Do you ever find yourself hung up on perfectionism? You have a ton of things to do and instead of just making a list and taking the action and crossing things off your list, you find yourself spending valuable time on the best way to make a list and if you should have due dates or if you should rank them in terms of importance or perhaps you’re still figuring out which special new note book you should write your tasks in… or, for the techies, which is the best productivity app you should use? Ever gone down that rabbit-hole??!! Does any of this sound familiar?
I’m finding that I’m not actually so hung up on doing the task, as much as I get hung up sometimes on ‘doing the task perfectly’. It’s a distraction tactic. Spending valuable time spinning my wheels and not actually moving forward is just not acceptable to me anymore. I’m so glad I am noticing this behavior and putting a stop to it that much earlier. No, this is not an excuse to then move into beating yourself up for why you’re wasting time or why you haven’t learned from your past mistakes and why you’re still repeating old patterns… sigh – more familiar territory anyone? This is the time to notice and gently and lovingly say to yourself, there I am again, doing that thing I sometimes do and now I see it, I choose to go forward anyway…
My solution? Pick something and start. I like to have things on-line these days, synced across my phone, my iPad and laptop, so I am never far away from my list and whenever I have a few minutes, I can review and do something… Having a LO at home means my schedule is never as predictable as it used to be and there is a lot more stop and start, so I factor that in now and syncing across machines and phones works for me, so I can literally pick up where I left off, in a different room or floor of my home, without stopping to find my perfect notebook. ;o) What works for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts or comments…
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Urgent or important?
So many different things going on… I’m sure every business owner must go through… what really is important and what is urgent? Is there a difference? Of course!
Urgent to me means things that have to be done immediately, or there is an undesired consequence. Like paying a late water bill, before the water is shut off.
Important are those things that have to be in place to handle things BEFORE they become urgent! Like having a system in place to make sure bills are handled, before they are late. So if you find yourself every day handling things that are urgent, it’s time to take a step back and take a look at the bigger picture. What is the vision for the business and are there systems and structure in place to get you there?
Entrepreneurs often have to deal with a shifting landscape, business often evolves without an eye on structure, or systems and this can be problematic. Success can often be fleeting as more opportunities arise, the solo-preneur becomes less able to respond effectively and things start falling through the cracks; customers don’t get the same response times they used to get and success levels off, or worse falls away… feeding the classic feast or famine cycle that many small business owners find themselves going through. So, what’s a solo-entrepreneur to do? Cloning themselves sounds good? 🙂
The trick of course is to get the systems in place while the business is small and then stick to them when times get busier. It takes discipline and dedication to follow through and keep on top of everything, but the time taken to put systems in place early on, makes it easier to grow steadily and to more easily build a supportive team as that growth and success happens.
Are you happy with the systems you have in place? Do your systems still support your growth or have you outgrown them?
If you know you’ve reached a place where you could use some help in setting up systems and structure or overhauling and updating what you have in place – I invite you to contact Rama and let’s see what we can do together to streamline your business and get you on Auto-Pilot.
As Summer Closes
Well, another summer draws to a close, I for one am looking forward to fall, after the intense heat, it’s always such a relief to have cool evenings without an AC! And I know I’m not the only one!
What a terrific summer it has been, meeting a number of holistic business owners at the GAHP Business Breakthrough event in Madison in June, completing the GAHP VA training and getting certified, the Olympics, starting to attend other networking events in NYC, signing up for SOAR in FL in September with Heather Dominick at EnergyRich, (woohoo!), bringing new clients on board, teaching about Deliberate Creation and getting my toddler into summer camp for a couple of weeks, to prep for the coming school year… yes – lots of changes.
And more to come, I am teaching a WordPress Basics class in September, lots of moving pieces and technology to get in place in order for that to be a success. The SOAR event in Fort Lauderdale coming up in a couple of weeks, some client website projects getting close to completion, new client newsletters on the horizon, including my own (yeay!), a Health and Wellness Expo in NJ, also in September and even with all of that, the biggest event of all… my 2 year-old daughter will be starting pre-school. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now, organized chaos it maybe, but even the satisfaction of helping my wonderful clients, working from home, can’t beat the simple truth, I’m so grateful I get to do what I do, so I can be around for her. 🙂
Project Planning
What tools do most people use for project planning? Let me re-phrase that – what tool do most solo-entrepreneurs use, for project planning? Their heads! And how do I know this? I’m doing it myself!
I am spending time this month getting some ideas worked through and getting a vision of the next couple of months worked out. I am picking up more clients from networking events and teaching a class. Basically, I am getting busier. My clients have been somewhat relaxed over the summer and are now wanting to get moving as summer comes to a close and I am helping them plan out their next steps and getting it all on paper; they have some clarity and we can both make plans. Then it occurs to me – I can benefit myself by getting some plans out of my head and onto paper! Sounds so silly, but most solo business owners keep a lot of stuff in their heads! Their plans, their ideas, their knowledge, ‘who has time to get organized when there’s work to be done’? Although I see a little of that tendency in myself lately, as a project manager, I know that it’s time for me get my plans out of my head and onto paper. If you’re not a project manager – it must all still be in there somewhere?! If you need someone to help you figure it out – you know where I am. The sooner you start to document your processes, get your ideas onto paper and your projects into a plan – the sooner you can get help and really start to make progress.
Olympics!
Wow – the Olympics have just been so inspiring! London has done a tremendous job of hosting the games and for this Brit, it’s been lovely seeing pictures of London and the UK in general all day. It really is a beautiful country and makes me want to visit! And the athletes – who could fail to be moved by some of the performances we saw – wow!
I have been working on putting together some packages for my services and in honor of the Olympics, called them Gold, Silver and Bronze… different levels of time and services that my clients can now purchase to engage my services. I’m really interested in having clients that want to work with me long term, so the packages are for six months. The better I can get to know them and their business, the more value I can add. For example, I’m finding that it’s not just the fact that I can organize a business and get a picture of the workload and break it down into an actionable project plan, but by doing that, I can also remove some of the stress and guesswork from the clients shoulders, get the chaos onto paper and then I can also take the action steps to accomplish the goal, removing some of what I like to call the ‘busyness of the business’ for my client.
I’m also finding that I know a lot of people some of which can help some of the other people I know… it’s really satisfying to bring people together and create opportunities where there were none and see the clients business expand into new areas or realize benefits they might not otherwise have had access to. Yeay for adding value beyond an hour of work for x amount of dollars!
