This past week I spoke at two women’s networking groups.  At each I asked the question, “Do you set aside time to work ON your business?”.  At one talk I was asked for clarification.  “Do you mean, do we leave white space in our calendar?”  To which I answered, that depends.  

You see, I used to use the white space method to leave time to work ON my business but it didn’t work for me.  Why?  That’s because someone would ask me for time to meet and I would see the white space and schedule a meeting there.  Or I’d be exhausted from such a busy week and would just decide to do nothing.  I quickly learned that the work that needed to be done for my business wasn’t happening.  Now, I put intentional appointments in my calendar for the work I know needs to be done and then the white space truly is white space.  For others who aren't wired the way I am, the white space method does work.  The reason it doesn't work for me is because I’m a very social person and I thrive on interactions with others.  I much prefer to be meeting with someone than to be doing things by myself.  (Remember that SWOT Analysis I mentioned last week?  Did you download Ch. 4 in my book and do yours? If not, here’s the link again.)

Working ON your business simply means doing the things that need to be done for your business to function.  This includes things as simple as keeping track of mileage and receipts, as well as things like taking time to contemplate which revenue stream is performing the best for you.  It also includes time to deepen your knowledge about your area of expertise and reaching out to key people (past clients, referral partners and current clients) just to say hi.  Clients in my Marketing Morsels Coaching Club take the 1st Thursday of each month to work ON their business at our Mastermind/Workshop.  Those in my Magnify Your Marketing program take 3 intensive days to work ON their business by developing a business and marketing plan.  So often we get bogged down with serving clients, networking and responding to emails that we lose sight of the other things that need to be done for our business to grow and be successful.   

So, next time you plan your week or your month, take time to consider the often forgotten higher level tasks (or the simply mundane ones) and set time aside for them.  As you regularly put this practice into place, you’ll start seeing positive results and be glad you did.  Comment below and tell us where you land when it comes to spending time ON your business.  I’d love to know.  ​

​Have you ever wasted 30 min?  If you’re like me, chances are you spend a lot of time saying to yourself “I just wasted 30 min.”  What happens for me is that I get ready to work on a project and then something bounces into my mind that I needed to do.  I'm sure it will only take a couple minutes…..and it does. The problem is that during those couple minutes, one of two things often happens:

1. I get sidetracked along the way of doing the couple minute item.  For example, I was messaging someone on Facebook. As I go to Facebook, I suddenly see my feed and start scrolling.  30 min later I think, “Why did I come on here?”.  It takes a minute, but I remember why I was there in the first place!  Or I'm writing down what I need from the store so my mind can be clear and in the process I end up starting to clean the kitchen while I'm searching for other things to put on the list.
2. I remember a bunch of other couple min things I need to do and start doing them too.

Recently I was on a Q&A Call with my Coaching Club clients and the topic was time management.  There were 9 of them on the call and each took time to share some tips and tricks they use to manage situation #1 above.  In addition to each person being inspired by some new ideas, and the fact that they aren’t alone in this pattern, two themes came to light.  

1. We are all so darn hard on ourselves and think we need to be superhuman.  
2. Each of us is wired differently and what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another.  Taking time to assess your strengths and weaknesses from time to time is a good thing to do because it helps you see what areas to avoid and what areas you need support in.  That’s different for each of us.  Chapter 4 of my book, “Be Strategic, Be Intentional, Be Successful” has a tool that you can use to help you. So, if you have the book- this is a good time to pull it out and start using it ☺   If you don’t, you can actually
   find Chapter 4 and the video that accompanies it on my website in the Free Resource section.  

Situation # 2 above is different than #1 and we actually didn’t talk about that on our call.  Often when I say “I just wasted 30 min”, I just finished scenario #2.  I did that 1 thing that I thought would take a couple minutes and then did a few more 20 min things.  As a matter of fact, I’m currently in this cycle as I write this blog post.  

The "a-ha" that came to mind as I was saying, “I just wasted 30 min” was that I hadn’t. However, I say that all the time and cause myself to feel bad.  I also lead those around me to think I wasn’t working (like family or my team or my clients).  People think what we tell them.  So, we need to change how we think and what we say.  The reality is that I WAS doing work during the 30 min and it wasn’t wasted time, it was important. It just wasn’t on the list of things I had planned to do.
 
How do we get around this?  The solution really is to stop overscheduling ourselves and to schedule buffers into our day.  As I’ve paid attention to the tasks I’ve done this week, I’ve realize most of it wasn’t how I planned it to go. It also wasn’t wasted time, even though I said and thought it was.  Each thing I did was something important that had to be done, often times it was something I didn’t realize needed to be done until I was in the situation.  

By allowing space in our day we allow these things to be taken care of without associated guilt.  We aren’t robots and our lives don’t happen in controlled environments.  By allowing space in our schedules we can avoid feeling out of control when the unexpected comes up, as we know it will.

So, the next time you go to plan your day don’t schedule every single hour. Leave an hour or two for the administrative things you will need to do like checking email, returning that call, scheduling that meeting, updating that form, making lunch or breakfast, reading a book.  While you’re at it, leave an hour or two that is totally blank.  Something will come up that needs to fill the space and you’ll be glad it’s there.  If nothing does, you’ll suddenly have free time to do something fun. How cool would that be?!  

​Here's a quick summary of how my year unfolded:

• THE FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR started with TONS of self time. I attended 3 retreats and they were just what the doctor ordered.  Each experience filled me up and helped me learn to love myself more. Being a strategy minded person who is always on the go and doing things for others, loving myself can get easily left behind.  My biggest take away from one retreat was simply starting to do my nails and makeup on a regular basis again, while another involved plugging into my purpose in life and the third took a closer look at my relationship with money.
  • I also hired a coach and worked with her during the first part of the year on building a vision for my life and my business. To successfully do this I had to look deeply at the stories I was telling myself and let many of them go.
  • I kept hearing the comment "Oh my gosh, you look so great!  What are you doing?!"  The thing is I had actually gained weight. What they were seeing was beauty coming from the inside because I was working on myself and it was showing.  I also was doing my makeup and nails consistently too and enjoying that time for myself.  The energy these things created brought shifts to my business and my clients. 
• I CHANGED MY MODEL OF SERVICE from only having high value, high price programs to having programs that provide high value but at a low price point.  This is because I realized that two things were consistently happening and I needed to find a way to change it.  
  1) people would find the money to work with me and then when it was time to pay again they could no longer afford to do so
  2) people wouldn't start working with me because they didn't have the money and their businesses would never move forward
  • By shifting my model, I was able to start serving those people who were waiting to work with me and their businesses began to grow. 
  • The new model also involved people paying monthly for 6 months. This created a consistent revenue stream that progressively grew in volume each month as registration increased.  It also increased my retention because after 6 months they were excited to continue because they had seen shifts.  My old model allowed people to pay monthly for 3 months and that isn't enough time to see results.  
• I CREATED VIDEOS to go with the book I wrote the year before, "Be Strategic, Be Intentional, Be Successful"
  • I also created programs to go with the book and videos  
• I SPENT TIME WITH THE KIDS doing things like going on school trips and helping lead events at their schools.  Most importantly, I made it my biggest priority to support them as they started 9th and 3rd grade.  This included working with each of them to set up habits for their school work and putting family systems into place.  This extra time and focus has made a huge difference for them this year (and in my sanity!) 
• MONEY DIDN'T COME IN for awhile and life was rough.  I trusted in God, though, and was fortunate to have support from family.  I knew that if I focused on building a successful business without first working on my faith, myself and my family it would all eventually crumble.  Sure, the money would have been there sooner, however, I wouldn't have been the person God needed me to be to carry out his work.  I would have slipped back into being a workaholic and I wouldn't have been happy....or the person that my family or my clients needed me to be.  Fortunately, by focusing on my foundation the shift finally happened in my business. By June, things weren't so bad anymore. The clients in my new program continued to grow, as did the number of non profits I was supporting.  This brought about consistent revenue. By Nov, the revenue coming in monthly was enough to pay the business bills and the bills for our household and it has continued to grow from there.  Yay!  
  • One other note here. They say it takes 2-3 years for a business to make it's way off the ground. 3 years for me was last October.  In April, my mom told me that she thought I should make the business a part time thing and go get a full time job.  I knew this suggestion came from a very loving place, but also knew in my heart that it wasn't what God wanted.  I also knew that my mom, despite having tons of life experience, had never traveled the road of starting a business or struggling so much with money.   The old me would have gotten so upset and started to spiral out of control (which would have caused the business to take a step back!). However, by April my foundation was getting strong and I had invested in a coach to help me navigate my feelings and next steps. (Yes, even coaches need coaches!) 
    • Since I had already set up my new model for service, I knew as it grew we'd hit that success that comes at 3 yrs. I stayed my course, as tough as it was, and didn't let my focus or time shift. 
    • My mom also reminded me about how well I do supporting non profits.  This sparked me to reach out to two non profits I had relationships with and start doing consistent, ongoing work for their marketing and special events.  That's now grown into supporting their fundraising efforts as well. ​
      
      

With a strong foundation set in 2016, I move into 2017 wanting to do so many things to support non profits and entrepreneurs.  I realize, though, that I can't do it all this year and that my business, like life, is a journey that I should enjoy (not cram tons of things into!).  So, here is what I am focusing on for 2017:

• TAKING THE CONTENT I CREATED LAST YEAR AND TURNING IT INTO ONLINE TRAINING MATERIALS.  This will help me reach many more people with the great work I've done without taking tons of my time.  It will also bring in passive income from work I did once but can be paid for repeatedly.  This gives me more time for my ongoing clients, myself, my family and my faith.
• BRINGING BACK HIGH END PROGRAMS and offering them to a limited number of people who are ready while continuing to offer and enhance my low price point offerings.
• INTENTIONALLY NETWORKING at places where I can be of service to others and form relationships that are strategic.  I've chosen 3 this year and had to unfortunately let other groups go.  What I won't let go of, though, is the relationships I've formed at those groups I can no longer attend.  I'll continue to make an effort to stay in touch with those people despite not being able to see them at the meetings. 
• BUILDING A TEAM to support me so that I can impact more lives.  This includes hiring an online team to orchestrate my online launch instead of doing it myself and hiring a marketing team as well.  I realize that when I support a client I am also helping them expand their impact. The better I am at letting others support me the more people that can be impacted by myself and that my clients can impact. (and the more our businesses can grow financially!)
• DO MORE SPEAKING so that I can help others in this small way and spread the word about what I do to those who may have a need.
• PROVIDE VALUE TO MY FOLLOWERS along with Free Resources via my newsletter, blog and social media pages. 
• SCHEDULING TIME EACH DAY FOR ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS AND REST so that I don't become overwhelmed and can be my best for others.

As you can see 2017 is going to be a busy year and a year that continues to build my foundation. This year's word is SURRENDER.  It reminds me each day that I need to get out of my own way and surrender.  Surrender by letting others help me, surrender by listening for God's guidance before just doing it myself and surrender to new ways and giving up old habits.