Are You Productive, or Just Busy?
I read this article and it hit a nerve with me so I wanted to share
it with you too!
Christy Mellott,
Millionaire in Training, MMMChallenge.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many people seem very busy and are always talking about how there's not enough time in the day, how they're overwhelmed.you've either heard it all or said it all before, right? But, what we've found to be interesting is that usually when this happens, your time isn't being spent wisely.
For the most part, I've gotten really good at figuring out when I'm just being "busy" or putting something off rather than actually being productive. But, what I've noticed is that we have to constantly stay on top of this and monitor our productivity. Earlier this week was one of those times when I started getting sucked into my old ways again and I had to snap out of it fast. (You can see the sticky notes here on my lamp as my reminder to stay focused and check in on what I'm really doing.) Because, the the thing is that there are only two activities that are truly worth our valuable time during work hours: Marketing to Brides and Working on our Weddings. Nothing else. But what about all those time- wasters that eat up our days? How do you re-group and re-focus your efforts? Keep reading. I'll tell you exactly what works for me!
5 Examples of how to take Busy Work and turn it into Productive Time!
1. Busy Work :: Checking Email Throughout the Day Do you ever find yourself checking your inbox constantly to see if you have any new emails? Or, once you start checking your email, you're stuck in it for hours at a time?
Productive Time :: We had this problem (big-time), so now we only check emails at
11:00am and 3:00pm Monday through Thursday (we're usually off on Fridays). From our experience, we found that most of our emails came in prior to those two times, so it takes care of a chunk of our emails all at once. To make our clients and colleagues aware of this, we have our "vacation" autoresponder setup so that it also informs people of our email checking schedule so that they know when we'll get back to them (eliminating additional unnecessary emails). And, when I check my emails during these set times, I also allow myself 45 minutes at the most to check email, do the tasks at hand and respond immediately.
This keeps me from getting sucked in like I used to. And, as an added bonus, I don't procrastinate on getting tasks done that are requested of me via emails. I receive the emails, add them to my immediate or future to do list (if needed), check off the task(s), and move on. It's quick, easy & fast . love that!
2. Busy Work :: Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media Yes, we should of course use social media and networking to market and build our businesses, but it definitely can become a time-waster fast when we end up using it to catch up on gossip, eves drop on other "conversations,"
see what you-know-who is up to today, and see what Oprah's fan page is talking about this week (uh-oh, I'm busted). I've been guilty of all of these too, of course, so I created ways around these issues to monitor my own time and stay true to my focus.
Productive Time :: Plan it all out! Everything that we do, say and post on these sites is planned out. Even when we seem spontaneous, it's planned. We have charts of what is to be done every day of the week, and then we schedule accordingly.
When social media ended up seriously eating up large chunks of my time, I realized that I needed help, but didn't want to pay someone $50/hour to do it. So, we hired our two amazing interns to help us out and give them resume experience in the process. This alone frees up dozens of hours of my time weekly! They help me tweet, maintain our two Facebook fan pages, develop content and posts for blogs, and more. Plus, with the use of tools like Tweetlater, we're able to schedule tweets around the clock without having to be hand-cuffed to Twitter. (And you thought I didn't sleep!) For the other sites where we can't schedule ahead, we get in, do the tasks needed, and get out with the help of our handy digital kitchen timer to stay accountable.
3. Busy Work :: Talking on the Phone We don't answer our phones live anymore...The volume of calls coming in started interrupting our work and we didn't want a receptionist on staff. In the middle of projects, the phone would ring, we'd get tied up or derail our focus and then projects would be post-poned, or would never get completed.
Productive Time :: We found a new phone system. Now I realize that not everyone is ready to relinquish the live phone system, and I understand that. At the very least, turn the ringer off during projects, but here are a few things that we did that may work for you too. We use a phone system called Freedom Voice. It is a toll free line that can have multiple extensions and even be forwarded to live phones if desired. We receive email alerts when voicemails are left on our system, and during our scheduled phone time, we check them and get back to clients and inquiries.
My cellphone also goes on silent mode all day while I'm working AND gets placed in a drawer so that I cannot even be tempted by seeing it on the desk! Before implementing this, I noticed that several hours - literally equalling almost one entire workday per week - was being spent chatting on the phone with vendors, friends and family about not much at all. WHAT?? Now, all personal calls are done after hours.
Period.
4. Busy Work :: Running Errands All Week Long! Driving all over town to pick up this, drop off that, get the groceries, and purchase more supplies is just not my idea of fun. And, it takes a LOT of precious time out of your day and week.
Productive Time :: Get organized, and when possible, get help! Get a grocery delivery service and a personal assistant if you can. That will triple your available time to get more done and stop wasting time But, in our area, no one offers a grocery delivery service (if they did, I'd be all over that though!) and our personal assistant is back at her day job. So if you're like us, don't worry - there are other ways to reclaim that wasted time. Here are a few things that have worked miracles in our household Put together a spreadsheet of your most commonly purchased groceries and staple items. Set it up with a little checkbox to the left of each item so that you can mark it when it's time to purchase it on your monthly or weekly run, leave blanks next to other checkboxes to be filled in as needed, and organize the grocery into areas so that your list is grouped into sections, like deli, bakery, produce, meat, etc.
Then, go at a time that's not so busy, like Tuesdays at 8am and it will be the fastest visit ever!
For other errands, we make a list, group them according to location, and knock them out back-to- back in another morning (again a non-busy time of day). I always take my notebook with me too to brainstorm on the ride things like e-zine articles, blog entries and the like. All other shopping is done online. I don't like going to the mall anymore - I'm not a window shopper - and I hate traffic and lines. Amazon is always open and they never have a wait . love it!
5. Busy Work :: Where to Begin Confusion and Chaos at the Desk Have you ever found yourself feeling like you're spinning your wheels at your desk because you don't even know where to begin and what to start on now? I'm sure you've been there too. It's like when you sit down and know there's about a hundred things to do today, but you just can't seem to focus and so you start doing one of the four time-wasters I mentioned above because you don't know what to do!
Productive Time :: Something that I used to do in high school was to lay out my outfits for the entire week the Sunday before - ironed and ready to go, accessories and all (with two outfits to spare just in case my mood dictated a different ensemble). Yes, people joked about me being a little OCD when they found out about this (maybe that's why I'm a good planner too?!), but now as a business owner, these types of behavior come in very handy!
At the end of my day, I'll go ahead and prioritize my list of things to do tomorrow and then schedule out my plan of attack accordingly. I know that a lot of people suggest getting high-tech with blackberries, pda's and programs that line it up for you digitally, but my favorite organizational tool to this day is my sprial-bound notebook (and I never have to worry about it crashing)!
This way, when you walk into your office the next morning, there's no question about what's most important to get done, and what can be done on another day. It's right in front of me and so easy to follow along!
Your Bride Attraction Assignment: Give a few or all of these a try in your own business. Put a note out as a gentle reminder to yourself to stay focused and alert on what's really important to you you'll catch yourself doing all sorts of time-wasting activities and soon you'll notice that your work days are shorter and shorter because you get more done in less time. I love this because it gives me that much more time with my family and to just enjoy my life and my business THAT much more! I'm sure you'll find the same thing in your own business and life!
2008-2010 Soire! Ltd.
Want to use this article in your E-zine or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Event Planning entrepreneur Natalie Bradley publishes the "Bride Attraction"
weekly e-zine. Get your F*REE audio course: "5 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Wedding Business...Starting Today!l" at www.BrideAttraction.com
Christy Mellott,
Millionaire in Training, MMMChallenge.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many people seem very busy and are always talking about how there's not enough time in the day, how they're overwhelmed.you've either heard it all or said it all before, right? But, what we've found to be interesting is that usually when this happens, your time isn't being spent wisely.
For the most part, I've gotten really good at figuring out when I'm just being "busy" or putting something off rather than actually being productive. But, what I've noticed is that we have to constantly stay on top of this and monitor our productivity. Earlier this week was one of those times when I started getting sucked into my old ways again and I had to snap out of it fast. (You can see the sticky notes here on my lamp as my reminder to stay focused and check in on what I'm really doing.) Because, the the thing is that there are only two activities that are truly worth our valuable time during work hours: Marketing to Brides and Working on our Weddings. Nothing else. But what about all those time- wasters that eat up our days? How do you re-group and re-focus your efforts? Keep reading. I'll tell you exactly what works for me!
5 Examples of how to take Busy Work and turn it into Productive Time!
1. Busy Work :: Checking Email Throughout the Day Do you ever find yourself checking your inbox constantly to see if you have any new emails? Or, once you start checking your email, you're stuck in it for hours at a time?
Productive Time :: We had this problem (big-time), so now we only check emails at
11:00am and 3:00pm Monday through Thursday (we're usually off on Fridays). From our experience, we found that most of our emails came in prior to those two times, so it takes care of a chunk of our emails all at once. To make our clients and colleagues aware of this, we have our "vacation" autoresponder setup so that it also informs people of our email checking schedule so that they know when we'll get back to them (eliminating additional unnecessary emails). And, when I check my emails during these set times, I also allow myself 45 minutes at the most to check email, do the tasks at hand and respond immediately.
This keeps me from getting sucked in like I used to. And, as an added bonus, I don't procrastinate on getting tasks done that are requested of me via emails. I receive the emails, add them to my immediate or future to do list (if needed), check off the task(s), and move on. It's quick, easy & fast . love that!
2. Busy Work :: Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media Yes, we should of course use social media and networking to market and build our businesses, but it definitely can become a time-waster fast when we end up using it to catch up on gossip, eves drop on other "conversations,"
see what you-know-who is up to today, and see what Oprah's fan page is talking about this week (uh-oh, I'm busted). I've been guilty of all of these too, of course, so I created ways around these issues to monitor my own time and stay true to my focus.
Productive Time :: Plan it all out! Everything that we do, say and post on these sites is planned out. Even when we seem spontaneous, it's planned. We have charts of what is to be done every day of the week, and then we schedule accordingly.
When social media ended up seriously eating up large chunks of my time, I realized that I needed help, but didn't want to pay someone $50/hour to do it. So, we hired our two amazing interns to help us out and give them resume experience in the process. This alone frees up dozens of hours of my time weekly! They help me tweet, maintain our two Facebook fan pages, develop content and posts for blogs, and more. Plus, with the use of tools like Tweetlater, we're able to schedule tweets around the clock without having to be hand-cuffed to Twitter. (And you thought I didn't sleep!) For the other sites where we can't schedule ahead, we get in, do the tasks needed, and get out with the help of our handy digital kitchen timer to stay accountable.
3. Busy Work :: Talking on the Phone We don't answer our phones live anymore...The volume of calls coming in started interrupting our work and we didn't want a receptionist on staff. In the middle of projects, the phone would ring, we'd get tied up or derail our focus and then projects would be post-poned, or would never get completed.
Productive Time :: We found a new phone system. Now I realize that not everyone is ready to relinquish the live phone system, and I understand that. At the very least, turn the ringer off during projects, but here are a few things that we did that may work for you too. We use a phone system called Freedom Voice. It is a toll free line that can have multiple extensions and even be forwarded to live phones if desired. We receive email alerts when voicemails are left on our system, and during our scheduled phone time, we check them and get back to clients and inquiries.
My cellphone also goes on silent mode all day while I'm working AND gets placed in a drawer so that I cannot even be tempted by seeing it on the desk! Before implementing this, I noticed that several hours - literally equalling almost one entire workday per week - was being spent chatting on the phone with vendors, friends and family about not much at all. WHAT?? Now, all personal calls are done after hours.
Period.
4. Busy Work :: Running Errands All Week Long! Driving all over town to pick up this, drop off that, get the groceries, and purchase more supplies is just not my idea of fun. And, it takes a LOT of precious time out of your day and week.
Productive Time :: Get organized, and when possible, get help! Get a grocery delivery service and a personal assistant if you can. That will triple your available time to get more done and stop wasting time But, in our area, no one offers a grocery delivery service (if they did, I'd be all over that though!) and our personal assistant is back at her day job. So if you're like us, don't worry - there are other ways to reclaim that wasted time. Here are a few things that have worked miracles in our household Put together a spreadsheet of your most commonly purchased groceries and staple items. Set it up with a little checkbox to the left of each item so that you can mark it when it's time to purchase it on your monthly or weekly run, leave blanks next to other checkboxes to be filled in as needed, and organize the grocery into areas so that your list is grouped into sections, like deli, bakery, produce, meat, etc.
Then, go at a time that's not so busy, like Tuesdays at 8am and it will be the fastest visit ever!
For other errands, we make a list, group them according to location, and knock them out back-to- back in another morning (again a non-busy time of day). I always take my notebook with me too to brainstorm on the ride things like e-zine articles, blog entries and the like. All other shopping is done online. I don't like going to the mall anymore - I'm not a window shopper - and I hate traffic and lines. Amazon is always open and they never have a wait . love it!
5. Busy Work :: Where to Begin Confusion and Chaos at the Desk Have you ever found yourself feeling like you're spinning your wheels at your desk because you don't even know where to begin and what to start on now? I'm sure you've been there too. It's like when you sit down and know there's about a hundred things to do today, but you just can't seem to focus and so you start doing one of the four time-wasters I mentioned above because you don't know what to do!
Productive Time :: Something that I used to do in high school was to lay out my outfits for the entire week the Sunday before - ironed and ready to go, accessories and all (with two outfits to spare just in case my mood dictated a different ensemble). Yes, people joked about me being a little OCD when they found out about this (maybe that's why I'm a good planner too?!), but now as a business owner, these types of behavior come in very handy!
At the end of my day, I'll go ahead and prioritize my list of things to do tomorrow and then schedule out my plan of attack accordingly. I know that a lot of people suggest getting high-tech with blackberries, pda's and programs that line it up for you digitally, but my favorite organizational tool to this day is my sprial-bound notebook (and I never have to worry about it crashing)!
This way, when you walk into your office the next morning, there's no question about what's most important to get done, and what can be done on another day. It's right in front of me and so easy to follow along!
Your Bride Attraction Assignment: Give a few or all of these a try in your own business. Put a note out as a gentle reminder to yourself to stay focused and alert on what's really important to you you'll catch yourself doing all sorts of time-wasting activities and soon you'll notice that your work days are shorter and shorter because you get more done in less time. I love this because it gives me that much more time with my family and to just enjoy my life and my business THAT much more! I'm sure you'll find the same thing in your own business and life!
2008-2010 Soire! Ltd.
Want to use this article in your E-zine or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Event Planning entrepreneur Natalie Bradley publishes the "Bride Attraction"
weekly e-zine. Get your F*REE audio course: "5 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Wedding Business...Starting Today!l" at www.BrideAttraction.com
-
About Natalie Bradley In 2003, Natalie
Keene Bradley launched Soire! Ltd., now Natalie Bradley Events,
and it has become a very successful and prominent company. We
have planned and designed hundreds of weddings and other social
events, as well as consulted for many others. Natalie has
discovered the keys to unlocking our clients' dreams for their
special occasions and have uncovered the essential tools needed
to create fabulous events.
Many of our events illustrating fantastic event design and well-orchestrated weddings have been published in reputable magazines including Inside Weddings, Modern Bride Atlanta, The Knot Georgia, Lake Oconee Living, Weddings with Style, Brides.com Blog and Southern Distinction. From 2003-2007, Natalie penned the entertaining column for Southern Distinction magazine and has been the "lifestyle expert" on Georgia Living TV and Holiday Home. In addition, Natalie has been a special guest on BB Webb's Living Life with Style TV show as well as being featured on Elizabeth Dalton's and Barbara Dooley's radio shows! Natalie has planned, designed and most recently chaired the very successful Girls and Guys' Night Out Hope Haven fundraiser for the last three years, and is the President Emeritus for Athens Wedding Professionals.
We have worked with dozens and dozens of brides, grooms, hosts and families to create their dream weddings and other extraordinary events. Now, let me help you become a fabulous wedding professional too!
Comments
Subscribe
0 Comments
Click here to sign up now.