Perhaps you’re a little like me – you come from a generation where it was drilled into us that in order to be successful financially, we had to work hard!!!? For many years, that ‘myth’ held me back and actually led me to a burn out. I don’t want that for you and I promised myself that I wouldn’t let it happen in my coaching business!
So today, I’m going to share my #1 strategy to work smarter – not harder!
But first — Whew – another Canada Day has passed – 151 years!! How amazing is that!!! What did you do to celebrate this year?
Currently I’m down in Halifax visiting with family! Although totally unscheduled, I am looking forward to some lobster eating, wine drinking and a little down time.
Speaking about unscheduled time – would you be able to drop everything and have your business continue to make money? I truly believe that is a dream that most of us have …. We want the freedom and flexibility AND we also want the FINANCES!
So how do we do that? A couple of things I’ve learned in my years of entrepreneurship are:
1. scheduling everything gives you time freedom
2. building a sales & marketing machine gives you financial freedom.
Both of these topics are large enough to write an entire book about. However, today let’s talk about time freedom. If you’ve been watching my FB Lives, or if you’d like a more detailed explanation this topic, head over here for the Live — https://www.facebook.com/TheEntrepreneursGPS/videos/1793511630691769/
I want to be honest — what I’m going to share with you took some time and courage! Just like everything else in your business, nothing happens overnight! But you can have more freedom in your business using this strategy!
My #1 Strategy to work smarter – not harder!
A. Become the CEO of your business and ask yourself daily, would a CEO be doing this? That goes for every activity you do. In fact, you would be very surprised where you actually spend your time if you tracked your time daily in these 5 categories:
- marketing & money making,
- education & personal growth,
- client fulfillment,
- customer service,
- admin & ops
B. Start treating time as if it was MONEY! Your time is precious and until you start treating it that way, you’ll end up wasting too much money!
C. Commit to using GOOGLE calendar religiously and schedule EVERYTHING! (Hint – use Google calendar and NOT an agenda you write in – why? Because as your business grows, you will want to link your Google calendar with team members and with an outside scheduler such as Youcanbook.me, Acuity, Timetrader, etc.) So start thinking like a CEO now.
In your calendar, schedule these items in this order!!!
1. Schedule your ME time. Personally, I block out time between 7-9 every morning for my personal growth – no emails; no phone calls – just me, perhaps a walk and or meditation! What is your Me time? Is it that you block this time out to get your kids ready for school? Do some laundry? Or if you have a job, then you’re off to work
2. Schedule your family commitments. Dinner time; Girl Guides, soccer, homework, etc. For me, Friday afternoons are boating time during the summer so NO business commitments are scheduled then!
3. Schedule a CEO Date with yourself (or as I used to call it a Sanity Meeting) where you plan your week; do your finances; etc. This could be Friday afternoon; Sunday night or first thing Monday morning. This meeting is for weekly planning, team meetings and your financial review.
4. Then group like-activities together (scientific fact is that we lose productivity skipping from one type of activity to another) . For instance, I block out when I’m going to write content. (For me Monday morning works well)
5. Schedule client time (hint – don’t let your clients dictate when you will see them …. Remember, would a CEO do that?). As many of you know, most of my client fulfillment is on Thursdays (group calls) with private coaching sprinkled on Wednesday mornings
6. Customer service and administration/operations are activities to schedule as well (unless you are at the stage where you can start delegating to your Virtual Assistant).
7. Schedule some flex-time. Flex-time are hours where you can take care of emergencies or things that took longer than you originally thought!
That’s it!!! So start by choosing ONE place to start!!! Remember that 20% of your activities generate 80% of your revenue – what are they? Those are your marketing & money making activities! That’s where you should be spending the majority of your time!
Okay – so now you have a GOOGLE calendar schedule that will give you the FREEDOM and flexibility to grow a business and have a life too!
To watch the video explaining this concept, , check out FB live — https://www.facebook.com/TheEntrepreneursGPS/videos/1793511630691769/
BE UNSTOPPABLE this week….
Diana
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