The Wealth Spa

How-To Clear the Decks to Prepare for Success

Posted on 10. Nov, 2008 by Elizabeth Potts Weinstein in Life Balance

Guest post by Liz Pabon, The Branding Maven 

Let’s face it running a small business has its challenges.

Don’t get me wrong, I would NEVER dream of trading my small business experience for a corporate position. Having now spent ample time as an employee and as an entrepreneur, I’ve definitely found my niche.

However, without some solid business strategies in place, the business of entrepreneurship can overwhelm, disappoint and frustrate.

During a recent coaching session with a small group of entrepreneurs, one consistent obstacle presented itself … lack of time.

The time issue, after the layers are peeled back, is nothing more than an organization and prioritization issue.

Feel like you don’t have time to market your brand? No time to follow-up with clients, customers or prospective new business? No time to workout, spend time with your loved ones, etc? If you answered yes, what you are faced with is a disorganized calendar.

There are 24 hours in a day and it doesn’t matter what line of work you’re in, what market you serve, what challenges you are facing in your business, you get the same 24 hours as the very successful. The only difference between them and you is how you use that time.

You see, before you can market your brand, get going with that exercise program, or plan that vacation, you must first identify how you’re spending your time so you can create the time for what you want to accomplish.

And, here’s how…

1. Before you add one more thing to your schedule, slow down, and take a look at how you are spending your time today. You’ll have greater success re-prioritizing your time when you can identify how you are spending it.

What often happens when you don’t know how your time is being spent, you try to squeeze in marketing your brand, following up with clients, and finding new clients and customers. Wouldn’t you agree that these are vital to the success of a business? Of course they are.

2. The most effective time management strategy is called scheduling. Make no doubt about it, moving from time clutter to scheduling takes patience and discipline but is a necessity if you want significant growth.

Once you’ve identified how you spend your time, you’ll want to clear the decks of all non-productive activity like:

• Gabbing with friends 
• Surfing the web 
• Checking and reading email 
• Answering your phone 
• Emptying the dishwasher 
• Organizing your desk 
• Checking web stats 
• Cleaning your office 
• Fudging with flyers 
• Doing the laundry 
• Data entry 

3. As a soon-to-be scheduler, you’ll be scheduling your activity on a calendar each week by blocking segments of time for specific tasks.

For example, emails are addressed M-F from 4-5:00pm only. Phone calls are returned within 24 business hours. Marketing is scheduled for Thursdays from 1-3:00pm. All follow-ups are made (phone, email or regular mail) on Friday’s.

Begin by identifying the day of the week you’ll devote to this task, then the amount of time you’ll dedicate for each task. The amount of time you assign to each task is not as important – at least not initially – as carving out time for the task itself.

By clearing the decks of those things that are blocking you from achieving all that you can, you’ll find that lack of time is not the enemy. You’ll also discover that your capacity to achieve more, be more and have more is just a schedule away.

ACTION STEP: Purchase a large desk or wall calendar. On it, begin to block out days and times that you will realistically devote to the most important tasks/activity in your business; marketing, sales, networking, follow-ups, etc. I encourage you to use the same method for work out time, family time, and self-care time. You may find that you’ll need to modify this schedule several times until you get just the right rhythm for you and your business.

©2007-2008 Liz Pabon. All rights reserved.

About the Author:  Brand Strategist and Wild Success Coach Liz Pabon, “The Branding Maven,” publishes the playful, insightful and motivating, “Keys 2 Wild Success!” Ezine. If you’re ready to create the business and life of your dreams, and have LOTS more fun getting there, get your FREE tips now at www.thebrandingmaven.com

Related posts

• You Can Do Anything in Just 15 Minutes (6)
• The Dog Ate My Blog, or 5 Time Perception Tips, part 1 (5)
• The Delegation Dilemma: Do I Have to Learn it Before I Outsource it? (1)
• Stop With Aggressive (aka Crazy) Deadlines: Time Perception Tip part 2 (2)
• Productivity Buster: Mistaking Activity for Accomplishment (0)

Tags: effective time management, Liz Pabon, Management, organizing, productivity, Time Management