Simply Business Coaching

Productivity Secrets for the Time-Pressed Business Owner

It seems nearly every busy business owner wishes they were able to magically add more hours to their day, especially at this time of year when we’re trying to cram in all the extra Christmas-related tasks on top of an already full agenda.  If only that was possible!  But there are some alternatives that have a similar effect, here are a few quick thoughts to get you started...

1.    Commit to a Daily ‘Will Do’ Action
This is the one activity you commit to do, even if it’s the only thing that gets done that day.  Decide on it the night before, oh and make sure it is a step that’s achievable in one day, and not an ‘elephant-sized’ project.  Repeat this every day for a week, and watch those actions stack up!

2.    Reduce your working day
If the number of hours you work in your business has crept up to a point where it is regularly taking over time you should be spending with your family, or simply relaxing, then you need to do something about it.  Work has a strange habit of expanding to fill the time available - but the opposite is also true!  If you set yourself shorter working hours, it’s surprising how much more can be achieved when you’re up against the clock.

3.    Focus on the 3 Activities that Matter
As someone who freely admits to being easily distracted by new stuff to explore on the internet (and Twitter!), this one always brings me back on track.  Every activity you do in your business should fall into one of the following 3 categories:  1) Doing client work; 2) Looking for new clients; 3) Growing the business.  Anything else should either be outsourced/delegated or put to one side until you have time to spare.

I recommend you print out this list and keep a copy somewhere prominent to act as a reminder.  Let me know how you get on!

What would you add?

The Snow Brings an Unexpected Gift

Where I live on Hayling Island, snow doesn't feature very often in our weather forecast.  So when  the first sprinkling of this winter arrived yesterday morning, I knew it would mean chaos on the already icy local roads.  And of course I had 2 meetings in the diary, both arranged before the current bad weather started.  Fortunately both parties happily agreed to postpone until conditions improve and I've been to able to stay in the warm (and once again count my blessings that I work from home!).

As I read the tweets and Facebook updates posted by other local fellow business owners online, I could see that many of them had made the same sensible decision, even though for some it meant a loss of income. 

What I noticed most were the little comments about unexpectedly having time to do other things.  For example, instead of being where they would have been but for the bad weather, they were now able to catch up on tasks in the office.  Some were returning phone calls; replying to emails; tidying the office -  or in my case - writing this blog post.

For all small business owners, going out to meetings and networking events is important.  But just occasionally, it's a good idea to set aside time to spend on those little jobs that tend to build up while we're out and about.  After all, you can't always rely on the snow to keep you in the office!

If you've had some unexpected time in the office recently because of the bad weather, how did you spend it? Please share in the comments below :)

 

Why Work Doesn't Happen at Work

This 15 minute video with Jason Fried of 37signals (and co-author of ‘Rework’ which I review here) probably won’t go down very well in big companies, but there’s a lot of truth in his observations.

Mr Fried makes some sweeping generalisations (often disagreed with in the comments), but he also packs in a lot of thought-provoking nuggets into such a short talk - and his suggestions can be applied to any sized business.

Distractions & Interruptions - we self-employed people already know that in order to be creative and actually get work done, we need to have long periods of uninterrupted time, wherever they are to be be found (not necessarily at our desks).

Meetings & Managers (or M&Ms) - watching this makes me give thanks (yet again!) that I no longer work in the corporate world.  At my last such company, so many meetings were held each day, that you’d often find more staff in the conference rooms than working in the offices!

Where does your best work happen? I'd love you to share in the comments below!

 

Google Mail Priority Inbox, Spam Messages and Other Filters

I was already impressed with Google Mail - honestly their spam filter is brilliant!  In fact, after a year of using this account, the first junk emails only arrived the other day. 

Just in case this happens to you, I'll divert from my intended topic and explain what happened and how I dealt with it.

Dealing with Spam Messages

There were 3 messages purporting to come from LinkedIn Communication, called LinkedIn Alerts and saying they were a REMINDER of new invitations.  Scared the heck out of me when I clicked to amend my email notifications and got a red warning notice!!  As you can imagine I got out of there very quickly.

After selecting the rogue messages and reporting them as spam, it was a surprise to receive another very similar email a short while later.  Google was obviously torn between delivering valid LinkedIn messages to me and sifting out the bad stuff.  To help things along, I created a 'Filter' so that everything coming from that specific email address AND containing certain words would be deleted and banished to the Bin.  (When I checked a couple of days later, the rogue 'filtered' email had been joined by further 24 .... gotcha!)

So, back to the Priority Inbox feature

As with any filtering (or spam) feature, when you first start using it you have to 'teach' it.  In this case you teach Gmail which messagees are important to you (a priority) and which aren't.  It catches on quite quickly.

Next, the Priority Inbox screen is a vast improvement on the previous Inbox which simply displayed every incoming email in date & time order.  I found this soon became overwhelming, and it was hard to locate individual emails when I wanted to.  Sorting out the Inbox and moving messages into different folders helped but was a bit of a chore and had to be done frequently in order to keep the number of emails manageable.

With the Priority Inbox screen, emails are presented in 4 sections:  First the Priority messages (as taught by you) - I love this as client emails are obvious when they come in and stay at the top of the page until I deal with them.

The next 3 sections of the inbox are for you to decide (in Settings).  I set up my second to display all 'Starred' messages; the third to show all messages from my 'Action Needed' label - (it's optional whether you display this third section and it's up to you which label to show) - again I'm finding it very useful to see these particular messages until I get around to taking the necessary action.  Lastly there's an 'Everything Else' section, to which are consigned the email newsletters and other non-urgent emails, until I have time to read them.

What does Working Smarter Really Mean?

'Working Smarter' is another of those sayings bandied about by management gurus, coaches and trainers.  I hold my hand up and admit to using it too!  But offering it as a suggestion to get more done without some sort of explanation is a bit like saying you know a secret and then not sharing it!  Frustrating and pointless.

So, what could ‘working smarter’ mean?  Here are some of my thoughts:

Learning how to multi-task - actually I think this belongs in the ‘working harder’ category.  Whenever I try to do more than one thing at a time, I find it requires a lot of mental energy to ensure a) nothing is forgotten, and b) that the finished result of all tasks is of high enough quality to keep my inner perfectionist happy. 

Getting someone else to do the work for you - definitely a smart move, providing you can find the right person to achieve the results you want.  Learning to let go may involve a bit of battle for control freaks.

Thinking about what you’re going to do before you do it - while this may sound like common sense, how often have you jumped into the ‘doing’ without thinking through the best way first?  Taking a little time to ponder may reveal shortcuts and useful resources hiding in your memory banks. 

Knowing when it’s time to stop doing something - this is particularly hard to do if you’ve already invested a lot of time and effort.  But if you don’t see results after a ‘reasonable’ period of time, it can also be taking stubbornness too far. 

Realising your day is full of other people’s urgent stuff - giving away your precious time by volunteering or helping out friends is admirable.  Just so long as you have that time available to give away.

Those are my initial thoughts on that well-worn saying.  What does working smarter mean to you?

If you enjoyed this post, please comment below or share it - or both ;)

When Processes Really Make a Difference

There’s often so much to do when you’re trying to grow a small business that it’s understandable when some tasks are forgotten during especially busy times.  Keeping track of what needs to be done with a traditional to-do list certainly helps for the day to day stuff - and  crossing out completed items as the day progresses is wonderfully satisfying.

I was working recently with a client who was creating an exciting new service to add to her portfolio.  There were several stages involved with this project - research, collecting together all necessary resources, production, pilot, revision, marketing, launch, sales and customer support.  Of course each stage comprised several smaller steps.  The whole project had begun to be overwhelming, especially as it had to be fitted in to my client’s already busy schedule.

Here was a case where simple lists weren’t enough to keep the project on track and it was also important for certain actions to be taken in a specific order.  Trying to make sure nothing was forgotten had started to cause sleepless nights!

An ideal solution for this project was to take the various lists for all the stages and carefully work out the order in which each individual step needed to be taken.  Sticky notes proved very helpful here!  Then, once the final sequence was agreed, a process diagram was produced.  This would act as a visual overview of the whole project. 

Here’s what an extract of what the ‘top-level’ process sequence diagram might look like:

More detailed process diagrams of each stage ensure that actions are taken in the correct order.  From these diagrams, to-do lists can be made if desired.  The project is no longer overwhelming and my client is firmly back in control.

Sometimes you need more than just lists! 

If you found this post helpful, please share it :)

10 Myths of Small Business Productivity (part two)

Here are the remaining 5 productivity myths from the list I started yesterday. 

Do you identify with any of the following?

6.    All the other projects have to be finished first
Often this is because we worry about missing deadlines, so making a note of due dates – and keeping it somewhere visible, or setting reminders – can help when juggling several projects.

7.    My internet connection is down so I can’t work 
Rather a sore point as, at the time of writing this post, my internet connection really is down (and will be for at least a week).  But, with the help of family & friends I’ll be able to do some work online – after preparing it offline.  (Sidebar:  Without the temptation to ‘just look this up’ on the internet or have a quick look at Twitter, I’m finding it easier to stay focused on writing this week’s articles.)

8.    I have to type up a detailed plan first
Usually a mindmap drawn on paper (or on a whiteboard then photographed) is quite good enough to get started.  Keep the perfectionism for the work itself!

9.    I’ve only got 15 minutes before my next call/meeting
There are always little tasks to do that will fit into these short time slots.  Checking messages, acknowledging an email, or even engaging with a few people on Twitter.

10.    I can’t get anything done when I’m out of the office
That’s not true now with smartphones – we can read & reply to emails, respond to and make phone calls and keep updated on Twitter & Facebook.  And driving or travelling by train are both good opportunities to catch up with all those audio downloads!

Do any of the above stop you from being productive?  Please share in the comments below – and a retweet would be much appreciated if you enjoyed this post!

10 Myths of Small Business Productivity (part one)

I don’t know about you, but working alone from home sometimes means mixed results in terms of getting things done.  Some days I amaze myself by whizzing through what I thought would take me all week, but then other weeks seem to arrive and depart before I quite manage to get started :)

I was relieved to learn, from speaking with other home based business owners, that I’m not alone in finding it difficult to stay motivated and be productive all the time.

Here are some of the excuses I’ve heard (some of mine are included!)

1.    I need to make a cup of coffee first
I suppose the thinking behind this is that I don’t want to stop once I get going, so get a drink first.  But actually, I’ll enjoy that coffee much more as a reward after working for an hour or so.

2.    I’ll get more done after tidying my desk
This is pure procrastination and usually crops up when we don’t want to do a particular task.  Is it because of lack of knowledge, lack of resources or worry at not doing a good job? 

3.    I’ll be more productive .... tomorrow
Tomorrow is always the busiest day for a procrastinator!  A tip I learned from Mark Forster, to commit to completing one action each day, helps break this cycle.

4.    I don’t have enough time to finish this task today, so I’ll leave it until I do have time.
If you don’t have to get the whole job done in one go, then break it down into smaller steps and just do the first one.  That’s often enough to break through the barrier of getting started.

5.    There are too many interruptions
While you can’t stop all interruptions, you can cut them down by setting and keeping to clearly defined boundaries when it comes to friends & family. 

(part two tomorrow!)

Do any of the above resonate with you?  What stops you from being productive?  Please share in the comments below – and a retweet would be lovely if you enjoyed this post

"Get your nose out of that book!"

I used to hear that a lot when I was growing up.   I've always been a bookworm, and as this photo of my  birthday cake from a couple of years ago shows - some people believe I still am!

But now, in addition to books, I read far too many blog posts, special reports and ebooks.  The possibilities for research and learning stretch into infinity, which is wonderful if it wasn't for one teeny, tiny thing.

At some point the learning has to stop and action must start.  Funnily enough, I wrote about this a couple of months ago too! 

While I have kept to my resolution not to buy or download more 'how to' information, and have been doing a bit of virtual housekeeping, grouping downloads on a similar topic together in folders  - even deleting older downloads (it's amazing how quickly anything to do with the internet becomes outdated!)

Imagine my delight when I came across a couple of unread pdf documents that actually gave me an important missing piece of my online knowledge jigsaw puzzle.   It seems I'd downloaded them to 'read later' and then forgotten to do that.  Has that ever happened to you?

Anyhow, as a result I've been able to apply my newfound knowledge to a project which had ground to a halt because I didn't know how to do the next part.  Now I do :)

So it's time to take my nose out the books, stop learning for a while & take action!

Do you find learning gets in the way of taking action?  Please share your experience in the comments below.  And if you found this post helpful, a retweet would be appreciated!

When You're Really Busy - Stop!

It's early Monday morning and I've got a very busy week ahead - client appointments every day and, just to make things really interesting, a few project deadlines too.  Please understand that I'm not complaining, just setting the scene.

When I first saw was was in store for me in the diary, I thought the best plan would be to spend most of the weekend working to get ahead - but then realised what I really needed to do was take both days off!  Here's what led me to that conclusion:

• Whenever I work through the weekend, I feel shattered on Monday morning.  Not a good start to any week, let alone a busy one.
• Any progress made on projects would most likely be countered by sluggish productivity over the rest of the week.
• Work has a strange habit of expanding to fill available time, so would I really be getting ahead or get caught up in 'busy' work?
• It goes against everything I tell my clients to do!!

So I didn't even turn the computer on until this morning.  I spent the weekend relaxing, read a couple of paperbacks, and even had a couple of afternoon naps!

I know there will be other occasions when I do choose to work over the weekend - but only if it feels right.

As a result of switching off for a couple of days, my mind is actually clearer (even though I was totally overwhelmed last week), I feel rested and alert and excited to tackle the week ahead.

Best get on then....

What works best for you? If you enjoyed reading today's post, a retweet would be appreciated!