Change Habits To Grow Your Business (Part 2 of 3)
This series is focused on practical suggestions to help focus on YOUR business. What you want to achieve, what you know you should do, but if you find you struggle with finding the time to fit everything in, then this is for you.
Last week I discussed focusing on the one thing we KNOW we need to do in order to grow our business. Focusing on your most important task, keeping track of what is most important on your to-do list and changing your routine to find the time to Grow Your Business. The first article is here.
The follow on to that is our daily routine. How we build new habits into our day and how we focus on what we need to grow our business.
DAILY ACTION
What we do every day will determine how successful (or not) we are in the longer term. Therefore, ensuring you look at your priority list for the week and schedule these items into your daily activities.
The weekly priority list in the last article, will feed into your daily list. This list should be written in advance of your day. A lot of people do this first thing in the morning or the night before. I like having mine planned the night before. I sleep better and nothing pops into my mind during the night (as can happen when you’re busy)!
Make sure whatever strategy you have on your list for growing your business, you have something EVERY DAY on your daily list to get you to where you want to go. Business change or development won’t happen on its own, you have to push yourself and take action every day to achieve your goals.
Taking daily action allows you to get there quicker than most. If you focus on what you have to do once a week, obviously things will happen, but much slower. Focus daily and get there quicker!
ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS
You might find you have a plan but each day something else comes up and you never seem to get to do what you wanted to for the day. Before you know it, eight or ten hours have passed and your priority list for the day took a back seat to demands from everyone else. This can happen if you let it. Some ways to overcome this:
– Turn off your email for a few hours until you have your priorities taken care of
– Wear ear plugs or headphones to stop you getting distracted by others around you
– Say ‘NO’ to anyone disrupting you until you are ready
– Leave your mobile on silent for a few hours
WORK SMARTER
When you’re busy on a daily basis, getting what you need to get done is an achievement in itself. To get a little smarter about your usual tasks (while introducing new tasks to grow your business), ensure you can always see a clock. Having a visible clock and watching your time keeps you on track to move quicker. Allocate a certain amount of time for each task on your list and always keep in mind you need to move quickly to achieve everything on your list that day.
Batch tasks of a similar nature. Especially admin style work. This is much more time efficient. Every time you pick up and put down a task, you increase the overall time spent on getting it done (by up to 500%!).
NEVER EVER multi-task. Long gone are the days when this was hugely popular for work! Don’t do it. SINGLE TASKING is definitely the way to go. Pick up a task and do not stop until you’ve finished it. This one change in habit will help you achieve more in a day than a lot of other time management techniques.
Benjamin Franklin – “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement and success have no meaning.”
Getting out of your comfort zone to push your business to the next level isn’t easy. If it was, everyone would do it but they don’t.
Stand out in the crowd and go for the bigger bowl.
For more information please contact wendy@williamsmerrigan.ie
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