personal input and engagement than a storefront that sells the complete self-paced course.

There are numerous opportunities for automation in each of these business structures. Get out your workbook and write it out:

What is the composition of your business?
What do you do for customers and clients, and how do you do it?
Are you hands-off or hands-on, or a combination of both?

The more you can document how your business works, the easier it will be to find ways to automate and outsource.

Workbook Task: write out your business structure

Organizational Efficiency Workbook

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What's Your Job as The Owner of Your Business?

As a small business owner, you probably think that you have a lot of jobs to do. Some people like to describe the job of a business owner as one that wears many hats. However, your main job description as a business owner is to plan and organize the daily operations of your business.
On any given day, you may be responsible for:

Developing your business plans
Arrange financing
Hiring staff or contractors
Reviewing sales
Developing marketing strategies
Overseeing daily activities
Identifying opportunities

All these jobs represent your primary function as a business owner, analyzing the performance, whether it is automation or human, to minimize risk. You do not need to do the tasks yourself physically. Remember, your job as a business owner is that of risk management. Realistically, you may have to wear a lot of hats at first, doing all the tasks; the trick is, figuring out when it's time to let go.

Finding and setting up automation in your business is one of your roles as a business owner. By doing so, you will reduce risks associated with your business because you are going to ensure those tasks get done in a timely fashion by someone (or something) who knows what they're doing.

The more you can automate or outsource, the faster your business will grow because you're going to free up your time so you can discover new opportunities for your business.

Do You Know What You Do All Day?

As a business owner, you have a lot on your plate. But, to figure out how to automate your business, you first need to know, in detail, what you do all day long. This exercise will aid you in determining which tasks can be automated, which can be outsourced, and even whether it's something you should be doing at all.

You will have daily tasks, weekly tasks, monthly tasks, and even quarterly and yearly tasks in every business. The best thing to do is get out a calendar and enter the items you know you have to do.

For example, you have to pay quarterly taxes, and you have to balance your books at the end of the month. You must buy a business license each October or January depending on your location and the rules and laws in your area. What you know has to be done should be entered into your calendar and block off the approximate time it will take you to do it.

But what about the daily things you do that generate your income. When it comes to generating revenue, it's essential to specify which actions you are doing that generate income and which activities you're doing that support generating income. Go through the steps you take in your day and write down what you're doing, step by step.

Coaches' example of a typical day:

Business: Coaches retired teachers starting a second career as independent course and project designers.
Morning: Checks the mail, email, and Trello to determine if there are any fires to put out before diving into the day. Calls her group coaching clients for the weekly group coaching session. Writes product educational and nurturing emails for a new one-on-one coaching product ready to launch.
Afternoon: Records part of an online development course. Transcribes the group call and sets up her part as a standalone presentation video.
Evening: Answers coaching client questions for those who signed up to receive daily emails and, using automation, schedules delivery in the morning.

Of course, this one day is not representative of all the money-making tasks this coach does, nor is it a complete picture of what happens in the business overall. Still, it does give you a great idea about where to start automating and even outsourcing. Once it's written out and you visually see all that you do, it becomes easier to know where you can improve your process.

Workbook task: Take the time to write out every task you do or need to do each day.

Organizational Efficiency Workbook

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How to Do More with Less

Many of us believe that being successful means being busy. The truth is, being busy does not mean that you are productive, and many times, quite the opposite. Did you know that multitasking makes you LESS efficient and thereby unproductive? You can also be busy doing the wrong things. The truth is successful people know that getting more done with less implies that the impact you make is more significant than your effort. Now that's a success!

So how do you do more with less? First, you need to Understand your key objectives. What is the point of doing a particular task? Does this task impact any of your critical business objectives or the objective of the one task?

If it's not a front-burner task or something that only you can do, put it on the list for automation and outsourcing.

Once you clean up your list and down to the tasks you need to do, it's time to get organized. Add them to your calendar and create your schedules realistically. For example, you know a task takes two hours and that you need some setup time, so plan three hours. You also want to batch like tasks together. The purpose of this is the fewer steps you can take, the better. For example, if you need to do bookkeeping, save all your booking entries to do one day a week instead of doing it daily.

Next, you want to make sure you are using the right tools. If a tool exists to help streamline your business and eliminate busy work, you need it. There are so many tools out there, developed because of a need, by business owners just like you. I've listed a few in the workbook to help get you started. You can also check out our Resources page to see what we use and recommend.

Now put it into action! Remember when I said turn off all distractions? That goes the same for your tasks. Set up your workspace to eliminate distractions and interruptions. Turn off notifications, your phone, the TV, or anything that can take your mind off what you are doing. Set a timer for each task and track how you are spending it; you will be surprised by the insight you will gain here! Time tracking also helps you gain a better understanding of how long your tasks take.

Remember that being organized in your business is part of what a business owner does. Business owners reduce risk in their business by organizing, planning, and generating new ideas that create new opportunities.

Workbook task: look at each task and prioritize by the impact and effectiveness

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To learn more, check out our 4-part Time Management series starting with https://thetaskva.com/what-is-your-time-vampire/

The Ultimate Boost in Productivity: Automation and Outsourcing

Being productive is an essential element in any business owner's life. Business owners are busy and need to use every moment as efficiently and effectively as possible. Most business owners continually research ideas that will boost their productivity, but the truth is the ultimate boost in productivity will come from a combination of automation and outsourcing.

Now that you have taken the time to write out your business goals, understand your core business, and audited your internal processes, it's time to apply that knowledge to help you with automating your systems or outsourcing.

Remove Bottlenecks

When you start to automate and outsource tasks in your business as you develop each process, you will notice that bottlenecks are a thing of the past. Because the truth is, in most small businesses, especially those run by people starting them from home with no business experience, the bottleneck is the business owner.

When you want to outsource or automate something, you will need to write down the process to visualize every step, including the impact of the actions. Through these business processes, you will create a situation where you improve every single function you have.

Sometimes lack of skill causes a roadblock. Sometimes you may lack desire or energy because everything becomes so overwhelming. But whatever the reason, if you are engaged in organizing and planning and focused on automating and outsourcing, ensuring that others are responsible for their tasks, you are going to get more done.

Even if you do not have a skill, you can find it in software or find it in an individual or company. Simply put, a sole proprietor or a small business can perform like a big business due to increased capabilities.

Reduce Errors and Mistakes

When you work with software, fewer mistakes will happen, provided you set it up correctly. If you don't know how to do something, you're going to make mistakes as you learn. But if you hire an expert, they're going to make fewer mistakes. If you use technology and set it up correctly, there will be no mistakes.

The truth is, hiring experts or using automation software can reduce your errors and mistakes so much that the cost will produce a fantastic ROI (return on investment).

There has never been a better time to be a small business owner! There is an endless resource of technology to implement in your automation plan and plenty of people to hire in your outsourcing plan. Figure out what you want to do, set your goals for doing it, and then follow through.

The work you produce will be much better when you work with technology and contractors to see your vision come to reality.

Spend Time on Higher Value Projects

Focusing on your primary business, which is the core of your business's existence, is the biggest reason of all to automate and outsource. While you may need to do things in your business as a job, once you reach specific benchmarks, you should automate those tasks that you can and outsource the others to spend time on business planning and idea generation, which is the key to business growth.

When you have more time to judge how your business is performing, and you've developed each process to be the most efficient possible, you're going to have more doors open for you when you need them.

Workbook task: develop your processes

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To Outsource or Automate, that is the Question

There are numerous things you can automate in your business. Some things you may have already thought about or started, such as email marketing. But others you may not have thought of yet, such as auto file generation, event registration, data collecting, file creation, document sharing, and form filling.

From time tracking to expense management, anything that happens repeatedly is ripe for automation, and think of the many saved hours in your workday and work year. Those are hours you can use to create even more fantastic products and solutions for your ideal audience.

Automate

If you can document the steps you do for a task, you can likely automate a lot of it. From using macros within your documentation to implementing new automation tech, there is probably a way to do it.

The best way to determine what you want to automate is to track what you do each day, week, month, and year. Review the daily process you recorded in your workbook. For tasks that repeat, do a little research about how other people automate that task. You may be shocked to learn how simple automating your business is. Automation is not nearly as expensive or complicated as you may think.

Outsource

As you learn more about business automation, it is essential to understand another way to automate your business, which is by hiring someone else to do the work for you. No automation plan is complete without an outsourcing plan.

Hiring experts to deliver work for you on your behalf is called outsourcing. If you cannot automate it, you can likely get someone else to do it for you. If you outsource to a contractor, they are not employees because you can only make requirements on the deliverables but not on how they use their time creating and producing the deliverables.

A few common areas to outsource are legal work, finance, technology needs, marketing, graphic design, customer care, administrative tasks, and writing. Most of these tasks are cumbersome and overwhelming, and small business owners can save a boatload of time, stress, and money by outsourcing.

As a business owner, you should make it your goal to outsource or automate almost every task in your business. When you outsource more, you free up your time to focus on what you do best.

Wrap Up and Where to Go from Here

Beginning today, start tracking what you do every single day. Don't make any changes yet; simply follow what you're doing. Pay attention to the things that you do that are repetitive. Also, note the tasks you would rather not be doing or spend a lot of time figuring out how to do.

Make a list of these tasks, and then look at the software and tools you are already using to find out if you can add features or integrations with other solutions to get more out of what you're doing.

Most of all, remember that productivity does not mean that you have to be busy all the time. The opposite is true. Being busy is only an indicator of movement, and all movement isn't impactful. Test your results. Measure your efforts so that you can improve as you go. Before you know it, you'll have a smooth-running, mostly automated business and finally have control over your most important resource, your time.

Download our free Organizational Efficiency Workbook and start taking control of your time!

Organizational Efficiency Workbook

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Five Fast Ways to Make Quicker and Better Decisions

Business, Goals and Business Planning, Helpful Tips, Strategic Thinking

Five Fast Ways to Make Quicker and Better Decisions

Being an efficient decision-maker can often make a difference in missed opportunities. You have to be decisive, and often you have to make quick decisions, but you want to be sure you are making the best choice. So how do you make quicker and better decisions? How do you become more accurate and effective at making decisions when it counts?

You have to be decisive. Making important decisions in less time means more power and control over your life. It also means that you will have the opportunity to gain the trust of others. Being able to make important decisions will enhance your business and personal life.

Start with making small decisions in a timely fashion to help train your brain to think through questions more quickly. You will be surprised at how quickly our brains can be conditioned. Follow these five tips to help put your decision-making process in the fast lane.

What is the Objective?

Your S.M.A.R.T. goals will play a vital part in your decision-making process. Knowing the objectives of the decision and knowing your mission will help make the decision-making process simple.

Ask Yourself: "What are we really trying to do here?"

Write it out, brainstorm, and discuss. Is it your role to solve this problem? Do you have the tools needed? It is vital that your decision, any decision, is within your mission.

Seek Out Wisdom and Knowledge

Seek out wise counsel. Really. If you are surrounded by more experienced professionals who have done what you are about to do, ask questions and inform yourself. Do needed research. Don’t let pride or proving that you have it “all under control” blind you to great resources all around you.

It Does NOT Have to be Perfect

Don’t overthink - just start. Make a plan. An imperfect, real plan. Start doing the work that is deciding and solving. Take note of the effects and response to your action. This way, you can adjust if needed.

Adjust Early...

…it’s ok to fail, but fail fast and move on.

Be humble - adjust early if needed. Don’t run the train off the track because you are unwilling to admit that you made a mistake. If your choice was wrong, own up to it in a professional way and make things right to the best of your ability. It’s better to win the fight after a change of tactics than to get knocked out by your own ego and pride.

Decision-making does not have to be tedious and stressful. An important part of the process is to know what you truly have power over, to control only what YOU can control. If it’s not your decision to make, stay out of the control room. Zero in only on what you have the ability to decide on. This means staying focused and being able to take action without becoming overwhelmed by the details.

With the right attitude, planning, and strategy, you can become a faster, more efficient, and competent decision-maker. This is a great tool for the corporate world and everyday life.

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Pros and Cons and Filing Your Taxes Early

Pros and Cons of Filing Your Taxes Early

Bookkeeping, Business, Income Tax Preparation

Pros and Cons of Filing Your Taxes Early

Do you rush to file your tax returns as soon as possible? Do you gather all your documentation and stand at the IRS virtual door on opening day? As with everything, filing early has its pros and cons, but is filing early really a good idea?? Like many things in life, the answer is, “It depends.”

Not every situation is conducive to filing early. Filing for an extension and putting it off as long as possible may make more sense for some filers. Read on to learn the good, the bad, and sometimes the downright ugly of filing early and why waiting might be best.

The Good

Your security. This is probably the best reason to file early and therefore makes #1 on my list. Filing your taxes early can protect you from would-be cyber thieves.

The IRS will only allow one return per social security number, and it’s first come first served. If your social security number has been hijacked, you will get a rejection notice from the IRS.

At this point, you will need to file a claim and start the process of proving your identity, and you will have to show proof you weren’t involved in committing fraud against the IRS. Most of these cases do not get resolved until after tax season. Protect yourself now! Get ahead of the cybercrooks by protecting your computer and devices. Enroll in Cybersecurity At Home and discover how quick and simple it is to secure your home network.

Receive your refund sooner. Obviously, It’s your money! Who doesn’t want their money as quickly as possible?

If you’re owed a tax refund, then the earlier you file, the faster the refund. This is especially true if you’re going to mail your return (yes, 30% still use the mail). As you can probably imagine, the IRS is less busy in February than in April.

Be free of the mental clutter. It has to get done one way or the other. It makes sense to get it over with and free yourself from it hanging over your head. Life is easier if you don’t procrastinate. Just do it.

The post office is less crowded. Remember what I said about 30% still mail their returns? That’s over 62 million of the adult US population trying to use the post office at roughly the same time. Many people don’t want to file electronically for a variety of reasons, one being security! Avoid the crowds and file early.

You won’t be late. I have a knack for stating the obvious. How can you be late if you file early?

Many of us plan to do things with the best of intentions, then life happens, and they usually end up waiting until the last minute.

I don't have to point out how risky that can be. What if you find out that you’re missing some key piece of information? What if you get sick? There are too many variables in life to put off something like filing your tax return until the last minute.

You’ll be more accurate. Starting your return early will keep you from rushing through it, thus ensuring that you have everything you need and that it’s done correctly. Remember, slow and steady wins the race. If you’re not rushed for time, you’ll be more likely to avoid errors.

The Bad

Why pay early? You want to file early when you expect a refund, but why would you want to pay early? It's your money!

If you owe the IRS, you’ll want to keep it as long as you can, maybe even make a little more in interest. It makes sense to keep your money as long as you can.

You might end up having to file a corrected return later. W-2s and 1099s are due February 1; however, It’s not uncommon to get them late or for providers to come back a month after sending your documentation and say, “Oops, we made a mistake.” Taking a little extra time to file your return will give you that much more time to gather your documents and ensure that you don’t have to do it more than once.

The Ugly

Early filers have a greater chance of being audited. If you file early, are you more likely to get audited? I’m not sure if we can ever answer that definitively. Still, it is believed that if the vast majority of the population is filing at the last minute, the odds of being selected are minimal due to the sheer number of tax returns the IRS agents must handle. Truth or fiction? No one knows, but why take a chance.

Consider the above factors when deciding to file your tax return. If you’re in a situation that puts you at risk of being audited, and you don’t need your refund or copies of your return right away, it can be wise to wait.

On the other hand, if your return is simple, you’re due a refund, and you need the refund now; there’s no time like the present to file your return.

Assess your situation and make the smart choice for your circumstances.

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SELF-SABOTAGING BEHAVIORS THAT KEEP YOUR BUSINESS FROM SOARING

Business, Helpful Tips

Self-Sabotaging Behaviors That Keep Your Business From Soaring

No matter how successful you are, at one time or another you’ll fall into the self-sabotage trap, we all do, and the price is high.

Your income will suffer.
Your self-esteem will plummet.
Your confidence will find new lows.

The result? Frustration. Burnout. Resentment of your clients, or your business, or both! Self-sabotaging behaviors lead to more self-sabotaging behaviors. Think of it as getting stuck in a revolving door. You keep pushing the door past the opening that lets you out, but never jump off.

Does this sound like you? Maybe you started a downward spiral due to all the changes with the pandemic. With all the negative reporting from the media, it wasn't difficult to do. Perhaps you are not sure. Maybe you have some sparks of recognition, but it's not that bad? No matter what level your may be, I have good news! Stopping this descent is easy when you learn to recognize the symptoms.

Procrastination

Were you going to send a proposal to a potential new client, but waited too long? Or maybe you were going to get your books in order, or make an appointment with your tax preparer, and now they’re booked solid and taxes are due in two days!

These, and other missed opportunities, can often be blamed on simple procrastination, one of the most destructive habits we fall victim to. Procrastination is what keeps us working late at night to make a deadline, costs us money in late fees, and even costs us business.

If you are prone to procrastination, here are a few techniques you can try to put an end to it:

Recognize your fear. What often keeps us stuck is simple fear. We are afraid of failing, afraid we’ll look bad when compared to other proposals, so we just don’t send one. But if you want to be successful in business, you must learn to recognize and face your fears, then do the work anyway. What if it doesn't work out? Learn from it, dust yourself off, and get back on that horse!

It's ok to fail, but fail fast." - Leonard Lauder, Chairman Emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc

Visualize the life and business you desire. Imagine what it will be like to have that amazing business you’ve been dreaming about. Picture your ideal workday, daydream about that fabulous vacation you’ll take, and imagine your ideal client. Put together a vision board and look at it, really look at it, once a week. Always keep your goals top of mind.
Reward yourself. It’s okay to give yourself a little incentive for getting things done. It’s even number six of the Eight-Stage Change Process John Kotter talks about in Leading Change. He suggests generating short-term wins and “visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible”, that includes you! Take yourself out to lunch; buy a new pair of shoes; take an afternoon off. Do what’s most likely to motivate you to power through your fears and take the next step.

Failing To Complete Your Projects

Be honest. How many partially planned programs, and unfinished projects are on your task list right now?

If you’re like a lot of entrepreneurs, the answer is probably several.

You started all of them with great enthusiasm. You planned out the project, created the workflow, and maybe even outlined the marketing strategy. And then…you just stopped working on it.

Maybe you tell yourself that you’re too busy. Maybe you “need to do some more research.” Or maybe you simply lost interest. But the truth is, none of those are the real reason. For many, this self-sabotaging habit is a symptom of a lack of confidence, and it is keeping you from the success you deserve.

Consider this: You cannot know the actual success rate of a program you have never finished, and you cannot improve upon something you have never completed. So rather than filling your task list with half-finished projects, power through and start getting them done.

“Make a commitment to focus on the priority task now, not later, not even tomorrow.” - How To Finish Everything Your Start, Jan Yager

Negative Self-Talk

“I’ve never been good with money.”

“I hate budgets.”

“I’ll never be a 6-figure earner.”

“My market won’t pay premium prices.”

If you have ever heard these statements come out of your mouth—or even in your head—then you are engaging in a damaging habit known as negative self-talk. By telling yourself these lies (and yes, they are lies) you are reinforcing the beliefs that go along with them.

“Thoughts become things!” - Mike Dooley; excerpt from The Secret, Rhonda Byrne

Tell yourself you are not good with money, and you won’t be. Believe that budgets are horrible chores to be disparaged, and you’ll resist creating one. Convince yourself that you can’t earn a 6-figure income, and you won’t.

It’s not “the secret.” It’s a scientific fact known as a self-fulfilling prophecy, this kind of self-talk results in poor performance simply because we act as if it’s already true.

The first step toward changing your negative self-talk is to simply acknowledge that you do it. Tick a mental checkbox every time you catch yourself making negative statements, whether out loud or in your head.

The next time you catch yourself saying “I’m no good with money,” take a minute to recall 5 instances where you were good with money. Maybe you paid off your credit cards or saved for a house or built an emergency fund. Rephrase your self-talk to, “I used to be bad with money, but now I make smart choices to achieve my goals.”

Just as negative self-talk becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, so does positive self-talk. Re-frame your thinking, and your business finances will certainly improve.

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