Business

5 Ways to Take Charge of Your Schedule Today!

It is not unusual when I meet with a prospective or new client to hear, “I just can’t seem to get anything done”, or “I work nearly 60-70 hours a week, but I just 5 Ways to Take Charge of Your Schedule Today! seem to move from one thing to the next and don’t ever feel like I accomplish anything.” Or, “I tend to just wing stuff a lot and go with the flow”.

Many entrepreneurs and business people have the ability to handle a lot of different tasks, assignments and projects at the same time. However, as the old saying goes, “what got you here isn’t going to get you there”. In other words, while one of your strengths may be to “wing it”, that’s probably not going to continue to make you successful in your business or career. Or while you may have been successful at multi-tasking or moving from one thing to the next, at some point, that’s not going to continue to work for you as you move up the ladder in your career or become more successful in your business.

Getting in control of your own schedule is crucial. And with good intentions, discipline and consistent practice, it can be accomplished. Here are five “tried and true” tips that have worked for me and my clients:

1-Keep a Time Log for 2 weeks-Keep a piece of paper near your desk or computer and keep a time log-by hour of how you spend your time. At the top of each page put the day with each hourly increments starting from when you wake to when you go to sleep. Be sure to be as detailed as possible noting what you’re working on (i.e. e-mail, project, meeting etc.) what time you started and when you finished. It’s important to keep this for 2 weeks to be sure you cover a portion of time when things may only happen once, or things that routinely happen. At the end of two weeks, take the time to really analyze where are there time sucks? Where are you spending too much time, perhaps with e-mails, looking for things in your office, or on your desk? Are you moving from one thing to a next without completing the first project? While this task can in itself feel overwhelming, all of my clients who have completed this exercise have found it INVALUABLEto help them get more organized and dramatically improve their productivity.

2-Organize Your Work Area-If your work area is a disaster, or there are piles and piles on your desk, (oh, I know, you know where everything is, or you’re afraid if you file it away, you will forget to do it) there is no way you will ever feel or get in control of your own schedule. Schedule a time this week to spend the time getting your work area organized. Buy some cheap boxes or baskets, label them and put like papers and info into each of them. Throw away what you don’t need and create a “projects for the future” basket which you schedule to look at once a month for new ideas.

3-Don’t Leave Your Office For The Evening Without Planning For The Next Day-I never leave my office without making a list of the things I have to do the next day. That way, I don’t waste any time when I get into my office the next morning, trying to figure out what I need to do that day. I already know from my planning the previous night. I also prioritize my list by the most important. Research shows that most people are most productive in the morning hours and it’s the best time to do the “hardest stuff” first.

4-Finish One Priority Before You Move To The Next-When working your prioritized list (that you made the night before!), go as far as you can with the first priority, until it’s either completed or you can’t go any further, before you move on to the next one, and so on and so forth. This way you start to complete projects, rather than just getting a little done here and there without really completing any of them.

5-Respect Your Time-This means to value your time. If you’ve scheduled some personal time to work out, or take a walk, or take time off-stick to it. Don’t let other people, or other “time sucks” pull you off your schedule. It’s important to schedule free or personal time into your calendar and stick to it-just as you would if it were a client appointment. This will greatly begin to reduce your feeling of overwhelm because you are able to make some space in the day for yourself.

Assignment: Implement these 5 tips today. Stay true to them for two weeks, being as disciplined as you can in following these five things and I will guarantee you will make a big difference in lowering your stress level and helping you feel more in control of your time and schedule!

Mandy works with talented, bright, high energy self employed professionals and very small businesses who struggle to market their business effectively, stretch their capacity and play a bigger game. Mandy’s client’s receive proven, specific information on what they need to do to get more clients and grow their business. As a result, those who coach with Mandy increase their business, get more clients and make more money, faster and easier than they ever would have on their own.

Sign up for her free Cd “7 Productivity Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs” at www.mandyschumaker.com. Or contact her at 207-653-6977

Accentuate the Positive…

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You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
Johnny Mercer

Having little kids like I do, offers such an opportunity for my own learning every single day.Over the past few weeks, my older son, Quin, and I have been struggling with his younger brother Cade’s behavior. The specific issues primarily take the form of Cade wanting to make older kids laugh. This can include using some inappropriate language (especially for a five-year-old) and being too aggressive with other people through his actions and words.

While this behavior is certainly unacceptable to me, one of the things I have noticed is that his older brother now focuses on what Cade does wrong, and runs to me to numerous times during the day to report on his brother’s latest antics.

Now, I’m sure child behavior specialists could have a field day in what I’m describing here. But the thing that has become most apparent to me is how much we focus our attention on Cade’s negative behaviors, instead of his many other wonderful qualities as a brother and a son. And we all know that universal law – where the attention goes, so there the energy flows. In other words, what you focus on is what becomes most pronounced.

I’ve noticed the same thing in my business and in my client’s businesses. When the attention is focused on the negative outcomes, or the things that might not be going well for us, we get ourselves stuck – and we just keep getting more of the same!

It’s as if the negative thoughts, beliefs and focus create more of what we don’t want, instead of allowing us to focus on all the positive things that are going on around us in our businesses and lives.

So where is your attention focused? Are you feeling frustrated and stuck? Could it be you are focused only on the negative aspects of what is going on around you?

As an assignment, I like to challenge you to look at three areas where you find yourself feeling negative and frustrated and try to find five good or positive things about where you are. Write them down and read them to yourself each morning and evening. See if by focusing on the positive, it helps to bring more free-flowing energy and ease to the difficult situations in your business.

I’ll be doing the same, as an entrepreneur – and as a mother!

Sign up for her free Cd “7 Productivity Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs” at www.mandyschumaker.com. Or contact her at 207-653-6977

Are You Spending Enough Time on Your Marketing?

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Most prospective clients contact me because they don’t have enough clients and aren’t making enough money. The first thing I always ask is, “How much time are you spending each week on marketing activities?” It’s not unusual for the answer to fall somewhere between none and an hour or two a week.

And here in lies the problem. It is impossible to grow your business, get more clients and make more money if you are not investing enough time each day and each week to marketing activities.

Marketing generating activities might include: networking, writing your blog or book, creating content, following up with prospects, creating workshops, speaking etc.

So how much is enough? Many successful entrepreneurs will tell you that spending four hours a day is the ultimate amount of time needed to grow your business. In working with clients I encourage them to spend one full day on marketing related activities.

You may be asking yourself, “I’m so busy and overwhelmed now, how will I ever find the time for a day of marketing?”

Here are some suggestions to help you not only find the time in your schedule for marketing, but also some ways to be sure you stick to it.

1-The first step is to look at the things you are spending time on now. Is it time to hire an assistant and delegate some of your administrative tasks to them? Do you have a bookkeeper? What other activities are you spending time on that aren’t revenue generating activities? Is it time to hire a housecleaner? Also, what activities are you involved in that you should STOP doing so you can make the time? Committees, volunteer work, watching too much TV, and spending too much time on Facebook are some of the common culprits.

2-Next you need to determine where in your schedule you want to plug in the time for your marketing related activities. Is it a few hours every day, or would you rather designate one full day as your business development day? Either way works, it just depends which option you feel you can fully commit to.

3-Once you’ve decided when you will spend the time marketing your business you must actually put the time in your calendar, and commit to making that time sacred. You cannot book clients in that slot, or view it as “free or down time”. It is an appointment you’ve made with yourself and your business that cannot be broken. This is the most crucial step.

If you want to make more money in your business, you must focus your time (all of it) on actions that have a direct result in your business making more money. Everything else should be delegated, outsourced, automated and systematized.

Sign up for her free Cd “7 Productivity Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs” at www.mandyschumaker.com. Or contact her at 207-653-6977

Is Procrastination Hurting Your Business?

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All of us are guilty of letting procrastination creep into our lives at one time or another. The trick is to recognize it for what it is, then take a hard look at what it is that’s holding you back and begin taking small steps to move you forward.

This video takes a pretty amusing (and accurate) look at procrastination. Enjoy, and then do your best this week to remove the procrastination from your life so you can move forward on the things that will make you and your business even more successful!

Enjoy!

httpsv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU8H0kR-_Go&noredirect=1

Sign up for her free Cd “7 Productivity Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs” at www.mandyschumaker.com. Or contact her at 207-653-6977

Do You Start With The End In Mind?

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Have you ever started a new project, product, idea or even a business, then have gotten into the middle of it and realize you aren’t really on the right track? That you aren’t even close to your original vision of the idea? Or perhaps you feel stuck because things have gotten complicated, convoluted and you feel totally overwhelmed.

As entrepreneurs, we love the next “big idea”. It’s what keeps up going, keeps us excited and can keep us broke if we’re not careful. Too often, we get a great idea, and start right off trying to implement it without a clear picture of the end in mind.

When I was a little girl, I loved watching my grandmother sew, and I really wanted to learn, so she taught me. I used to love to go to the fabric stores and look through the pattern books at all the pictures of the beautiful clothes that you could make.

This is a great example of having the end in mind, before you begin. You must visualize or have a picture, or a concrete idea of what that something is, you are trying to create, looks like in the end result.

For example, I recently worked with a client who was struggling with creating a speech he has to deliver to a large organization in a few months. He wasn’t sure where to start, but had a lot of information, (too much information) he was trying to put into the speech-which would inevitably have become a “long, rambling” speech. As a homework assignment, I asked him to think about the three things he wanted his audience to walk away with and remember from his speech and build it from there-with only three points-not the ten he was cramming into a 30 minute speech!

Another client of mine, along with one of her colleagues, is creating a new networking of health professionals that serve cultural creatives. She wants to create some structure and guidelines of operation for the group, that includes plenty of flexibility, but wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it without ending up with a rigid set of rules.

I suggested that she and her colleague start with the end in mind, by visualizing what this group would look like when it was fully operational. What kind of people were in the group, how often did they meet, what made up the content of the meetings, were members there for every meeting, etc. Then work backwards creating the boundaries and structure that would most likely support that vision.

This notion of starting with the end in mind is why vision boards work so well in helping us reach goals, manifest, or just get clearer on what we want.

So the next time you find yourself creating a new idea, project, speech-whatever-start with the end in mind and get really clear on the end result. You’ll find the path for creating what you want will be easier, clearer and you’ll end up with a successful result!

Sign up for her free Cd “7 Productivity Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs” at www.mandyschumaker.com. Or contact her at 207-653-6977

3 Ways to Add More Structure to Your Day

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One of the things I find that many of my clients struggle with (me included) is being able to structure your day so that you can continually get things done and move forward with your business. There are so many things for us to get done in any given day, that we are often in a state of overwhelm, often coupled with feelings of procrastination and low energy.

In working with clients over the past nine years, I have found time and time again, having some structure to your week and day, can make a huge difference in how you feel and how much you accomplish.

So often we take on more than we can handle, or try and cram everything we need to get done into one long “to do list”. And sometimes we just are plain “out of energy” because we’ve worked so hard for so long. Adding some structure and boundaries to your day can help.

If you can relate to any of these feelings, here are some ways you might consider adding structure to your day to help you get back on track and moving forward:

1-Structure your ideal work week and day. When specifically during the day are you going to work on your marketing? When are you specifically going to see clients? When are you specifically going to work on the administrative tasks in your business? The more you can schedule these activities into your weekly and daily schedules, the easier it will be for you to know exactly what you should be doing at any time during business hours.

2-Plan your next day the night before. Before you leave your office or shut down your computer for the night, be sure you’ve created a list of things you’d like to get done the next day. That way, when you come into work the next morning, you know exactly what your priorities are for the day, where to begin and what you need to get done.

3-Don’t have an overwhelming “to-do” list. When clients first start working with me, they often have really long to-do lists. Sometimes they even have two and three lists, one for business, and one for personal and one for major things. First, I recommend having one to-do list with everything on it. Then prioritize the list, with A’s, B’s and C’s. Be sure and break down some of your larger projects into bite-size pieces. For example, if you have an item that’s listed as “Create new business development idea”, you might want to break that big idea down into smaller more doable parts. Those smaller steps can then be put on your daily to do list. As the old saying goes, “it’s much easier to eat an elephant, one bite at a time.”

Where can you be putting more structure into your day and week to help you stay on track so you can be even more successful in your business?

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