Sometimes taking action is not the right choice. I have been thinking about that statement for a while now. Then, tonight it came up again as I was interviewing Des Gray on Mindset. OK, so maybe it is time that I write about it again.
It seems funny for me to say it because I'm continually telling people they need to get into action and out of perfectionism and procrastination. Just do something!
However, I'm reminded that not all action is good action. In fact, last year when I told you about my theme for 2011 of Decisive Productive Action I touched on some of these points too. It is worth rehashing here though, because it is an important point to understand.
Warning - this message may be a bit more harsh than you are used to reading from me. Read it anyway!
If you are like most business owners, you created your business because you wanted to live on your own terms and you knew that you have something amazing to offer.
But, have you realized that dream?
Are you doing what you love, or putting out fires? Do you have minor business problem gathering other problems, rolling downhill and ending up smack, dab in your personal life? Do you find you are getting sidetracked and not finding the traction you need to move your business forward?
The truth is every performance gap, every little inefficiency, every lack of organization or productivity, not only reduces the effectiveness of your business, it also steals time from your personal life! This is TRUE FOR all BUSINESS owners!
As business owner you need to confidently take your business to the next level… if you’re not, you may be going nowhere fast... In fact if you are like 95% of business owners, you are already there…in the area of a million ideas and nothing getting done.
I would love to know what is YOUR biggest challenge to GETTING IT ALL DONE?
I heard:
"Determining what and how to outsource, streamlining email process (where I am getting buried and losing things that need my attention because I get focused on things that really don't)."
No matter if you own a business with 1000s of employees or are a solo-entrepreneur trying to figure out how to work with their first support person, delegation can be tough.
Today, I'll share some thoughts on outsourcing/delegation and an example of how I saved 2.5 hours a week with one simple change.
Every once in a while, I'll ask a question out on my Facebook Page and it sparks a good conversation.
So I asked:
I would love to know what is YOUR biggest challenge to GETTING IT ALL DONE?
This is what they said:
"Setting priorities"
"I agree. What goes with setting priorites that is an issue is knowing how to select those things which add value to your project , assignment and goals as well need to be done. Also how do you address distractions and what is considered a distraction."
OK so let's tackle those items today. Setting priorities and focus/distractions.
Stephanie: I have trouble with time blocking. I don't always feel mentally, emotionally, or physically ready to do what I've scheduled for that specific period. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Ann
I'm glad that Ann asked that question! She is not the only one that struggles with time blocking. It is not for everyone.
Today I'll talk about what you can do when the time management technique of time blocking and your brain don't work together.
For the last few weeks, I have been talking to my communities on Facebook asking them:
I would love to know what is YOUR biggest challenge to GETTING IT ALL DONE?
One of the responses I heard quite a bit was:
"Everyone wants everything right now!"
Does that feel familiar? Today, we are in a instant gratification society. We can get information SO quickly that sometimes we forget that people are not machines.
One of the biggest time stealers is interruptions. A lot of people, especially in today's "I need an answer now" society feel that they need to be able to respond to people immediately.
Let's talk about what you can do to combat that feeling.
Over the last few years, I've heard from many of you asking about creating more focus and energy in your lives. You have told me that you want to get more done with less effort.
Many of you have also told me that one critical element of your life that is holding you back from that dream is your health!
I've shared my own health story in the past and have also shared posts on how taking care of your health increases focus, attention, ability to make decisions and overall productivity.
Today I'll tell you about a great program coming up soon that a friend of mine and professional fitness trainer, Michelle Melendez, has put together. It is called "Double Your Energy Balance Your Life" expert interview program and it begins October 11, 2011. Keep reading to learn more about this great F'REE resource.
When I attend a meeting and someone shows up late, I have a tendency to ask them (later of course) what caused their delay. Over 85% of the time they are late because they could not find their keys or their phone.
The search for critical items often causes stress and irritation for you and for everyone else that you might be holding up.
The good news is that you can put one simple thing in place to fix that problem once and for all.
As a speaker you have a number of things to juggle -- proposals, marketing collateral, networking conversations, presentation material, contracts, travel, etc.
Unless you have business processes in place, you may find your business growing "out of control."
How well you balance everything that needs to get done determines how fast your business can grow. But there is one consideration that could really make you stand out as a top speaker.
Do you ever consider what event coordinators are juggling? What can you put in place in your business to make sure that the event coordinator has a fantastic time working with you?
This past Monday, Michele Price interviewed me on #SpeakChat.
We talked about 3 different areas of productivity for your speaking business:
Be Powerful – Productivity tips to keep you and your business in control.
Be Unforgettable – Organization techniques that make you easy to work with and easy for them to market you.
Be Empowered — Tools to help you get there.
Today I'll share a few of the "Be Unforgettable" tips that I shared this past Monday.
The question of "Where in the world does my time really go?" is often asked by frustrated business owners. You work hard and it seems that there are never enough hours in a day.
This gets even more complex if your business uses time tracking to bill clients. I remember the first time I was told I needed to track my time in 15 minute increments - we called them units. It was back when I worked for a large consulting firm. I thought the idea of tracking my time to that detail was crazy! Yet, I quickly learned that it was critical for client billing. I had no idea how I was going to do it.
My first step was to talk to my manager and my in-house coach to see how they tracked their time. Both had systems, but they weren't really all that reliable. They both admitted that there were times that they did work, but it did not get billed and that sometimes they "fudged" with their tracking. That did not feel good to me then and it still does not now!
In comes Brett Owens and his team from Chrometa. They decided to do something to make it easy for you to track and answer the question "Where did my time go today?"
Earlier this week I was talking to a client about how she could make time in her schedule for content creation for the markting of her business. She mentioned wanting to start a podcast but she was not sure if she had enough ideas or time to make a go of it. I suggested that she repurpose some of her other work and she gave me a blank stare. She said that she supposed she could do that if she knew what it meant.
If you look over to the right, you will see the dictionary definition of repurpose. If you ask me, repurposing is the art of smart business. It is productive content creation. It is working smarter not harder.
Today 50 of my fabulous business expert community share how they repurpose their content to grow their business and save time.
There are a lot of great ideas in this post, but be careful to not let it overwhelm you. I suggest that you:
Pick and choose the ideas that will be most useful to you. There are different concepts listed here — not every single one will be useful to every person. I hope you’ll find 3 that are useful, or that are reminders of something you’ve been wanting to do.
Experiment! Try out different thoughts and see if they work for you.
None are guaranteed. But many are very likely to bring saved time and more visibility.
These thoughts are in the order they were received. Some of the best ideas for you may very well be at the bottom!
Share your ideas in the comments. I'm sure that if you do, you will help someone else reading this post.
Today's post is short because I'm hoping you will help give me some feedback. I am diving deeper into creating videos for my various video accounts and have started a set called "practical productivity."
I only have 2 created so far and I'd like to hear from you if you think I'm on a good track. My goal is to keep them around 5 minutes and no longer than 10 minutes, so that you can get quick hits that you can apply right away.
Please take a look and let me know what you think.
What happens when you get a group of organizing and productivity pros together and ask them a goofy question? Well... You get this post!
Here is a bit of background: Earlier this week, I shared a link on my Facebook Page called 10 Time Management Tips that Work. A fabulously fun member of my community, Joseph Gier, replied "well this is much better than that article of 10 time management tips that don't work." I laughed and replied, but it got me thinking... how many time management myths DO we tell ourselves and then believe?
Consider this: What if you see me start rubbing my finger with sandpaper. I rub my finger until it gets raw, so I start rubbing on a different finger with the same results and then move to my hip, my head, etc. You see me continue to rub with the sandpaper in different places on my body...thinking... maybe if I rub harder or faster I can get better results...
What would you be thinking?
Then I stop.
What if the solution is not where I rub or how fast or how hard I rub with the sandpaper?
"Can't you just tell me what tools to buy? I just don't have time to DO anything."
She was frusterated when I talked with her on the phone. Busy business owners often are. However, there are no "magic beans" that you can buy to make more time and often buying more tools just clutters up your space. If you are not willing to take action, it does not matter what you buy. You will likely still be in the same position a year from now. Tough but true.
Sometimes we want a quick fix -- something to make it all better. Today, I'll share a video slideshare of some simple things that if you do them consistantly, will give you more time than any gadget might.
"I'm so stupid! Why didn't I think of that? I have so much to do that I can't think straight!"
Do you ever feel that way? If you do, you are not alone. Many people use negative "self talk" to justify why they are not getting the things done that they think they should. You start in a state of overwhelm and rather than getting out of that state, you start traveling down a bad path.
Today I'll share some techniques to help pull you out of that path and onto a path of productivity and gettingthingsdoneness. (OK, ya, I made up that last word, but you know what I mean!)
You have heard it before. You must invest time to save time. But what does that really mean?
Do you have small things that bother you -- that take you time? Maybe you have opportunities to invest time to save time.
The other day I was working with a client on his computer. He started the conversation by telling me that he did not like how his new Windows laptop was organized. He had gotten used to Windows XP and the new operating system was just not what he liked. He said that he often had to search for the programs that he actually used because they were buried in pull-down menus.
When I suggested that it was possible to re-arrange the windows, he said that he knew that was possible but just did not have the time to do it. "Really? - - - Really?" I asked. We spent a few minutes adding up how much time searching for programs he actually used would take on a weekly basis. Over an hour a week! (That shocked me too.) After seeing how much time he was spending just trying to navigate his computer, it became more obvious that he did not have time to NOT make the change.
Have you ever considered looking at your "Done List"? Did you even know you had one? You do!
We frequently talk about to-do lists and planning, but you often don't hear us talk about those things that you complete. Today I'll share some thoughts on why that is so very important to your ability to meet your goals and get things done.
We are really close to wrapping up time management month! February will be over in just a few days. Time is a very precious commodity! Have you found a few new ways to preserve the precious time in your life? Today, 6 of my colleagues and readers have shared their favorite "life hack" on time. Keep reading for tricks and tools that they use to save time.
February is Time Management Month, so today I'll share some great articles to help you make the most of the time you have. Every other Wednesday, I share links to a number of different blogs and sites. Today, you can see content on:
The other day, I sent out a tip update on Twitter:
StephCalahan (Stephanie LH Calahan) Lists, notes, alarm clocks, software w/ reminder functionality all are valuable tools to help you stay on task. Use them as much as possible
Then, my Twitter buddy Nicole replied:
BizFinanceForum (Nicole Fende) @StephCalahan I do try. My question - how do I keep from wanting to strangle my reminders?
What a great question! Let's talk about that a bit today.
February is Time Management Month and every small business owner and work-from-home professional I know (including me) needs all the help we can get with effective time and priority management!
My buddy and fellow productivity expert, Elaine Quinn, has created a fun giveaway. Keep reading to learn more.
February is Time Management Month, so today I'll share some great articles to help you make the most of the time you have. Every other Wednesday, I share links to a number of different blogs and sites. Today, you can see content on:
A little while back, I wrote to you about my theme for this year: decisive productive action. One of the things I mentioned was that I was not going to let perfectionism get in my way and that I was going to enhance my focus on making decisions and carrying them out effectively. Well, my buddy Marcia Hoeck Steger put me to the test last week! She and I were on the phone catching up and she asked me if I would do a Twitterview with her.
A what?!?
I then learned that a Twitterview was an interview that was conducted on Twitter using a hashtag (we used #BizProd) to aggregate all of the comments together in one spot where people could follow the conversation.
Hmmm... I had never done one of those before. Sure! Let's do it. So, we scheduled the following week to hold our inaugural twitterview. (It was her first time being the interviewer.) Today I'll share the experience and the interview on the topic of productivity.
I created this super secret (he he - not so secret now) group on Facebook of productivity and organization consultants and it has been a great source of networking for us.
The other day a colleague asked about our suggestions for tools.
"Rob" is a project manager that is responsible for a number of projects across the world and he needs to keep track of all of them. His team is global, so physical solutions (like white boards and sticky notes on a big wall) will not work for him.
Of course, my awesome colleagues came through with possibilities and I'll share those here today.
PS - I LOVE hearing from my readers! Do you have a tip or trick that works well for you? Let me know! Do you have something that you are struggling with that you would like me to write about? Let me know that too!
PPS - If you would rather listen to my posts go to http://www.cinchcast.com/StephCalahan where you can listen online or download to iTunes or your computer.
There is some fantastic content out on the web and I often have clients and readers ask me what I have found. Every other Wednesday, I share links to a number of different blogs and sites. Today, you can see content on:
Do you have difficulty remembering important dates? There are a number of great tools out on the web that help you remember the events in your life that you don't want to forget. Today, I'll share a few that my friends and clients like.
Corinne McElroy of Edge of Change knows that the business advice you depend upon comes from many sources. As leaders in our field, we need to not only know how to dig deep into our ourselves and lead from within, we also need to know how to manage our daily lives - whether it is our financial well-being, our physical health, successfully helping our children navigate the path to become an adult, or thinking outside the box for new ways to generate income.
Edge of Change regularly brings you into contact with experts in a field whose knowledge will benefit you personally and help you lead a fuller, more successful life and Corrine has asked me to be on her teleconference program.
January 20, 2011 2:00 PM CST (12:00 PM PST- 1:00 PM MT- 3:00 PM EST) For 60 Minutes
Learn how to battle the top time-stealers and take control of your office once-and-for-all with expert advice from productivity consultant and coach Stephanie LH Calahan
There is some fantastic content out on the web and I often have clients and readers ask me what I have found. Every other Wednesday, I share links to a number of different blogs and sites. Today, you can see content on:
Procrastination
Single-Tasking/Multi-Tasking
Emergency Prep for Online Data
Electronic Information - Email smart phones and Social Media
Have you ever had one of those days or weeks where nothing goes as you originally planned? Well, if you have, you are not alone.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the average person spends over 150 hours per year just looking for information. The Esselte company conducted a study of over 2,600 executives and found that the average executive wastes 6 week a year just looking for lost documents and information.
If your business is not effectively organized, it’s costing you money. If you are like the average executive, I bet that you have a lot of things that you would like to do, but don't have the time. You are so busy working you can't even imagine taking time off to enjoy life. It is not an easy problem to solve – otherwise there would not be so many places with this problem! The good news is that you can solve it!
There are a number of simple things that you can tweak to give you loads of extra time in your day, week, month and even year. Today I'll share 13 tips.
There are a lot of great blogs out in cyberworld that cover topics of organization and productivity. I love introducing you to those authors especially when I resonate with what they write on. One of them is ZenHabits.net. Today I share one of his posts that I have found both inspiring and uplifting. I'd love it if you would share your ideas too!
There is some fantastic content out on the web and I often have clients and readers ask me what I have found. Today, I share links to a number of different blogs and sites with content on:
If you are like me, every day you have a variety of choices for how to use your time and manage your daily to-do list. In fact, it may seem like you should be in a circus, with all of the things you are trying to juggle.
Some of your to-do items are easy and require little thought, while others take up quite a bit of focus, concentration or creativity. Today I'll share a technique to help you get more done.
"Overwhelm" is a word that I have been hearing a lot lately. I hear it from my clients and workshop participants as well as my connections on social media sights. We have a lot that comes at us every day and it is important to have strategies to break out of that overwhelmed state quickly. So, I asked my colleagues if they would share their favorite tips for overcoming overwhelm.
As you read through the 106 comments, you will find commonalities as well as complete conflicts in strategy and tactic. Just to make sure you don't get overwhelmed reading a long post on overwhelm, here are a few tips to consider:
This post is not meant to be a step-by-step guide. I do not suggest that you adopt all the tips below.
Pick and choose the tips that will be most useful to you. There are different concepts listed here — not every single one will be useful to every person. I hope you’ll find 3 that are useful, or that are reminders of something you’ve been wanting to do.
Experiment! Try out different thoughts and see if they work for you.
None are guaranteed. But many are very likely to bring happiness.
These thoughts are not in any order. Some of the best ideas for you may very well be at the bottom!
Share your ideas. I'm sure that if you do, you will help someone else reading this post.
"I just can't focus Stephanie. I've tried different systems and they don't work. I don't think I have ADD, but I'm beginning to wonder..."
That was one of the first things she said to me on the phone. Sara was taking part in our telephone strategy session to see if our services were a fit for her.
Sometimes your focus and attention challenges can be directly related to the systems you have (or don't have) in your life. Sometimes your focus obstacles could be caused by a medical condition. Sometimes the attention issues you experience could be solved with some simple techniques. Today I'll cover some non-caffeine ways you can increase attention and focus!
It's a CINCH! Earlier this week I was chatting with Denise Wakeman and she told me about a great and easy way to share your content in an audio format. It is called cinchcasting. I love to find new avenues to share, so I thought I would check it out. In under 5 minutes, I had my account set up and my first recording complete. It really was a cinch!
Since then, I have recorded a few more and I thought I would share them with you. My goal is to keep the recordings between 1 and 7 minutes so that they are quick and easy "bites" to listen to.
Have you ever felt like you were ...working harder than ever,
but not accomplishing anything that made you feel like you had a purpose being responsible and doing what you needed to do for your family, friends and employer/clients,
but weren't fulfilled spending most of your time 'putting out fires'
and not accomplishing the really important things
working hard for 'someday' when you'll be able to do what you want with the ones you love feeling like there had to be more?
My friend, Allyson Lewis felt that way too. But, when someone introduced her to a new way of thinking, her life began a radical and wonderful change in just 7 minutes.
I am constantly amazed at the new and creative applications (apps) that are on the market today for smart-phones. It seems that every time I give a workshop to business owners there are at least one if not two new companies that are specializing in creating programs for your phone.
What does that mean? It means that if you can think of something you would like your phone to do, it probably can if you find the right app! However, this also means that there are so many apps out there that you may get lost like a needle in a haystack.
If you are on Twitter, then I encourage you to consider this tool. After I posted Productive Social Networking-Making the Most of Your Twitter & Facebook Experience - Do You Use Lists? on using lists in social media, Formulalists found me and told me about their cool tool. It is a f*ree online tool that helps you populate your lists. I checked it out and it worked exactly as they said. It took me about 2.75 minutes to set up 3 new auto-populating lists. Before I checked out the site, I had a converation with them, though. Asked them a bunch of questions about their tool. Keep reading to learn what I learned.
There are many ways to manage your time and activities. How do you decide? I asked my friends to share their favorite planning tool. Today's post shares what they had to say. I'd love it if you would share your thoughts too.
Have you ever thought about how the simple and small things you do or don't do can add up to really big numbers to impact your productivity? My buddy Paul Burton does all of the time. It is one of his productivity specialities.
Consider this one. On Wednesday I posted this tweet tip:
StephCalahan Constant interruptions with the e-mail notification sound make it difficult for anyone to complete other tasks.
I turned off my email notification a long time ago (about 15 years) because I did not want to be taken out of the important state of concentration when working on projects. I have never missed it. Paul shared this commentary:
QuietSpacing @StephCalahan: 4 seconds of lost productivity with each ~ping~. 100 emails a day x 220 work days a year. Well, you do the math!
OK! So let's really do the math!
4 seconds times 100 emails = 400 seconds
400 seconds time 220 work days a year = 88,000 seconds
88,000 seconds divided by 60 = 1466.666667 minutes
1466.666667 minutes divided by 60 = 24.44 hours!
HOW LONG? 24.44 HOURS A YEAR LOST TO EMAIL PINGS!
You got it. If you receive more than 100 emails a day it gets even worse. You have lost productivity hidden in the very simple things that you do. So consider turning off that email notificaiton and do something more worthwhile with all of that time.
What do you think? Share your thoughts in my comments section (If you are reading this in email, click on the title to this post to be taken to my blog to comment.)
To your success!
PS -- If you've enjoyed this post and want to see more, why not subscribe to our daily emails (Feedblitz) or through the RSS Feed (click here)? Or, follow us on Twitter! Or connect on Facebook!
Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are growing in popularity for not only those that want to get in touch with family and lost friends, but also for business professionals.
One of the challenges as you get going with these sites, however, is the massive amount of infomation that starts coming at you. If you are like me, you follow/friend people for a number of reasons. When everyone's information is jumbled together, it is hard to focus and build relationships (that is one of the main reasons for the sites afterall -- building relationships) or gather knowledge.
One great way to cut through the clutter and stay focused is to use the lists function. Both Twitter and Facebook give you the option to "list" your connections. Today I'll share more about why you may want to do that as well as share some thoughts from my friends on Twitter.
Thanks for dropping by my blog today. I hope that you will take a moment to share your thoughts after you have read today's post.
It seems the more people I talk to, the more I hear about stress, frusteration and the inability to concentrate due to overwhelm. I hear it from my networking partners, clients and readers. You either have too much to do, interruptions plague your day, too much work, other people putting pressure on you and more.
The good news is that there is something we can do about it.
Learn what is enhancing or impeding your productivity today! Click on any of the self-evaluator tools below and receive your results online immediately!
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