From the category archives:

Time Management

Planning Tips For The Year Ahead

January 10, 2012 · 0 comments

Diary

Happy New Year and welcome to 2012!

It’s that time of year again … the time when we take stock of the year that was and set our goals and intentions for the year ahead. And quite likely, as a business owner, this is a time of year when you revise your business plan and systems and start planning projects for the next 12 months.

I’m very happy to say that last week I finished planning my projects for the year ahead. Now comes the fun part … implementing them! Planning is futile if it’s not accompanied by focused action.

One of colleagues asked me the other day how I plan my projects. So I thought, as well as sharing my technique with her, I’d share it with you too.

To start, I make myself comfortable with lots of paper and coloured pens. Some people like to use their computer, others a white-board. Everyone’s different and it’s important to do what suits your needs best. But personally, it’s paper and coloured pens that work best. With a white-board, but that comes in later.

Next, I start by listing all the projects I want to accomplish within the next year – or six months or whatever. For me, I tend to work on a yearly basis.

This also includes things such as updating existing sites, revamping existing products and so on.

Then I prioritise them – I rewrite each project in the order that I’ll be working on it. It’s extremely important not to spread yourself too thin. If you have five projects you want to complete, working on all five at once can be more challenging and distracting, often taking longer to achieve any real results.

But by working on just one project at a time you can give it 100% of your focus and then, once that’s completed, move on to project #2.

So that’s my MASTER PLAN – an overall plan that is purposely kept very simple.

The next step is to start the process again, but this time just focus on whichever project you prioritised as #1. Now it’s time to break that down into each individual task that you need to do to complete this project, again prioritised into Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, and so on.

You can also put dates alongside these projects and/or steps to help keep you on track, particularly if any of these projects have set deadlines. Sometimes you may find that giving yourself a deadline helps you stay motivated too.

By being detailed in my planning and having everything I need to do to complete a project outlined, I find it much easier to focus on what needs to be done. For example, when I start my work day tomorrow I don’t have to spend any time thinking about what I need to do … and don’t need to worry about forgetting tasks. It’s all written down for me.

I simply go to my list for Project #1 and start with the first thing on the list. When that’s done, I cross it off and move on to Step 2.

Now, remember I said earlier that it’s best to work on just one project at a time? That’s the ideal way to work, but it’s not always possible. Sometimes you may need to be working on two or more projects at once. And this can still be effective, particularly if you have a good team working with you – this team could be staff, partners or contractors.

In that case, what I find best is to divide my available time into the required number of time-slots and commit to a different project in each time-slot. For me, I work on Project 1 on Monday and Wednesday and Project 2 on Tuesday and Thursday. Friday is dedicated to marketing sites and general planning.

And although I try to not ‘work’ on the weekend, I must admit, I am often so keen to progress with whatever I’m working on that I can’t help myself.  So the weekends are spent working on whatever I happen to feel like.  :-)

This is a quick summary of the system that works best for me. Please feel welcome to start using the same technique for your own planning and adapt it to suit what works best for you.

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Simply Text And Forget

October 1, 2011 · 0 comments

Are you the type of person who often forgets people’s birthdays? Or perhaps you remember them and mean to phone or text them … but the day disappears before you have a chance to actually pick up your phone.

That may well be a thing of the past now there’s Text And Forget to help you remember.

Text And Forget is a free system whereby you can enter a number of messages and schedule for them to be sent out to your specific contacts. You can enter as many messages as you like and schedule them to be sent as a one-off message or on a regular basis – for example, every year on their birthday (or anniversary).

I know it may feel strange at first, but it will make it much easier to remember and schedule! And you can log in and edit your messages at any time.

Give it a try – you might just be hooked. :-)

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Habits – They Can Make Or Break Your Business

June 29, 2010 · 0 comments

I’m not sure who wrote the following poem … I’ve been attempting to track its origins and author but with no success. All the same, I think it’s very well written and worth remembering, after all, ‘habit’ is something that can make or break your success in small business and, in fact, in all areas of your life.

The Habit Poem

I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.
Half of the things you do you might as well turn
over to me and I will do them – quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed – you must be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done
and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.
I am the servant of great people,
and alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine though
I work with the precision of a machine
plus the intelligence of a person.
You may run me for profit or run me for ruin -
it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me, and
I will place the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
Who am I? I am Habit.

After reading that poem, take 5 minutes to think about your habits … which ones are pushing you onwards? And which ones are dragging you down? Most importantly, what are you going to do about it?

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Before You Start Playing The Blame Game…

May 7, 2010 · 2 comments

When something doesn’t work the way it should or things don’t go right in one way or another, it’s easy to immediately play the blame game. We’ve all been there, I’m sure.

  • You visit a website and get a ‘page not found error’ so you start blaming the site owner for mucking up their URLs.
  • You click on a link within a document or page and a blank page opens, so again, the site owner or whoever put this page together has stuffed up.
  • An email or fax you were expecting still hasn’t arrived, so you jump up and down at the unreliable so-and-so who promised they’d send it straight away.

When you manage a business and have other family, community and social commitments you often find yourself rushing to do things. But when something doesn’t work and your first thought is to immediately phone or email the person or company concerned, who has obviously stuffed up somehow, take a moment to stop to think about whether the problem actually lies with you (shock, gasp!)

Or perhaps not necessarily you, but maybe your computer, software, fax line, email program.

For example, in the case of a web page that doesn’t exist, are you sure you entered the web site address correctly? If you clicked on a link, did your email program break the link? If so, you should be able to access the web page by copying and pasting the entire address into your Internet browser’s address bar.

When you’re having trouble connecting to a particular web site it’s a good idea to check some other sites to determine if it’s just this site you can’t connect to or all sites, which may indicate a problem with your own Internet or modem.

If you clicked on a link within a web page and the new page or document didn’t open or opened as a blank page, perhaps there’s a setting within your Internet or security settings that is preventing it from opening. Or it may be that your firewall or anti-virus software is blocking it for some reason. Could it be that the document that should open was created with a program that you don’t have on your computer? Or maybe you need to get the latest updates for one of your programs, such as Flash or Java.

My examples here are predominantly focused with technology, but other factors can also be the cause of things not going the way they should. That’s okay … the point I want to stress here is that sometimes the ‘obvious culprit’ isn’t actually the cause of your frustrations.

So before you start blaming others (and perhaps embarrass yourself in the process) take a few moments to look at the entire situation in order to solve the problem. Then, if you can’t find a solution, contact the person or company concerned and – rather than telling them they need to get their act together – politely let them know that you’re having trouble accessing abc or you still haven’t received the email/fax/phone call/payment, and do they have any suggestions as to how you can resolve this.

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The Benefits of Online Business Networking

March 22, 2010 · 0 comments

Many small, micro and home-based business operators are well aware of the benefits of networking with other businesses. Along with meeting new people and perhaps learning from networking event guest speakers, other benefits include building professional relationships with potential clients, suppliers and resources, colleagues, fans and friends. Not to mention getting yourself and your business known in the community.

With all of the technological advances in communications, people are now becoming ever more connected, particularly on the Internet.

And with this advancement in Internet technology comes the ability for businesses to network online too. This could be via:

Online networking boosts the variety your network

Online networking gives entrepreneurs a chance to develop relationships with several other entrepreneurs at one time. They can meet several people and communicate in a wider way than face to face networking. In online networking, many different industries and companies are represented within the group.

Online networking saves time and effort for busy entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are able to reach the world from their own computer through online networking. Utilising the Internet allows professionals to attend online networking avenues much easier than if they attend physical events … all from the comfort of their own home, often at any time of the day from any location and without the need to get dressed up (unless you’re using videos and web-cams!)

Along with benefiting an entrepreneur’s professional and social growth, online networking offers flexibility. Not only does this make it easier to manage how you prioritise your time, it’s also ideal for business owners in small towns and regional or remote areas who may otherwise find business networking a challenge.

Online networking can also be a viable alternative for parents who work from home while caring for children. It’s often difficult for this group of business owners to attend face-to-face networking events without also having to arrange suitable child-care. The cost and effort involved sometimes limits the number of events that they can physically get to.

I’m not suggesting that online networking should entirely take the place of face-to-face networking events, but there are some definite advantages for most businesses to incorporate a little of both.

If you know any worthwhile online networking sites for small, micro and home-based businesses, please share them with us via a comment post  :)

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