Time management tips really help you manage yourself when you are stressed, rushed, and caught in a time crunch. Those are, after all, the times when it’s hardest to make your best time choices.
Here are 5 Stress-Reduction Steps to Take the Crunch Out of Your Time
Work Within Your Limits. It sounds easy. It is not so easy. Take a deep breath. Recognize the reality that you don’t have time to get everything done that you might have hoped to. Straightforward as it sounds, it requires truly relinquishing options you might value highly! In Scott Peck’s classic, The Road Less Traveled, he lists “balancing” as one of the four essential disciplines to solve all life’s problems. At the heart of balancing is letting go. You assume more positive control by reducing demands on yourself to a workable level. Having simplified your demands, you can succeed!
How will you create the financial success you want in 2010 if you don’t have the necessary processes in place?
In teaching a new Say Yes to You Coaching series that started in October 2009 it came to my attention just how many entrepreneurs don’t realize how important it is to have written goals, a vision board, written marketing plans as well as written action plans in place so they know exactly where they are going and what they need to do to get there!
If you didn’t set your goals or write your marketing plan with weekly actions I highly encourage you to do this before January 8th 2010 so that you are ready to “Step Up and Stand out in 2010.”
Last week, I shared the second of five tips, and I hope you’re really thinking about what you need to do to set aside time to plan your business. (Tip #1: schedule a creative planning day. Tip #2: Get out of your home office.)
Tip #3: Bring creative supplies
You don’t want to develop your marketing strategies, creative ideas, and inspiration with a boring yellow legal pad. Pack your favorite markers, pens, or pencils, add some colorful, fun sticky notes to capture spontaneous free flowing ideas, bring paper or a tablet for making mind maps of ideas (a great way to access your right-brain creative thinking before your left-brain logic kicks in).
Do you have stickers or a favorite pen that you love writing with? Do you have cool big planning calendars or pads that you can’t wait to dive into?
I find that the more I can support my creativity around planning for making more money, rolling out big marketing campaigns, or committing to a big project or that new platinum program – then the more tapped in I am to my creative flow, ideas, inspiration… And it’s so much easier this way!
So – whatever makes you giggle with delight – bring with you on your creative planning day.
You start creating next year’s success NOW. Not later. NOW.
If you don’t know exactly what you are going to put in place to move you into six-figures (and beyond) in the next 12 months then I want you to be on this call because I will be personally coaching you through your MUST HAVE inner and outer marketing plan.
And here’s a hint: You don’t need a fancy website, stellar twitter account or know how to use YouTube. These are great tools, but not the “magic marketing bullet” that you might think.
Finding time in the midst of “busyness” for a calm moment can be a little like finding clear space in a cluttered office. It can seem impossible – and I’m here to tell you that it’s a great gift that you can give to yourself – and it’s NOT impossible at all!
Email is a simple, helpful form of communication. However, if we aren’t careful, email can slurp up too much of our time, drain us, and distract us from more important tasks.
Some tips to consider:
1) Only check email twice a day.
2) As your business grows, ask an assistant to screen your emails and answer what they can without you.
3) Save lower priority emails in “to do this week” file and respond to those on Fridays.
4) Do not, and I repeat, do not discuss or debate sensitive issues over email. Either let the issue go or pick up the phone and call.
If you’re feeling stressed out or “discombobulated,” then the following story may help you quickly move out of that state. I heard it in delivered by a British man at a conference in Toronto.
An instructor stands in front of her class on their very first day of _______ class (fill in the blank with your favorite subject). The students are all bright-eyed and bushy tailed.
She says, “I know you’re expecting me to talk to you about _______ since that’s the title of this class. But I’m going to teach you the most important lesson, something that will help you in school and in life.”
http://www.greatsmallbusinessadvice.com: Sometimes what keeps small business owners stuck is not realizing that it’s time to make the shift from running a hobby to running a business. In this video are 3 signs that you may be running a hobby and not a business.
