Holistic Business

My mother used to throw this little mom-ism out from time to time. She would use my sister as an example. 3 kids, work, husband, household - and she could be the first to show up with a homemade meal when someone was sick or there was some tragedy. I would marvel at how she had it all together. But, I see now, she was so busy that she had to structure and plan her time almost by the minute, and that included leaving time for such things. Or at least allowed time to swap to-dos.

I’m seeing this now as my business grows. I have more and more lists, and am getting more and more organized. I love calendaring and schedules and I’m doing more than ever in the business growth department. I’m attending more tele-seminars and getting more training then I did two years ago. I’ve also taken quite a lot of time off this past summer. Granted, it was a lot of single days here and there and a handful of long weekends in addition to one full week, but I really had a lot of fun and got a lot of accomplished.

How can this be?

In my heart, I’m really a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants person. But I’ve learned that it’s easier for me to retain that if I stay super-organized. Not that it was something on my life list, but I’ve taught myself how to be anal in my business - how funny (especially if you know me).

One of the reasons I struck out on my own was to add to the quality of our family life. We were always scrambling, nothing in the house to eat (well, that is still a struggle, baby steps ya know), weekends filled with getting the laundry done, etc.

I had allowed myself to get back in that rut once things started to take off. Then it got out of control. My husband started calling the dryer his underwear and sock drawer.

One of the things I started doing last week that has helped tremendously is taking about 20 minutes every morning after going through my emails to go over my notes from client calls, look at what was in my email progrom’s to-do folder, and checking my calendar and online shared to-dos. I make a list of what I need to accomplish that day, based on priority, deadlines, and when the project was received. If I really should get to the grocery store, or it’s a great day to hang the laundry outside - I put that on the list too.

Then I put an order to these items. This is’t based so much on priority but common sense and knowing myself. For instance, all the quick things get done first. All the items that take 20 minutes or less are out of the way early in the day. Instant graitification from crossing things off. Then, knowing myself, I’ll do any personal things that need doing. Post office, bank, grocery store, etc. Then, what is remaining does take priority and time of day into account. For example, if I know I have to get on the phone with 1ShoppingCart, I plan to do that the moment they open. I generally know when my clients are in the office and if I need to send them a proof I make sure I’m getting it to them when I’m most likely to get it in front of them for a quick look.

I get so much more accomplished in this manner and my time goes so much farther.

Have you found ways to add more time to your day? Let me know!

Namaste ~ ~ ~

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 6:25 am and is filed under Time Management, Learning, Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.