time management – Page 9 – Michele Christensen

Placing value on your time off

Solopreneurs must place value on their time off

How much do you value your time off?

How do you act on that value? Do you regularly schedule time off? Do you adhere to that schedule? How about vacations?

As a solopreneur, it’s really easy to get on a treadmill of work particularly when our income isn’t where we need it to be. For many reasons, this is a bad idea. For starters:

It’s not sustainable. You can only burn the candle at both ends for so long before bad things begin happening both physically and mentally.
It’s not satisfying. Work is a critical component of a satisfying life, but it’s not the only one. You need leisure, recreation, social time and family time too.
You won’t be at your best for your clients. I’m a big believer in each person contributing their brilliance to the world, and if you’re fried to a crisp you can’t do that.
It’s not an efficient way to work. Can you really be productive 16 hours a day for long stretches of time? Probably not. Sometimes situations dictate we work long hours for short periods of time, but it’s not a good idea to make a practice of it.
You run the risk of resenting your business and clients without even realizing it, and that’s no way to live.

When things are going badly in our business, it may seem like the answer is to work harder and that may well be part of the solution. But working harder can only take you so far. If you’re working too hard, as defined by you and your lifestyle needs, your business model may be in need of some tuning. Don’t fall into the trap of working harder when that’s not the problem. I invite you to take a stand for taking time off! Part of my stand on time off is that I don’t work weekends unless the mood strikes or I’m at an event. I don’t schedule client meetings on weekends.

Leave a comment with something you stand for in taking time off! If you don’t have any time scheduled for fun, grab your calendar and carve out some time.

If you’re working too hard and not getting the results you want, I’d love to help you fine tune your business model. Click here to schedule a call with me.

Reduce stress and be more on top of things with one change to your to-do list

Lower your stress with a small change to your to-do list

Even I was a bit skeptical at that headline and I wrote it! However, it is true I promise! The one thing I’ll tell you about is really simple too. It has to do with assigning priorities in your to-do list.

I recently switched over to an online to-do list manager called Remember The Milk. One of the many great features is that you can assign priorities to your to-do items with choices of 1,2,3 or none (priority 1 shows on top of your list). I hadn’t been using priorities in my two most recent systems and didn’t want to get too complicated so I stuck with just using priority 1 or no priority. My rule for deciding whether to prioritize something was either it had a fixed deadline with a high penalty for missing (e.g. paying a bill or sending my newsletter) or it was just something important to me (sweeping up the dog hair from the floors). What started to happen was that in my two levels of priority, many things got put in priority 1. So many items were in priority 1 that I began to fall behind and had to start triaging even my high-priority items. This is where stress comes in – it’s very stressful to look at a big list of priority 1 items, know you can’t get to all of them and have to start deciding which to do and which to leave undone for now. It’s also a big waste to spend time and energy deciding what to do because you haven’t maintained your to-do lists in a way that supports you getting things done.

What I did, and this is the big secret today, is to change my criteria for priority 1 into only things that carry a substantial penalty for not being done on time. To support this, I added a middle layer of priority for things that don’t have to be done by a specific day but I that I don’t want to leave indefinitely either. Sweeping up the dog hair falls in here – it doesn’t have to be done today, but I can’t let it go for too long and maintain a sanitary living space. In contrast, sending my newsletter is a priority 1 because it reflects badly on me and disappoints people who have placed trust in me to send it late. The big temptation is to load too many things into priority 1, which takes me back to the original problem. It’s been helpful to have a rule to determine if something really belongs in priority 1.

The big stress relief comes from looking at my to-do list and seeing just 2-5 items that are priority 1 for today. It’s a small universe, it feels do-able, and lets me know in a glance what has to be done today. Everything else is optional. Having things laid out this way is great for really busy days – I can crank through the “must do’s” and even there’s dozens of things that don’t get done I know without a second glance I’ve done what has to be done today.

You can apply this with almost any system you use. Every electronic to-do list manager I’ve ever used allows you to assign priorities and you could even do this with paper so I encourage you to give it a try. It’s done wonders for me, and less stress equals more and better quality work.

Do you have any to-do list tricks you use? Tell me about them in the comments.

No news roundup today

One of my core success strategies is to experiment, measure and revise my business activities. I also like to share those results and the thought process I use with my community. In this post, I’m sharing what I learned from my Friday news series.

I regularly share news and links that I think are valuable for solopreneurs on my Facebook page. A few months back, I started using a Friday blog post to summarize the news for the week and do a quick reminder to carve out some time for fun over the weekend. My logic was that it’s important to give people what they want in the format they want. Some people don’t like getting news on Facebook, so doing the blog post gave those people another option to get the news. As with everything I do, it was an experiment. I think I’m ending that experiment now. The post took about 20 minutes to write, and it didn’t seem like I was providing enough benefit to my readers to justify 20 minutes of my time. I could use that time to write a whole new post which would be of much greater service to my community. I also felt a little hemmed in by the whole thing. I like to share news and links I think are exceptionally valuable and being obligated to post one every day made me sometimes spend a lot of time finding something that day. All told, I think it’s something that doesn’t pay off for my community or me.

I will take this time to remind you to create some time to recharge this weekend, with the emphasis on “create.” Don’t wait for “spare” time to drop into your lap to recharge. The world needs your work, so make sure you take care of yourself.

If you think I should keep the Friday Solopreneur News Roundup, leave me a comment to that effect. If enough people want this feature, maybe I’ll rethink it.

Have a great weekend!

Too much email?

Let’s face it, most of us solopreneurs spend a lot of time on email. In fact many people I talk to say they have “too much” email and that it hurts their productivity. Today, I’m proposing something radical for dealing with email. In fact, you might think it’s not even possible or that I’ve gone haywire!

Here it is, one of my key tools for handling my email effectively.

Check and clear your email inbox once a day.

Yes, that’s it, just once a day. Unless your solopreneur business is emergency services or is related to birth or death or you make money be responding quickly to situations (like a daytrader or board up service for damaged buildings) then you most likely don’t need to check your email more than once a day. I do use the email feature of my smart phone to take a couple of quick glances while standing in line or riding the stationary bike and if it’s a client I’ll respond right away. Barring that, I do one bulk processing of my email in the morning and don’t touch it the rest of the day. In fact, I even shut it down so I can’t see that oh-so-demanding little number count of unread emails that just begs for a peek.

My point in this post is not to say that my exact system will work for you, but to throw away the preconceived notions that you have about needing to always be available via email and figure out what works for you and how much you can stop doing. Constantly checking and responding to email is a huge time suck and will keep you from doing other work that supports your big vision. We often get the message that we need to respond quickly to emails in order to be successful in business and it seems to be the truth, so we don’t ever think about what is right for us. I’m sharing this today to give you encouragement to think outside of what you’ve been told. If I can get away from constant email, maybe you can too.

How often do you check your email? Is it constantly on? What could you do differently?

Easing solopreneur overwhelm

When I talk to solopreneur business owners, one of the themes that emerges is overwhelm. There’s just so much to do and even if you have help there’s a lot to learn and manage. One area where you can ease some of your overwhelm is in how you manage your projects. All too often, we put something like “Re-do website” on our project list, and it never gets started much less done. The problem with that project is that it can’t be “done” because it isn’t clear. Most of us would just look at a project like that and get a sick feeling and skip it today, then tomorrow then the next day. It hangs there and makes us feel bad. To reduce the overwhelm in a project like this, I suggest the following 3 steps:

Start by getting clear on exactly why the project needs to be done and what you hope to accomplish by changing your website. Once you know why you are doing something, much of what else you need to know becomes clear. How much to spend, how high a priority to place, what time frame, etc all become much clearer when you know why you are doing something.
Once you are clear on the why, you can define the scope of what needs to be done. Defining the scope of a project helps you to know when it’s done. It will also help you avoid “feature creep,” or the tendency to add things in along the way.
Once you’ve defined the desired outcomes and scope of the project, make a list of the tasks needed to complete the project. Start with just the first few if that’s as far as you can see. The key here is to keep the steps really small – as small as they need to be to stave off overwhelm. For example, your first step might be to find a web person, but that’s still a big, vague task. I suggest starting with a task such as “Make a list of 5 people I can call for a referral.” Next might be “Spend 1 hour reading up on how to hire a web person” followed by “Call people on list.” In each case, the task is very small and focused and “done” is clearly defined.

When I talk to someone who is feeling overwhelmed, using these three steps can often help. Tell me about how you got out of overwhelm on a recent project in the comments.

Email isn’t a business activity

Talk to any group of business people and you’re likely to hear people crushed by the burden of email. The stats are just incredible – I spoke to someone who owns a small company who gets a staggering 1,000 emails a day! You can optimize your time spent on email, but that only goes so far. I think one of the key things to remember is that email isn’t really a business activity, it’s a way of communicating. You could handle some of those emails by other means like phone, snail mail, Skype or in person conversations. I’m not saying you should, just pointing out that the defining characteristic of the activity is not that it’s email but what you are accomplishing. When I go to a concert, the defining characteristic of that activity is that it’s a concert not how I got there.

When I work with someone who feels burdened by email, the first step is always to optimize how the email is handled. Once we’ve done that, what’s left is communication about some other critical business issue such as customer service, employee development, sales, personal development or business building. Once we establish that the true nature of the activity, it’s much easier to prioritize it and feel good about it.

I would almost make the argument that email hasn’t added any new activities to the work of having a business. People have communicated with customers, co-workers and suppliers since there was a such thing as business. What has changed is the number of communications we are part of. Email is “cheap” in terms of cost, time and effort so we do more of it than we would if we were communicating the same thing by other means.

Today, when you are “doing” your email I invite you to look at what you are really doing via those emails and put a name to it. Then, consider where in your priorities it should be. Leave a comment and tell me about your experience with doing this today.

How long should a voicemail be?

I tend to leave longer voicemails than most, but let me explain before you hate my habit!

One of my favorite business topics to study and coach on is productivity. I try to always make sure I’m getting the most I can out of every effort I make. For both myself and the person I’m calling, this means that whenever it’s possible I leave a voicemail with all the information in it someone needs to answer my question and call me back. If I’m calling about a bill, I leave my account number, invoice number, my identifying information and exactly what my question is. That way, the other person can research the answer and probably leave me a voicemail with all the information I need. Two calls, problem solved. The alternative is leaving just a name and phone number and playing phone tag for days on end, which I dislike.

I got to thinking about this when I heard an “expert” say that he deplores my type of voicemail and that nobody should ever leave more than a name, number and possibly a subject. What an utter waste of time! People are busier than ever, it’s almost impossible to catch people by phone without an appointment and nobody likes phone tag – how many more reasons are there for leaving enough information to get what you need? Yes, sometimes my messages can go on for over a minute, but it’s voicemail – save it and play it whenever it suits you. I don’t understand the logic that days of phone tag taking much more than 2 minutes is preferable to a 1-2 minute voicemail.

To each, their own I suppose…. but you won’t catch me leaving a vague voicemail unless I’ve been specifically told to.

What kind of voicemails do you prefer? What kind do you leave? Post a comment and tell me about it.

Every day, do something to build your business

As a solopreneur, it’s so easy to sucked into working on what’s in front right now rather than what will help you build the business you want to have later. Always “firestomping” may keep the business from burning down but probably won’t help you get ahead. A certain amount of time to crank out some tasks is really important, but make sure to spend time every day doing something to create, grow and build the business you dream of.

What are these activities? They vary from business to business, but here’s some ideas to get you thinking:

Building your community of people interested in what you offer. This includes social media, real life and your newsletter.
Planning your next projects and long-term projects
Brainstorming
Educating yourself
Creating new products or services to sell

That’s just a few of the things you could be doing to build your business. What else do you do to build your business? How often? Leave a comment and let me know.

Solopreneurs must create work/personal separation

Solopreneurs must create work and personal separation

When I worked at a job outside the house, it was easy to separate my work and personal life. I got up, got dressed in work clothes (which weren’t the clothes I wore outside of work), went to my job, and came home. As soon as I left, there was no connection to work. I never had a remote login or 24-hour on-call status, so it was easy to say “I’m done.”

Now that I work from home, it’s much harder. It’s tempting to just check in when I’m enjoying a quiet Saturday morning or to go down the rabbit hole of checking email. One way I manage this is by having separate work and personal email addresses. I was surprised to learn at a recent Hubspot webinar on email marketing that 88% of survey respondents did not have separate work and personal email addresses!

This is something I’ve had as long as I’ve been self-employed. When I’m out having fun, the last thing I want is work intruding on my time. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my business and tend to work too much already but I don’t want to think about work when I’m doing something else. If I’m out hiking or visiting family on a weekend, I don’t even want to know about loose ends that need to be taken care of. If I read an email and need to do something about it, I don’t want that hovering in my thoughts while I’m having fun.

As solopreneurs, we ARE the business and it becomes much harder to separate and take a break than for people who have a job with someone else. But you absolutely have to carve out some time to disconnect or you’ll lose a lot of the biggest benefit of being self-employed – freedom. I strongly recommend separate work and personal email addresses for solopreneurs. Try this tiny step and see if you feel more at ease when you’re “off.”

Do you have separate business and personal email addresses? Why or why not?

What to do about spam email

On the heels of my recent post How not to build a mailing list and my recent newsletter article on clearing your email inbox, I thought I’d give you some information on what to do about those pesky spammers.

First, use the “Mark as Spam” button on your email service provider (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or through your hosting account). Every provider I’ve ever seen offers a way to mark messages as spam so you never have to see a message from that sender. It’s also an important public service because your provider will use that information to improve spam filters. I wanted to include this tip because so many people struggle with getting too much email and with this one step you can help reduce your email volume permanently.

Second, if you feel it’s warranted, report the spammer to the FTC. This is done by forwarding the entire email to spam@uce.gov (link to FTC information HERE). I have done this on occasion, when I’ve felt the the sender was particularly egregious in their violation of the spam laws or they continued to send to me after I requested to be removed. The FTC accumulates this information to build possible cases against spammers, so your forwarded email contributes to their efforts to reduce the spam in the world.

What do you do when you get spam? Have you ever reported it? Leave a comment and let me know.