FrontLine Results : Business Coaching

A Matter of Timing

Regular readers of this blog and my newsletter will know how I love using an old fashioned kitchen timer to boost productivity!  Over the past couple of weeks I found a couple of timer tools online and tried them out for size.

The first is Slim Timer, which is web-based and works with Firefox, Internet Explorer 6+ and Safari.  The second is Paymo, for which you need to download some software and it displays a widget on your computer screen from start-up.  Both tools also have paid versions with more features, I used the free version.

Before starting to use these tools, you first need to spend a few minutes setting up the different activities you want to track.  Whereas Slim Timer uses a very simple list, activities on Paymo can be further sub-divided into projects and again into clients; there was also an invoicing facility which would be useful if you have to submit timesheets and charge for your time.

As far as using the tools, it's a case of selecting the appropriate activity and starting the timer with a mouse click.  When you want to stop timing, you just click on 'Stop'.  I liked that with Slim Timer it's possible to stop timing one task and start timing another with a single click of the mouse.  Paymo takes a few more clicks when you wanted to change over as you have to stop, select project, select activity, then click to Start.  Both timers run in the background, ie they're not visible on screen until you want to see them.  Paymo has an annoying pop-up message if it doesn't detect any computer activity for a few minutes - it made me feel guilty if I wasn't typing all the time!

If you forget to start timing an activity or want to include time spent out of the office in a meeting, both tools are easy to edit. 

Slim Timer's reports are very readable - giving me both weekly totals and daily breakdown.  Paymo's colourful graphs looked impressive but the more detailed reports lumped everything together for the week which I found less useful for my purposes and not so easy to interpret.

My (very non-scientific) trial was undertaken to find out what activities I'm spending most of my time on.  For that purpose Slim Timer was perfectly adequate and marginally easier to use, even if it's more 'basic' in appearance.  If I were tracking lots of projects for different clients, then Paymo would have the edge in terms of extra features.

Have you tried out any online timers lately?  I'd love to know!

A 'Short & Sweet' Start to the Week

This week is going to be a busy and exciting one for me - that is to say, even busier than usual. I'm putting the finishing touches on a couple of talks for next week, planning a 'Special' radio show (details later this week!), as well as starting work with a new Mastermind group, which I'm really looking forward to. It'll be great to be a participant this time, rather than the organiser!

As we both know, there are a finite number of hours in each day, which means that something has to go (or be put on hold) to make room for the extra tasks.

So, much as I love spending time writing these blog posts, this week they're going to be a little shorter than usual.....

What have you had to give up lately to make room for something exciting?

Do you have the attention span of a butterfly?

Just as butterflies in nature flit from flower to flower, landing briefly and then moving on, butterfly business owners can’t seem to stay focused on any one topic long enough to make significant changes.

Yes, it’s the sign of a true entrepreneur to have lots of new ideas and want to pursue them. But, if those new ideas are stopping you from actually making progress – and more importantly - money in your business, because you aren’t seeing projects through to completion (or moving quickly enough), then something needs to change.

Let’s take a look at some ways you can be more focused:

Use a timer and work in short bursts of 15 or 20 minutes. During that time focus on just one task and get as much done as you can. When the buzzer goes, take a short break. Repeat as often as necessary. You’ll amaze yourself at how much you get done.

Keep a little notebook handy at all times. Use it to jot down ideas as they occur to you and capture them before they escape! One reason for a butterfly attention span is carrying too many ideas around in your head. Writing them down will free you up to concentrate on the job in hand.

If your project hasn’t got a deadline, set one anyway. Without deadlines, you’ll find yourself starting lots of projects and then letting them drift as something more urgent comes along.

Break big projects down into small action steps. It can be hard to stay focused when the overall project is too big. Work out a timeline for each step that needs to be done.

Only work on 3 projects at a time. Spreading your attention too thinly between a myriad of projects will mean that none get finished quickly. Focus on just 3 at any one time and you’ll build up an unstoppable head of steam! And, as soon as one project is complete, you can take another from your list to replace it.

The beauty of staying focused is that you will get more done in your business and make progress faster. So work with full concentration on the projects that count - and leave the butterflies to nature.

When everything seems equally important

I’ve found asking myself the following questions to be a good way to help with prioritising when everything seems to be equally important.

Question 1 – Do all my projects fall into one of the following categories?

Work for current clients
Marketing for new clients
Moving the business forward

Only projects that do should be considered a priority. The others can wait a while.

Question 2 – Is what I’m doing right now the best use of time?

This is a great question to ask periodically during the day. One side effect of having many projects and not being sure what to do first is that you can end up doing ‘busy work’ that doesn’t actually move anything forward. If your answer to this question is ‘no’, then stop doing whatever you’re doing and do something that is the best use of your time.

Question 3 – Is what I’m doing right now making me money or going to make me money soon?

An even better reality check question that should really help you prioritise your projects. If you’re ever unsure what you should work on next, check how quickly you’ll get a return on the time you spend :)

What questions do you ask to help you prioritise?

Don't Delegate Your Customers

A delegate at one of my recent time management workshops was telling me he’d taken someone on to help in his web design business.  As he explained how he’d been so relieved to hand over a number of customer accounts, alarm bells started to ring.  Here’s why:

• Employing someone to manage any of your customer accounts is risky – especially if that person has similar skills to you.  What’s to stop them from setting up their own business once they’ve learned everything from you, and then ‘stealing’ those customers away from you?  

Are you ready for the hard truth about Time Management?

 'How do I find time to do everything?'

I’m asked this question by just about every business owner I talk to and it’s usually where I start when working with a new client!  The short answer is that you can’t get any more hours, minutes or seconds out of the day so I’m afraid trying to do ‘everything’ is the wrong approach.  Here are 4 quick tips that will help you get more done without the need to work long hours:

1. Sacrifice.  Sometimes you need to give up something in order to free up time to work on achieving what you want from your business.  Sort of short term pain for long term gain.  I’m not for a moment suggesting you give up precious family time.  Do you watch TV?  Could you watch less TV and reclaim some time?  Perhaps you could get up a little earlier each day?  It’s amazing what you can get done in 30 minutes!  If you’ve got into the habit of doing personal stuff during the day, like shopping or chatting on the phone to friends & family – get your working day boundaries sorted out.

2. Outsource.  As soon as you can and even before you can really afford it, find someone to do the stuff you dislike or that isn’t part of your brilliance.  There are hundreds of virtual assistants out there who will gladly take on your admin, book-keeping and routine tasks.  And if you believe you can’t afford to outsource, think about this:  what you pay them is far less than you‘ll earn in the time that’s freed up.

3. There are only 3 things you should be doing.  When I learned this tip, it transformed my business, so please try it because it really works!  What you work on needs to fall into one of these three categories:  client work, looking for clients or growing your business.  Anything else (like the admin) does not belong on your desk and should not be taking up your precious working day.

4. Actively do less.  This is a lesson I’ve only recently learnt myself.  While it sounds counter-intuitive, it actually does work.  Here’s what I mean.  First, don’t try to work 12 or more hours a day every day.  Stop working through every weekend and going without holidays.  Don’t be constantly on call.  If you do all this for too long, you’re not building a sustainable business, but you are setting yourself up for burn-out and possibly health breakdown.

Set up core working hours and finish on time at least 3 times a week.  I recently wrote a blog post entitled ‘Are you pushing too hard?’ where I talk about working to your personal energy peaks & troughs.  Sometimes changing pace, task or venue can have surprising benefits.

Do you dread hearing this question?

I’ve always given quite a lot of stuff away free of charge – and I’m sure you have too.  I give talks; write a newsletter; articles and this blog; there’s a free report and weekly radio show too. 

The reason I do all this is so that people got to know me a bit, and get an idea of what working with me is like. 

I used to spend an hour with people finding out where they’re stuck in their business – and usually give some pointers – all without charge or obligation.  However, there were some who were very happy to take all the freebies – but would never become paying clients.  I’m sure you know a few like that too!  If you let them, these time wasters will cost you a lot of your most precious resource.

I have to admit my heart sinks when I hear the question: “Can I pick your brains?” or “Have you got a minute?” (unless it’s from friends or colleagues of course!)

These people want everything free of charge.  They often have the nerve to come back and ask more questions!  The best way to deal with them is to give a list of all the FOC stuff you do (eg. Website, Blog, newsletter, free report) and say that any further questions or advice are available at your consultation fees of £X per hour.  With luck, they’ll get the message!

Hey! Don't forget the pay back

If you work from home, or you’re the boss of your business, one of the perks is being able to organize the day how you want to. 

No longer tied to being at work from 9-5, it’s wonderful to be able to do the shopping when there aren’t any queues at the checkouts; to visit the gym or golf course and take things at your own pace.  And if you fancy doing some work in the garden while the weather’s good, you can.

So far so idyllic!  But.... you knew there was a ‘but’ coming, didn’t you? 

.... sometimes we can get a bit carried away with the freedom of an unstructured day and this can become unproductive, even chaotic if we’re not careful.

One of the changes I recommend to coaching clients when we work on improving their productivity, is to keep a record of those personal hours taken during their core working day and make sure to pay them back to the business.  So, if you take 2 hours out to go to the gym (don’t forget to include travel time), then you need to repay that 2 hours, perhaps by working later in the evening than you normally would.

Just because you’re the boss doesn’t mean you don’t need to impose some rules about the number of hours you’re going to work, and to make sure you don’t short change either your business or yourself.

Do you have a set working day or just put in as many hours on your business as you can?  I’d be interested to know what works for you.

Time Management : When do you go off duty?

Every small business owner I know has a mobile phone.  When they’re out and about they usually have their landline phones forwarded so as not to miss any calls.  I have a BlackBerry and get my emails wherever I am too.  Isn’t technology wonderful?

However, a growing problem I’m hearing from clients is they feel they need to be on call 24/7.  One of them said to me recently:

“I might miss a call from a client or prospective new client and I’m afraid they’ll take their business somewhere else if they can’t get hold of me.”

It’s understandable to want to make sure you don’t miss a business opportunity these days.  But there’s a big difference between wanting to make sure you provide excellent service and being available right around the clock!

I asked them “Would you expect to be able to reach all of your suppliers at any time of day, 7 days a week?”  Of course they answered no.  “Does the fact that you can’t reach them 24/7 make you want to take your business elsewhere?”  Again, they answered no.

Hmm...  doesn’t quite add up, does it?

It’s very important to be able to switch off from business completely, to take time to relax and enjoy being with family and friends.  If you are constantly ‘on call’ for your clients, you won’t be able to relax properly.  Even people who work for the emergency services take time off!

Decide when you’re going to be contactable then publish your business hours in your terms of service and on your outgoing phone messages.  Of course there will be occasions when you may need to take an urgent call outside of business hours, but these should be the exception rather than the rule!

Who's stealing your time?

Do you ever reach the end of the day and wonder where the time went?  Have you been trying to get a task completed or a project started and never seem to get round to it?

If so, you could have some time thieves lurking.  Time thieves will thwart your best intentions.  They sometimes wear different disguises to make them hard to catch but really they are all interruptions or distractions to your precious working time.  They could be unexpected phone calls (from colleagues as well as telemarketing companies); people calling by ‘just for a chat’; time spent looking for a file or document; letting emails take top priority as soon as they ping in; or spending valuable time clicking links instead of doing what you should be doing!

One way of finding out how many time thieves you have is to monitor how you spend your working day.  If you’re interested, I have a form all ready for you to use – just email me and I’ll send it to you.  Try it for a week and unmask your time thieves!