Next Year, Take Your Business Back
I don’t know about you but this time of year I tend to reflect back on last year, the wins, the loses, and all the things I want to do better next year. It’s a great time to reflect on your business practices and make sure that you are getting the most out of everything you do.
For me one of my major challenges continues to be my time. Every year I try and get better, but it's always the main thing that comes up in my yearly reflections. For example, I’m one of THOSE email obsessed business owners, you know the type – the person who has to check emails regularly. In fact I have my blackberry by my desk so that I even get notices before it hits my computer (yes it’s a sickness!). I also have my outlook set up so that messages appear as they come in. WHY? What is so important? I’m not sure, but it just seems to be a habit I have a hard time breaking. So instead of stopping it, I try and work on how it can work best for me and change my strategy once the emails arrive. First, I no longer stop what I’m doing to answer them. I discovered that is where the main problem was. I would stop what I was doing to move to the email and then I never got my momentum back. Second, I designate time for my emails. Not specific times during the day (tried that, didn’t work), but I will say for the next 20 minutes I’m going to concentrate on my emails, it seems to work. Plus, when I have the time scheduled for them, I tend to consider them more as business-oriented tasks and am more efficient in answering them and getting things done.
Another challenge I have is charging for my time. At the end of the year when I review my year I often discover that is the area I lack the most discipline. Between the extras that I do that aren’t billable (but fun!) to the times that I bill considerably less time on a project than it took, I often discover this is one of the things that holds me back from making the kind of income I should. Going into 2012 I know I want to do that better and make changes. One thing I’ve started doing is as soon as I get done with a project before I move onto the next is write down exactly what I did on my daily planner and how long it took. Eye-opening! What is great with this too is I can discover things that I am doing that I should be passing onto my virtual assistant. When things are down in black and white, it's so easy to see what I can do to change them.
And finally, my last challenge is social media. I love my social media efforts and I do get clients out of them so I don’t want to stop. However, I do need to get control over the time I spend. One of the real time-robbers I discovered was watching videos. Yes, I would stop and watch the twins in the kitchen chatting or the kittens just being adorable. And you always had me on any video that came from the Godvine site (those are always so inspirational). What I did here was yes, I can still watch the videos I want, however, I do them on breaks and not while I’m working. Now I always used to think I need to watch them now or I’ll lose them (from my facebook feed). But all I do is bookmark them and go back to them later. Then just delete the bookmark. EASY! I can have my cake and eat it too!
I hope before you go into 2012, you take a little time to reflect on 2011 and see what you can do to make changes too. And please let us know what you plan on doing.
Read my latest article.
The Entrepreneur’s New Year – Tips to Having the Best Year Ever in 2012
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Next Year, Take Your Business Back
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