Time Management

 [Guest blog] Use Your Peak Time!

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When you own your own business, it’s discouraging to feel like you “aren’t doing it right.” A client recently told me:

“Today I didn’t have client calls but I struggled so much the first few hours of the day that really it was just time wasted. If I don’t have calls in the morning, I may as well not go to the office until after lunch…as soon as afternoon hits I am way focused. What do you think about client calls only until 1PM and then the afternoon is office time?”

There’s a simple three-step solution to making decisions like the one my client faced.

1. The first step towards adjusting your schedule to one that works for you is to become aware of your peak (when you are most alert and productive) and trough times (when you are least productive).

2. The next step is to create a menu of those tasks and projects that can go into those peak and trough times. [link to full blog]

For example, projects that require your strongest focus, motivation, and energy should be scheduled during your peak time. Tasks that require less brainpower, like filing, clearing your desk, or some email processing, could be checked off during your trough times.

3. Last, take advantage of as many peak times each week as possible by arranging your tasks into the appropriate time slots. When you plug tasks into your calendar with an awareness of “best times,” you’ll begin to create a new routine around scheduling. One tip I use for scheduling is to color code my tasks on my to-do list, purple to schedule in the morning and blue for afternoon.

I get it – it can be hard to leave a task undone and move it to the next day. What helps me push through that “undone” discomfort is a reminder that in the long run, when I match the task with the appropriate time of day, it typically takes me half the time.

Matching tasks to the right time of day is just one way you can gain more time each day. If you want to tweak how you schedule your peak and trough times, we can discuss in our next session!

Lisa Crilley Mallis MA, COC, ACC  

Helping service-based microbusiness owners eliminate day-to-day busyness. ImpactiveStrategies.com  

3 Unusual Perspectives on Priorities and Time

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Am I the only one having trouble fitting it all in? 

I committed to working less, I set my goals, I prioritized, and STILL I have to keep a vigilant eye on my time management. 

I figure I’m not alone, so here are three resources for you. The first two are TED talks that shake up your assumptions about procrastination and creativity. The last one has a slightly lower viewership, but has perspectives my clients find valuable. 

1. Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator 

2. The Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers 

3. Breaking the “One More Thing” Habit 

Share your favorite time management solutions, please! 

Tips to Successfully Explore the World Through Work-Away Travel

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Work-away trips are a fantastic thing: running your business while traveling.  Last year I tried it myself for the very first time by staying in Prague, Czechia for a month.

This trip was different from past travel in both its extended duration and for the combination of work and pleasure.  Because it was my first time doing this, I learned an amazing amount about myself, my business and how to travel while working.  That last sentence can also be written as follows: because it was my first time traveling it was painful and not as much fun as I’d hoped.

You see, I didn’t think ahead about time zones, access to health care, pilot strikes, cost of changing a portion of a trip, mental recovery time or how living outside of your comfort zone can be challenging even if you are loving it.

So, in an effort to prepare you for work away travel, here are tips from business owners who are successfully taking extended travel without losing momentum in their businesses.

  1. Schedule client calls with care. Due to poor planning on my part, while I was in Prague I found myself taking client calls at 8 pm and that was after working several hours during the normal day. As a result, I missed out on some fun things that others in my group got to do.Jane Garee with Showstopping Sales says: “I set up my Google calendar with both my home-based time zone and the time zone I will be working from on the trip about a month in advance. These can go side by side in Google so you see both time zones simultaneously. I also put both time zones on my Apple Watch (it’s very cool and both time zones can go on the same screen). I find that being able to quickly translate time zones in my head goes a long way to keeping stress at bay…  I’m a planner by nature so feeling good about what’s on my calendar and knowing I can easily fit in work and playtime makes living and working in a different country much easier.”
  2. If you are staying a longer time, pack less than you think you have to. For my Prague trip, I packed everything forgetting that I can do laundry in the apartment.Susan O’Brien, Owner of EcoLux Interiors says: “Coordinate every piece so that it goes with several other pieces and base it all on lightweight, and for the weather, you are heading into.  You need half of what you think you need, and a couple of scarves make a nothing outfit quite fun!”
  3. Book your flights way ahead of time if available and understand the fine print before buying a lower-priced ticket.Louise Crooks of Keys to Clarity Coaching says: “I book my flights to really far off destinations quite well in advance. Sometimes 9mths in advance. It means my tickets can be 35% cheaper than most folks will end up paying. Great way to save on a budget.”
  4. Keep your home in mind while you are away.Pam Ivey of Adventurous Life says: “I line up my petsitter right away to ensure the fur babies are looked after. She also picks up my mail, so that’s taken care of too. I ensure lawn maintenance/snow removal is arranged so it’s not a dead giveaway that I’m not home, and I’ve made sure everyone I want to keep in contact with at home (mom, sister, friend) has Skype at the ready and a tutorial given if needed.”  Another option is WhatsApp.  It’s an a
  5. Keep a copy of any important documents in the cloud somewhere. This includes business and personal documents along with copies of your passport.  Pam Ivey of Adventurous Life and Donna Kozik of Write a Book in a Weekend both agree with this.
  6. Don’t skimp on a carrying bag and accessories for your daily commute to the “office.” Finding a co-working space is the best way to be sure you keep up with your work.Pam Ivey of Adventurous Life says: “Make sure you have a good bag, whether it’s a shoulder bag or backpack to carry your laptop back and forth to the office. (I love my backpack because it keeps my hands free.) Don’t forget adapters! And adapters with built-in USB ports are awesome.

2017: Successful? Yes. Peaceful? Not so much.

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Walking along the beach on New Year’s Day, I reflected on how I felt exactly one year earlier: filled to overflowing with a sense of wonder and possibility.

Feeling inspired last January, I picked up pebbles on the beach, wrote a blog about them, then mailed them out across the country.

My intention was to remind us all to keep that sense of wonder and possibility with us throughout 2017.

How would you rate your success with that intention?

I give myself a B minus.

I took plenty of time off for friends, family, roller coaster and otters. And grew the company by about 25%.

But a consistent sense of wonder and possibility? Not so much.

In between the fun time off and the accomplishments was a lot of fretting. “Am I going to get this done? When can I take a breath? Am I doing the right things? What if I never get another client?”

I can track all of this fretting to a serious lack of space for thinking. For exploring. For analyzing and creating. For wonder and possibility.

This year, I want to get an A+.

So for 2018, I budgeted and protected time for wonder and possibility. I shared my calendaring process for the year in this recent blog, because I do not want to repeat the intermittent crazy of 2017.

I want to know… how’d you do?

I Hope You Get a Text Like This…

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Happy Thursday!

​​​​​​​Let me share a story with you…

A client of mine recently received this text:

“Hi Sara! I wanted to call and give you my credit card information today so we can start working together. Will you be around?”
The punch line? Sara had no idea who the text was from.
I hope you get a text like this sometime, because it’s a crazy good feeling to have so many prospects that you start to lose track of them. Now how did this happen?
We created a very specific plan of action for Sara’s marketing. It includes about 4-5 low- (or no-) cost activities that she implements consistently. They all work together to leverage her time and effectiveness so she is spending a minimum amount of time possible on marketing activities that work, and zero time on marketing that doesn’t work.
(Cool, right? Wasting NO time on activities that won’t bring results!)
Because of these key factors – specificity, implementation and consistency – she is consistently getting clients. She puts the work in, the results show up.
With her focus squarely on the actions, rather than worrying about when or how the results show up, she is experiencing a pretty sweet flow right now.

This is how marketing actually works for the majority of small business owners. You put effort in. You put more effort in. And, if you’re doing the exact right efforts, results show up.

The challenge of course is that there is a time delay between putting in the effort and getting results. Which is why people often fall prey to marketing tactics that claim to produce “overnight success.” Understand that client generation does not work this way.

Ok, sure, it can work that way sometimes. Sort of.
Imagine you peak at a conference packed with your ideal clients. You place Facebook ads. You enter into a joint venture with someone with a big list. Sounds almost effortless, right? But let’s look at what those examples actually require to create these “overnight” successes:
1. The perfect conference. Investments can include making dozens of speaking inquiries, filling out many speaking applications, creating a speaking video, creating a product or program, practicing speaking and selling, hiring coaches to perfect your speaking skills, and the time to accomplish all of this.
2. Facebook ads. Investments often include hiring a graphic designer, copy writer, virtual assistant and social media strategist, cost of ads to test out which audience will respond to your ad, ongoing advertising spend, and the time to accomplish all of this.
3. Joint venture. Investments include creating relationships with successful people willing to market your product for you, writing a lot of copy for a landing page, email marketing and social media posts, preparing videos or webinar content, getting affiliate software, and the time to accomplish all of this.
Did you notice that, in these examples, you still experience a time delay between putting in the effort and getting results?
And regardless of which path you take – the specific, consistent plan or something more like the overnight success examples – you can speed up your results by investing in:
  • Being crystal clear about who your ideal client is
  • Making sure your marketing messaging (the copy on your website, 30-second intro, etc.) makes your ideal client say “I need that!”
  • Creating a specific marketing action plan
  • Consistently implementing those actions
  • Tracking and evaluation of those actions
  • Aligning your whole business with your strengths, goals and what you value most

The moral of the story: get clear that there will be a delay between your efforts and your results, but do everything you can to make that delay as short as possible!

Life Imitating My Speaking Career

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skateboarder“Hey Mary, can you come facilitate our board retreat… today?”

I received this call recently and could hardly stifle my laughter.

You see, I often speak to groups of entrepreneurs about priorities and productivity, and this is the example I give:

“What if someone calls you at 10:30am and says their luncheon speaker just cancelled and they want to know if you’re available? If you have client work due at noon, and you already put it off until the moment you received the call, you’re going to have to decline what could potentially be a very lucrative speaking engagement. Get your top priorities done first so you can jump on opportunities when they arrive.”

So when I received this very last minute request for a paid, same-day opportunity, you can understand my amusement!

Then I did exactly what I teach:

  1. Check your priorities. I looked at the priorities on my action list and evaluated whether or not this new opportunity superseded what I’d already planned.
  2. Confirm whether the opportunity is in alignment with your goals. I thought about the opportunity again and evaluated it against my bigger goals to make sure it was a fit.
  3. Make sure you have enough time to deliver quality. I checked the clock to make sure I could actually make it there, not just on time but also prepared to speak.

This opportunity passed all three criteria, so I accepted.

It’s also important to note that I was able to make this decision in a matter of seconds because I had a few things set up in advance: clear business goals, and a set schedule and action plan for the day.

For those times when we get these last-minute calls, it’s great if we can be flexible but we also have to take care of ourselves by first considering our priorities. Just because someone says, “Jump!” we don’t have to react, “How high?”. By getting in the practice of going over the next days tasks the night before, we are much more prepared to start the day with clear intentions. And, knowing exactly what needs to be done creates potential to be flexible for opportunities.