I Didn’t Want to Write This
On Tuesday I scheduled myself to write an article for my ezine, and found myself struggling. Now it’s Thursday morning, and it just hit me that my struggle to write provided me with perfect topics for this week’s article.
As I mentioned, on Tuesday I was scheduled to write this article. It was the first item on my list, but all I could do was sit there and stare at my computer. Nothing was coming to me. I started fiddling around with email, looking at old articles, going on Facebook… and before I knew it, the day was almost gone. I hadn’t written an article, and because I was stuck on the idea that it MUST be done first, little else on my list was accomplished either. Added to the mix were my feelings of failure and frustration, and I had a recipe for an all-around bummer of a day.
The lesson? Keep your priorities in order, but if something isn’t working, move on, rather than losing your momentum.
The process of article writing has been a great teacher. As you know, I am forever getting writing ideas from the day-to-day happenings in my life (see current article). One thing I’ve learned the hard way is that when the mood to write strikes, I MUST drop everything and write. This habit developed out of sheer frustration from being too strict of a time manager. Here’s what I mean. I’d be working on a task and suddenly come up with a great idea for an article. In the past, I’d stick to my guns and keep working on the task at hand, trusting that I’d remember the idea and write the article later. But that never happened. Many “aha” moments of inspiration were lost forever.
The lesson? If you’re in the middle of something, and suddenly find yourself motivated to do a task that you generally find challenging – take advantage of the moment and do it!
Now it’s 7:15am on Thursday and I’m finally in the process of writing this week’s article. The ezine goes out at 10:30am, and I was just thinking, “Well, I’m not inspired to write, so maybe I’ll work on something else for a little while.” That’s valid, right? Because I’m not INSPIRED. But the fact is that this ezine is an integral part of my business plan, and is due to go out shortly. So I’m muscling my way through it, hoping I’m coming up with a few useful tidbits for you.
The lesson? You can’t be inspired all the time, so sometimes it’s time to push through and do what MUST be done.
Do you find some of these lessons contradictory? Yep – welcome to life! This is the challenge: knowing when to use each lesson. Am I inspired to write or avoiding my accounting? Am I appropriately muscling through an article or am I pushing too hard and coming up with garbage? Am I moving on to keep my momentum or dodging a necessary task?
I’d love to hear how you deal with these kind of conflicts, either in this blog or in a short session with me. I’m happy to give you 15 minutes of my time to sort out the contradictions. Just contact me!
Batch Instead of Distract
Recently I spoke to the Ventura Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners about Virtual Assistants, and the topic of “batching” tasks for efficiency came up. I found this article I wrote in September of 2009 back when I was still doing Virtual Assistance work myself.
Last week I had a very rude awakening. I woke up early, got right to work and put in a solid 4 hours before lunch. I then added up the hours I’d billed for actual client work and they totaled just one and a half hours!
WHAT?!? I worked all morning and could bill for less than half of my time? How did that happen?
The answer is distractions. I’ve written about this before, with phone calls and emails being the biggest culprits. But after this recent experience, I realized that I needed to upgrade my skills and start “batching” my tasks.
Batching means grouping together similar tasks and doing them all at once, but on a less frequent basis. For instance, instead of checking email constantly, check it just twice a day. Or instead of paying each bill as it arrives, put them aside and pay them twice a month.
- What is the true value of batching?
There is an unavoidable mental lag time that happens when you shift your attention back and forth between different tasks. According to experts*, the cost of distractions is over 25% of your time (in my case, it was over 50%!). When distracted, you may require up to 45 minutes to resume the major task that was interrupted.
I encourage you to make the effort to implement batching in at least one area of your work. Where else can you get a 25% return on your investment?
* The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity, Jonathan B. Spira and Joshua B. Feintuch, quoted in The 4-Hour Work Week, Timothy Ferriss
Values in the Small Decisions
One of the best books I every read was Stephanie Frank’s The Accidental Millionaire. For me, the most impactful part of the book was an exercise that helped me determine my values in life. I won’t try to explain it here, because I won’t do it justice. Suffice it to say that “values” in this context means “what is most important to me in my life”, rather than “virtues”.
What this exercise did for me is set up a kind of internal compass, so that when I’m making decisions in my life, both personal and professional, all I have to do is look at my top three values and see which decision is in alignment with my values. Mine happen to be:
- Freedom and travel
- Impact on others
- Experiencing new things
Why do I bring this up? Because over the past few years, I’ve found this tool invaluable when navigating big decisions. But recently, I’ve noticed some of the small decisions I make on a daily basis are not in alignment with my values.
This occurred to me on a recent Saturday when I was out hiking in Sedona with my husband. We found a beautiful secluded spot by Oak Creek and dangled our feet in the water, basked in the sun, and enjoyed the view. In a word – idyllic.
When we got back to the car, the first thing I did was check my email. A few messages came in, my adrenaline spiked, and the peace I’d just experienced was diminished in an instant. That one small act was TOTALLY out of alignment with my #1 value of freedom – I mean, it was Saturday, for goodness sake! Was someone going to have a coaching emergency, and send me an email about it? How on earth would this add to my freedom?
An absentminded minute, that’s all it was, but these small moments add up to form a lifetime, don’t they?
I’m committing to being more vigilant about how I spend my time. In fact, I’ll work on changing how I think from “spending” to “investing”. I challenge you to do the same – and feel free to share your experience!
Am I Slacking?
My company is growing and in order to continue the growth, I have to spend some time on business development. To make sure I follow through, I committed one day a week (Wednesday) to focus on business development, client relations and marketing.
Recently, still a little woozy from my fast-paced vacation, it wasn’t until Tuesday night that I realized that I needed to create my newsletter. Now I had a dilemma – do I spend Wednesday creating articles for my newsletter (forgoing my business development day), or do I stay committed to my new plan?
I got a little creative, pulled information from great resources for my newsletter and found a way to stay committed to my new plan without losing the consistency of the newsletter.
Because of this choice, on Wednesday I was able to create an organizational chart, job descriptions and post a “help wanted” ad on Craigslist. Plus, I did some research into project management software and made an inquiry with a consultant to help me with implementation. All in all, a very satisfying list of business development activities!
The moral of the story? There will always be competing priorities in a business, and in life. A combination of creativity and delegation is my solution this week!
Maybe it’s Time to Open the Door
Today I did something unusual… I opened the door. My front door, that is, to a couple of clean-cut Mormon boys.
Ok, don’t hate me, but when I spy these kind souls through my peephole, I usually quietly watch from behind the door, hoping they’ll simply think no one was home and move along to the next house.
But today, it occurred to me that I knew how to handle this situation with ease and grace, and perhaps a little more dignity than I have in the past. So I took a deep breath, and I opened the door.
I was able to look these young men in the eye, thank them for their good works, and gently disagree. We shared a laugh about an old friend of mine who spent her Mormon mission going to seedy bars in Salt Lake City because, as she put it, “Don’t you think those people need it the most?” Then I wished them well as they moved along to the next house.
Why did I find this situation significant? Because I realized it was good practice for real life. I’m sure I’m not the only person who finds it stressful to be in situations where I disagree or have to say no. But what I know for sure is that when I don’t deal with the situations, the stress internalizes itself. Over time, it builds, it erupts, it causes health problems.
So, is there anything that you are “hiding behind the door” from? Would it be possible to kindly look it in the eye and dismiss it from your life?
Maybe it’s time for you to open the door, too.