productivity tips

  • Productivity

    9 Destructive Behaviors that are Sabotaging Your Success and What to do About Them

    Self-sabotage. Do you ever feel this with parts of your business?

    A feeling of self-destructing—like you ruined everything you were trying so hard to accomplish?

    I’ve probably had this feeling more times than I can count, and it’s definitely not fun.

    Most self-sabotage is the result of discomfort. It can be the discomfort of failing, succeeding, or having to perform tasks that are uncomfortable.

    You may have heard the saying, “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” This is especially true when you’re branching out into entrepreneurship.

    Unfortunately, most of us are well-practiced in the art of avoiding discomfort. This is the most common way we sabotage our success.

    Table of Contents

    My BIGGEST Self-Sabotage Story

    My story begins like many new bloggers: building a list but feeling uncomfortable about sending emails. Twice I’ve built an email list—one of nearly 1,500 people and another of over 800—and totally squandered it.

    I did better with the second one. I even made some sales! But in the end, I still felt bad about emailing my list and eventually quit emailing them.

    This whole thing seems kind of weird considering how I’ve managed a list of over 7,000 in my other business. That was a little different because they were specifically expecting sales notifications from me and it wasn’t necessarily through email.

    Or at least, that’s what I told myself. That it was different.

    Spoilers: it’s not really that different. I was just focusing on things that didn’t attract the right kind of people (buyers and people who wouldn’t mind my commercial offers) to my list. (Another way to self-sabotage, by the way.)

    That’s why with this business, I decided I’m going to do things differently, starting with my all-important email list.

    I have a long welcome sequence that goes out to every new subscriber, so when I do have new content or something to promote, I know every person on my list has heard from me regularly.

    I took what I knew I struggled with and found a way to overcome it. This is how you deal with self-sabotage!

    Letter Board Flat Lay - overcome self-sabotage, you've got this
    Photographer: Emma Matthews Digital Content Production | Source: Unsplash

    Are you sabotaging your own success?

    Do you have a story similar to what I just shared?

    Maybe it’s exactly the same thing. You’re afraid to email that list you’ve built with new content notifications, let alone trying to sell to them.

    Or maybe it’s something else. You’re easily distracted, struggle to make decisions, or you’re quick to quit if you don’t see results right away.

    If you’re struggling with your business, it might not be whatever it is you’re blaming your struggles on. It could be something that you’re doing. And if it is, that’s great news because it means you can change your behavior to do better.

    So keep reading to discover 6 different ways you could be sabotaging yourself and your business and a solution for each one.

    Distractions

    The tasks that need to be done in order to be successful are typically less appealing than watching Netflix, browsing Facebook, or spending time with friends. We’re experts at distracting ourselves, and the urge to seek out distractions increases with the unpleasantness or difficulty of the task.

    Solution: Allow yourself to have distractions, but control when, and how long, you engage in them.

    You might give yourself 30 minutes of distraction time after three hours of work. Or, you might limit distractions to the evening after your work is done for the day.

    Try the Pomodoro Technique as a work method that allows you to partake in distractions, but only after you do 25 minutes of work.

    Procrastination

    Distractions are one way of procrastinating, but there are countless other ways to procrastinate, too. Basically any time you’re doing something other than what you actually should be doing.

    That means that yes, even doing other work can be procrastination.

    Solution: Be clear on what needs to be done and why. Focus on just getting started, which is often the most challenging part of working.

    Having trouble getting started? Tell yourself you’ll just work for 20-30 minutes. Use a timer and see how much you can accomplish in that 20-30 minutes. By the time that time is up, you might be so focused that you just continue working.

    Hint: The Pomodoro Technique works great for this too!

    Focusing on low-priority tasks

    You may enjoy working on your projects but are you avoiding the most important tasks? This is one way that self-sabotage can creep up on you. It seems like you’re busy, but you’re working on all the wrong things.

    The most important tasks are often the least enjoyable, so it becomes easy to just avoid them. Instead, you tackle the less important tasks because it makes you feel like you’re still making progress.

    This is exactly what I was talking about when I said that doing work can be procrastination.

    If you need to work on marketing tasks, work on marketing tasks—not your next blog post. Because we all know that it doesn’t matter how many blog posts you write if you’re not getting out there and marketing each one of them (or at least you should know that).

    Solution: Start working by priority. Have a list of tasks to do each day ordered from most important to least. Start at the top of your list and work your way down.

    Make planning the next day a part of your work routine so you can get started right away when you begin the next day.

    Indecisiveness

    Indecisiveness is also a self-sabotaging success killer. When you can’t make up your mind, progress comes to a stop. If you wait until you have all the wisdom and information necessary to make a perfect choice, you’ll be waiting a long time.

    You have to pull the trigger and move forward. You can never collect all the wisdom without going through the experience.

    Solution: Be clear on what needs to be done to accomplish your objective. Understand what will happen if you don’t make a decision.

    Give yourself a time limit. You might give yourself 10 minutes or a day to make a decision. Then just decide and do your best.

    Fear of Success

    For many people, the closer they get to success, the more negative thoughts they experience. What if you can’t handle the growth? What if you become overwhelmed with all the people you’ll have to deal with?

    For me, I’m terrified (sort of) of having affiliates. I’ll have to deal with paying them… which means I’ll have to deal with tax forms. That’s so much.

    But I keep telling myself that when I get to that point, I can always hire someone to do that for me. In the meantime, if I create my course through Teachable, they’ll handle the affiliate payments for me.

    Phew! A solution.

    Solution: Take things one step at a time. Don’t be afraid of what’s going to happen when you reach a certain point in your business. There’s always an answer for something, you just have to figure it out.

    And if you can’t figure it out, you can always hire someone who can. There are also all kinds of tools and services available that focus on helping solopreneurs just like you.

    Negative Thoughts

    Negativity is a big way to self-sabotage yourself, so much so that I’ve split this section into three parts.

    It’s easy to get in your head about your failures, your mistakes, and even your successes, but you have to push past it if you really want to achieve success.

    Ignore the random noise of your mind. You don’t have to engage with your random thoughts. You can choose to ignore them or turn the negative thoughts into positive ones.

    Here are three ways your own negativity could be killing your business and—like the rest of this article—what to do about them.

    Neon sign that says good vibes only - practice positive thinking to thwart self-sabotage
    Photographer: Allie Smith | Source: Unsplash

    Negative self-talk

    Self-sabotage also comes in the form of negative thoughts. They may creep up on you due to negative self-esteem. You might say bad things about yourself, like “Ugh, I can’t believe I messed this up! I’m so dumb!”

    If you’re thinking thoughts like “I’m so bad with technology,” it’s going to be easy for you to give up when technology inevitably goes awry.

    And trust me, it does often. It’s not a problem with just you.

    Solution: Take control of your mind and think thoughts that are useful to you. Cheer yourself on rather than criticize your actions.

    Turn “I’m so dumb” into “Okay, now I know that doesn’t work. Let me try something else.” You’re not stupid or dumb, you’re trying something you may not have ever done before. Give yourself some time to figure it out!

    You can also try using positive affirmations whenever you need a pep talk or just as a part of your daily routine. Repeating something positive to yourself will help you really believe it and realize that you actually do have what it takes.

    Fixed mindset

    If you tell yourself you can’t do something because of a “way that’s always been,” you’re trapped in a fixed mindset. This is saying things like:

    • I’ve never been a good writer, so I should avoid creating a blog.
    • I don’t know how to edit audio, so I shouldn’t create a podcast
    • No one is buying my product, so it must be trash.

    All of these things are fixable. You can practice writing, you can learn how to edit audio or hire someone to do it for you, and you can do better research or marketing to sell your product.

    Solution: What you need instead is a growth mindset. Realizing that you can do all the things you need to do or accepting that you may need help doing them is how you can turn a fixed mindset into a growth mindset.

    Make a list of all the things you need to improve on and the steps you can take to either learn more or outsource to someone else. You don’t have to do everything in your business alone, and it’s okay to get help for the stuff you need to learn.

    Impostor syndrome

    Have you ever said to yourself, “I really don’t know what I’m doing. I was just lucky to get this far. Why would anyone listen to what I have to say?”

    Are you thinking this in spite of the fact that you’ve got years of experience?

    This is another form of negative thinking that a lot of bloggers and other entrepreneurs experience. It’s called impostor syndrome.

    It’s the feeling that even though you actually do know what you’re talking about, you still don’t know enough. That your achievements are only due to luck or being in the right place at the right time. That people are going to find out you’re the “fraud” you think you are.

    Solution: Recognize your achievements and how you got them. Think about the work you did to get where you are now.

    You have valuable experience that people want. This why they hire you. It’s why they buy your courses, and it’s why they consume content through your blog/podcast/video/whatever.

    Understand that you don’t have to perfect or the top #1 expert to provide value to someone. As long as you’re at least one step ahead of someone, you can help them!

    Quitting

    Finally, we have the ultimate self-sabotage behavior: quitting! You can’t achieve anything if you quit before you’ve had a chance to become successful.

    Many people have a habit of quitting right before achieving success. They probably don’t know that they’re at the tipping point, but it happens a lot.

    I can think of quite a few times when I realize now, looking back, that if I’d kept going, I could have found an entirely new level of success.

    Solution: Develop the habit of finishing what you start. Avoid caving into the fear that crops up when you’re about to find out if you were successful or not.

    Remember that you can always try again, regardless of the outcome. Many entrepreneurs go through lots of failures before finally finding that success that they crave.

    Let’s Recap: 9 Ways You Self-Sabotage Your Success

    Relatively, self-sabotage is actually a great problem to have. That might sound backward but think about it. If your success is out of your reach due to one of these reasons…

    1. Indulging in distractions
    2. Procrastinating
    3. Failing to make decisions
    4. Fearing success
    5. Focusing on the wrong tasks
    6. Listening to negative self-talk
    7. Having a fixed mindset
    8. Falling to impostor syndrome
    9. Quitting before you can achieve success

    …then your problem isn’t your business, it’s something you’re doing.

    If the biggest problem in your business is yourself, then that’s much easier to deal with than trying to change anyone else. The person responsible for your success is staring at you in the mirror each day.

    The entire issue is your own responsibility. This might sound disheartening, but it’s easier to change yourself than it is to change someone else.

    Keep the tips this post in mind as you go through your day and soon, you’ll find yourself enjoying your successes instead of bemoaning your failures!

    Pinterest Pin graphic that says 9 ways you sabotage yourself and how to get over them
  • Business

    Building a 12-Month Marketing Plan for Your Small Business

    At the end of every year, most businesses take time to review how well they’ve done in the past year and look towards the future. They review their business and marketing plan and make changes when necessary.

    Have you taken stock of your business goals? Have you created a marketing plan that prepares to you achieve those goals?

    One of the most important tasks you can do during this evaluation is to plan your marketing and promotions for the new year.

    Even if you’re just starting to get serious about your business in the middle of the year, creating a marketing plan for the next 12 months is beneficial. You can always review and edit it at the end of the year so you can start fresh in January.

    The important thing is that whatever time it is during the year, you work on getting started now. So here we go!

    Table of Contents

    Why plan so far ahead?

    Creating a marketing plan months ahead of time is the best way to help take your business to the next level. It will serve as a road map of what you need to do and when. If you’re working with other people, such as colleagues or joint venture partners, it keeps everyone on the same page.

    It also helps you manage your 4 main marketing areas:

    • Your website or blog (content marketing)
    • Email marketing
    • Social media marketing
    • Special sales and promotions, including important events like product creation and launch

    These work together to drive traffic, generate leads (get subscribers) and make sales.

    Promote Your Products

    Before you start thinking about how you’re going to market, it’s helpful to know what products you have currently available. You should also use this time to get an idea of what you’ll create in the future.

    It’s important to pencil in all the key dates related to your launches in your marketing plan. This helps you make sure nothing gets missed or left until the last minute.

    Product creation and launches should be the most important points of your promotional calendar. Research what your target audience wants and needs and build a product around it.

    You should also schedule in time to promote products you’ve already created. You don’t have to constantly create new products, just keep promoting the ones you already have.

    Build your email list around your products as well, so you can let them know when the products are launching. This will help them sell well right out of the gate.

    Create Content Around Your Marketing Plan

    Your marketing plan should also include what content you’ll create. All marketing is content marketing. It’s just a question of the format of the content.

    Imagine you have a fabric and notions brick-and-mortar store, but want to drive traffic to your physical store and also get customers online.

    You create helpful content about quilting, making your own clothes, fun holiday crafts to give as gifts, and so on. This gets local customers to come in and online customers to buy. You could even put together reasonably-priced kits with everything they would need for each project to encourage sales.

    For international customers who may not wish to pay a lot for shipping and handling, you can sell digital products, such as patterns, video lessons and so on. All of your content would be the context for making a sale.

    Other content marketing methods

    Email marketing also requires content and provides a context for making a sale. Send an email with information similar to what’s on your site and include a link to buy a product related to the content.

    Social media marketing can drive traffic to your site and subscribers to your email list. Once they’re on your list, they can receive your content and amazing offers.

    Use special promotions

    Your offers will also include your special promotions—events where you offer a discount or bundle to increase the value of your initial offer. There are three main reasons you may decide to have a special promotion:

    • Launch a new product
    • Create a seasonal or holiday-related promotion
    • Stimulate sales during a slow period

    We’ve already gone over launching, so let’s look at seasonal promotions and handling slow periods.

    Marketing Flatlay
    Photographer: Campaign Creators | Source: Unsplash

    Plan for Seasonal and Holiday Promotions

    Seasonal and holiday-related promotions are always a good excuse for a special promotion or sale within your marketing plan. They mark an occasion and it’s easy to tie in your products and services.

    Returning to our fabric store example, you might create an American flag quilt potholder pattern kit to sell for the 4th of July. Or you can use the pattern as a free download to get people to subscribe to your list. Announce the special promotion on social media and perhaps even run an ad about it on Facebook or Pinterest.

    The 12 Days of Christmas is another very popular promotional opportunity, with 12 days of sales items if you wish. This can be the perfect way to stimulate sales during a time when prospective customers might be focusing on gift shopping, or ignoring you because their money is earmarked for other things.

    You can promote the usefulness of the item as a gift, a bargain, or something people really need that they haven’t treated themselves to yet, but could make all the difference in their lives.

    Start planning for holidays early

    Some holidays are fixed, like the Fourth of July or Christmas Day on the 25th of December or Kwanzaa on the 26th. Others fall on different days each year, such as Easter, Thanksgiving, Chanukah, and so on.

    Top marketers and magazines will tell you that Christmas starts in July or August—that’s how far they plan ahead with the help of their calendar.

    To help you create a marketing plan for the holidays, you can create and download free PDF calendars to print out from timeanddate.com. You can toggle the various choices, such as including all US holidays.

    Print out 1 copy of the calendar for each marketing initiative, such as the editorial content for your blog, email marketing mailings, and product launches. Then start penciling in your ideas.

    Dealing with Slow Periods

    Every business is going to hit a slow patch from time to time. If the summer is dragging on with barely any sales, it’s time for some extra marketing to maintain a decent level of sales and profits.

    Using the fabric store again, you could think of 12 weeks of projects that kids can do while they are on summer vacation. You could also market these as useful gifts to give to others. You’re promoting your products by getting parents to teach their kids the power of giving.

    It may take some time and creativity to come up with winning ideas, but your marketing plan will keep you on track. This will make it easier to do everything at the right time and in the right order.

    Build on Your Successes

    Another reason to revisit your marketing plan at the end of the year is to evaluate your best promotions. Look back at the ones that generated the most income and plan to recycle them during the next year.

    You can even copy and use the same content you used before. Set the dates and queue them up in your blog or email marketing platform and you’re ready to go.

    Organized Blogger Workstation
    Photographer: Arnel Hasanovic | Source: Unsplash

    Make Use of Affiliate Products in Your Marketing Plan

    If you don’t have a product of your own to sell yet, that’s perfectly okay! You can start working on creating your first product while you’re promoting affiliate products. With your own product, you can keep 100% of the profits for yourself.

    One way to test your product idea is to find a similar product and promote it to your audience. If it goes well, consider developing a similar product of an even higher quality and your own ideas (but don’t steal, of course!).

    Even if you do already have your own products, adding affiliate products is a great way to create a new income stream. You can easily become an affiliate for products related to your niche that your audience will find useful and you don’t even have to worry about shipping or supporting the products. Yay!

    Popular choices for affiliate marketers are Amazon and affiliate networks like ShareASale or Awin. You can earn a commission anytime someone purchases through your specially-coded links.

    Keep adding promotions to make sure you have a full calendar. Affiliate programs usually have a newsletter sent to keep you up-to-date with current promotions. Use this information about special offers, flash sales, and forthcoming holiday sales to get ahead of other affiliates who may not be paying attention.

    Share a calendar with your own affiliates

    If you have affiliates yourself or are trying to get more, an affiliate calendar will show you’re prepared and have everything well-organized. The calendar can help you make sure your supporting material for your affiliates is all ready in time for the holidays or for your next product launch.

    Your calendar can also be an invaluable selling point if you want to get joint venture partnerships. This is an agreement in which two partners cross-promote and split the profits. JV partnerships usually have a higher split than regular affiliates, such as 60/40 or 50/50.

    For example, you email a special offer from them to your list and they email an offer from you to their list. With both of you marketing your newly launched product, for example, you could double your chances of success.

    Track Your Promotions

    You should also keep track of traffic to your content and pay attention to which channel is generating the most sign-ups or sales. This can be useful for the next time you release a product. If you notice a video is generating a lot of sales, you may want to put more effort into creating video content for the next product.

    You can also share this content with your affiliates and JVs so they can share them with their own audience.

    For example, most affiliate software allows people to create links directly to any page on your website (this is called deeplinking). This means any of your affiliates could share an affiliate-enabled link that leads to a blog post rather than directly to a sales page.

    So let’s say you have that video from before embedded in a blog post. You can ask your affiliates to help you drive traffic to this post through a deeplink because it’s converting well. They’ll love this, too, because it means more commissions for them.

    Recap: Create a Marketing Plan to Promote Your Business Throughout the Year

    Creating a marketing plan, either on paper or digitally, is one of the best things you can do for your online business.

    After reading through this post, you should have a good idea of why! It’s an easy way to plan and promote both new and existing products and services and recycle the most successful marketing campaigns you’ve launched.

    Don’t forget to:

    • Create a plan and set your goals ahead of time
    • Use both your own products and affiliate products
    • Take advantage of seasonal events and holidays
    • Build on success and recycle successful marketing campaigns
    • Create a promotion calendar
    • Share your promotions and successful content with your affiliates

    Set your business goals for the new year and start planning so you can take action to accomplish those goals or even exceed them! For some extra help with creating your own marketing plan, check out my 12-month Cash Flow Marketing Planner.

    Pinterest Pin graphic that says How to Create a marketing plan for your online business. Grow your blog or business.
  • Productivity

    5 Top Productivity Tips for Online Entrepreneurs

    It’s not enough to dream of success. It’s not even enough to set goals.

    The only way to truly achieve your dreams and build the business you’re meant to build is to sit down and just do it. You have to take action!

    That’s where many of us “fail.” Fail is a strong word, but that’s the reality of it. If you don’t take action, you’ll never achieve your goals.

    And yet, it’s the whole “taking action” part that usually trips most of us up.

    • We overbook our calendars until today’s to-dos become next week’s past dues.
    • We procrastinate on the things that are most important while attending to things that are merely “nice to do.” (I’m super guilty of this one.)
    • And sometimes we simply take on too much—even when we know better.

    And then what do we say? That we “don’t have time” to grow our businesses, to find new clients, or to write new blog posts.

    The truth is, you do have the time. You have the same amount of time that other successful people have. You just need to learn how to be more productive.

    Table of Contents

    5 Quick Productivity Tips for Entrepreneurs

    The problem is that you’re bad at managing that time. You waste time in ways that you don’t even realize yet.

    So what do you do? Embrace these five productivity hacks that even top coaches use to get more done in less time.

    Create routines and habits

    Simply put, a ritual or habit is a consistent way of doing something. You may have:

    • a morning ritual—wake up, brush your teeth, work out, shower, and head to your office);
    • an evening ritual—check homework, tuck the kids in, watch the evening news, and hit the sack;
    • a weekend ritual—sleep late, mow the lawn, catch a movie, visit your mom;

    or many others for different types of situations.

    However, if you’re not careful with your rituals, they can turn into productivity killers. Is checking Facebook or email a part of your morning ritual? Is turning on Slack a part of your at-work ritual? Distractions such as these can turn even your best intentions into hours of wasted time.

    Take a good look at your rituals. What are you doing that you shouldn’t be or that should be moved to another part of your day? Make your rituals more efficient and you’ll automatically get more done.

    Manage your calendar

    Want to know how much time you really have available for that new project? Try blocking off time in your calendar or planner for all your existing projects.

    Fill in all your client calls, your business administrative tasks, time for meals and breaks, outside appointments, and everything else you’re committed to.

    The time that’s left might just shock you.

    Make it a habit to block time in your calendar for every commitment, and you’ll never again over-promise or over-commit.

    Overhead view of three coworkers with laptops - increase your productivity by delegating tasks

    Learn to let go

    This just in: you do not have to do everything in your business. You can (and should) hand off those low-level tasks to someone else.

    • Hire a VA to create your documents and manage your calendar.
    • Let your tech support person manage your blog and email.
    • Turn over your bookkeeping to an accountant.

    Business productivity is all about delegating the tasks you don’t have to do or simply don’t want to do. The time you free up will allow you to work on what’s truly important—and that only you can do.

    Work hard, play harder

    You are not a machine.

    You can’t work all day every day and hope to be at your best all the time. Take a day off! You need it.

    Get some rest, or relax on a long, slow hike. Take a friend out to lunch. Go shopping with your kids. See a movie or a play. Do something—anything—other than work.

    Not only will you return to your home office feeling much more refreshed, but you’ll find yourself more creative and productive than before as well.

    Feeling stuck? Take a break. You know the saying: fresh eyes help, and all.

    Build your focus

    True multi-tasking is impossible. You cannot efficiently create a new product while you’re simultaneously surfing Facebook, keeping an eye on the kids, and answering the phone every time it rings.

    Instead, use your calendar to block time off for important tasks, then turn everything else off so you can focus.

    Let people know that you have set work hours, even if you are at home. The benefit of working at home is that you get to set when those hours are and that you’re available for emergencies.

    Other than that, no phone, no Facebook, no kids or husbands or neighbors or pets demanding “just a minute” of your time. Tune everything out, and you’ll find your work getting done much faster, which in turn means more time to actually focus on those things and people that you love.

    Recap: Top Productivity Tips for Entrepreneurs

    Managing your time and turning up your productivity isn’t something that comes naturally to most people but you can always get more practice. When you learn to master this skill, you’ll find your business grows right along with you.

    Remember these 5 productivity tips…

    1. Create routines and habits
    2. Calendar management
    3. Learn to let go
    4. Work hard, play harder
    5. Build your focus

    …and you’ll be on your way to getting more done and living the life you dream of building with your business.

  • Productivity

    The Secret to Achieving Massive Success in Your Business

    Do you set aside time regularly to plan what you want to do in your business?

    Or do you just kind of go with the flow and do things as you feel like it?

    If making a plan isn’t something you regularly do, I strongly encourage you to embrace it!

    Setting aside time to plan out what you want to do and what growth you want to achieve is crucial to your success. This is something you should do for each month, each quarter, and each year.

    Over the next seven days, I want to share some of what I’ve learned and what I’ve found helpful with you.

    Why planning is essential for success in business

    Table of Contents

    Let’s start off by taking a look at why business planning is “the secret” to success. There are a few different factors that come into play here.

    You may already experience some of these and not even realize they’re a product of good planning, but the more you plan, the more you’ll see these occurring in your life.

    Efficiency

    The first is efficiency. When you go in with a clear plan, you can focus on what’s most important.

    Instead of spending time trying to figure out what you should be working on, think about what pieces of the puzzle are missing from your product funnel or what you need to do to break through to the next income level.

    You know exactly what needs to come next.

    As we’ll explore in a future post, with a clear goal in mind and a plan for the year, it becomes easy to walk backward to create effective and efficient daily to-do lists. Work on what needs to get done each day and you’ll be able to reach your goals.

    Creative Thinking

    Next, setting a big goal for yourself inspires out-of-the-box thinking. If you don’t believe me, just try it!

    Decide on a big income goal for the coming month. Write it down. Keep it in front of you. Then get to work and start to notice what happens next.

    • You start to think of things that didn’t occur to you before.
    • You come up with creative ways to get more traffic.
    • You decide to run a fun promo that adds dollars to your bank account.

    The same happens when an important deadline comes up unexpectedly.

    Think back on that time in college when finals rolled around, or the last time your in-laws told you they would stop by later in the day. You got very creative about studying or cleaning respectively.

    Stimulating Your Subconscious

    Last but not least, let’s talk about your subconscious. So far, we’ve been focused on what we’re actively doing to make progress by making a plan, setting goals, and following through.

    There’s another dimension to all this and that’s what’s going on in our subconscious mind. While we are busy plowing through our to-do list, cooking dinner for the family, and even sleeping, our subconscious mind is working towards those goals as well.

    For example, you may come to a particular part of your plan and can’t think of a good solution right away. However, you just might have a spark of inspiration while you’re in the shower the next day while you’re subconsciously running through your plans for the day.

    I’m sure you’ve heard someone mention that they come up with their best ideas in the shower before. Maybe you have yourself!

    So what’s next?

    Planning and setting goals is important because it helps your business grow faster. That means you end up with more money for yourself and your loved ones while spending less time slaving away at your desk.

    Try making a simple daily plan for a week and see how it affects your productivity. Once you’re comfortable with that, you can start getting more detailed with your plans.

    Good luck!

    Like this post? Share it on Pinterest!

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  • Productivity

    6 Reasons Why You Need a Daily Planner for a More Organized Life

    It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the tasks of everyday life, especially if you don’t have any easy way of organizing them. Aside from a frazzled mental state, that stack of notes by the phone or stuck to the fridge could be the reason you’re late or forgot that ingredient you absolutely needed to finish dinner.

    By the way, your babysitter canceled.

    You forgot you volunteered for the bake sale this weekend.

    Also, you promised yourself that you were going to start working out today, but the house is a mess.

    So… good luck with everything life just threw at you!

    Fortunately, there’s a simple solution to organize all that mental clutter keeping you from living your best life: a daily planner.

    How a Using Daily Planner Creates an Organized Life

    When you think about a planner, you might be thinking of those things your teachers tried to make you use in grade school. And maybe it’s because they made us fill those out that planners have become so popular today.

    Fortunately, planners have certainly evolved. Gone are the days of too-small spaces for your daily and weekly tasks, all in a boring little binder.

    Say hello to fun prints, stickers, and to-do lists you’ll actually enjoy crossing off. You can easily customize your daily planner to keep track of whatever you want, so you can make sure you get done the things that are most important to you.

    You can buy one that fits your goals, or you can find printable versions online. Some of them are even free!

    When you regularly use a planner, you get to plan your months, weeks, and days in advance. There’s no wasting time trying to sort out what you should do next.

    You can find that big, ugly task you’ve been avoiding and finish it first, allowing you to feel accomplished and ready to take on the rest of your day.

    In the rest of this post, you’ll learn more about using a daily planner to organize your life and turn planning into a daily routine.

    Businesswoman planning work in daily planner

    Why You Should Use Your Planner Everyday

    Daily planners have become one of the best and most recommended ways to organize your life. There are so many benefits to using a planner every day, especially for your home and personal life.

    Here are some of the top benefits of using a daily life planner:

    Your life becomes more organized

    While it’s not the only reason to use a daily planner, becoming more organized is definitely at the top of the list.

    This is often what draws people to using a planner and what they gain the most from it. With a planner, you write just about everything down that’s happening in your life so you always know what you’re doing next and what you’ve done in the past.

    In most planners, there are different calendar pages, including monthly, weekly, and daily layouts.

    • The monthly calendars are good for looking at your appointments and events at a glance.
    • Then there are the weekly calendar pages to flesh out your plans and schedule, and add tasks to be completed on certain days.
    • The daily planner pages offer more space for things like to-do lists and short journal entries.

    By using all of these, you become more organized by not only knowing what you need to do and when, but also always having everything you need right at your fingertips.

    You can set realistic goals and actually achieve them

    Many people think of goals as dreams—something that would be amazing, but is farfetched and possibly unattainable.

    However, a goal is something that you can definitely achieve if you put in the work. You should think of it as something you will work toward. The best types of goals are measurable and realistic, something you can keep track of in your planner.

    Using daily, weekly, and monthly planners are amazing tools for setting your goals and actually reaching them. You can make lists of the goals you have, then for each one of these, make lists of what needs to be done. These are often known as task lists.

    With everything right in your planner, you can check in daily, checking off any task that has been completed in order to achieve that goal. You can also easily make plans for what you want to achieve within a month and break those goals down into goals for each week with daily tasks.

    You’ll see these lists whenever you are using your planner, so it further helps to motivate you. If you do your planning right, you won’t ever have to wonder about what you should be doing and when to work towards your goals.

    Planners help you find clarity in your life

    Are you trying to discover who you are, what motivates you, and what your biggest priorities are? Journaling is a great way to do that but you can also get these benefits from using a daily life planner.

    As you start using your planner more often, you start discovering where your focus is. You might think you’re paying more attention to certain career goals, but instead, discover you have more of a passion for your creative endeavors based on your goals and aspirations.

    This is a wonderful side effect of using a planner. You can gain more clarity about who you are and who you want to be.

    Planners work great with daily journals

    Speaking of journals, you can definitely combine them (bullet journaling is popular for having a journal and planner in one notebook) or use both as a part of your new daily routine.

    Journaling—where you write down your memories, experiences, thoughts, and any ambitions you have—is also good to do every day. The planner is great for schedules and lists, while the journal can be for when you have more to say.

    You’re able to improve your focus and productivity

    Planners are often for personal and home life, but you can also use them for work and any area of your life where you need to be productive.

    Perhaps you have a lot of stress in your life because your work has your stomach so tied in knots. You don’t have the time or energy to focus on family or your home upkeep.

    This is where your planner comes in.

    It not only helps you to manage your time better, but it will also help you to improve your focus and productivity, which in turn allows you to reduce some of that work stress. The benefits keep overflowing into other areas of your life as well.

    Stress relief leads to a happier and more fulfilling life

    Stress relief is a major health benefit of using a planner daily. Keeping your days organized leads to less stress because you’re no longer running around frantically because you forgot about a big project or that event you promised your friend you’d attend.

    This can reduce triggers for anxiety and depression, help you relax more often, and is wonderful for self-care.

    Bridal background with planner checklist

    What to Track in Your Daily Planner

    So what can you track in your planner? Pretty much anything. A simple online search can show you a treasure trove of all the pages you can add to your planner.

    If you can’t find what you’re looking for in a daily, weekly, or monthly calendar template, find a blank template and customize it. A basic page set up can get you going if you’re not sure where to start.

    Aside from daily tasks, you might want to track cleaning, shopping lists, to-do lists, vacation planning, child care, organizing, and exercise/health. Let’s go over how you can track a few of these.

    Cleaning

    Instead of looking at the clutter or dust in your home with dismay, schedule all the different things that need cleaning. You can pick a specific day to do it all, or pick one room or area that absolutely must get some TLC for each day of the week.

    Your daily planner is also perfect for keeping track of more daunting tasks like spring cleaning or deep cleaning. Maybe one or two days a year can be dedicated specifically to donating the things you don’t use often.

    Planners also don’t have to be all about what you still need to do. You can also make notes about some new cleaning methods or recipes you want to try.

    For example, you could document how that window cleaner you’ve been using just isn’t working as well as it once did or that those homemade laundry detergent tablets made your sheets smell amazing.

    Shopping Lists

    If you dedicate one space to your shopping lists, ideally you won’t lose it or forget anything.

    You can keep even more organized by separating your list by store or section of a store you plan to visit. That way you’ll remember to stop by the meat sale at the local grocery store, but head to the bigger store for canned goods.

    You can make lists for

    • Back to school shopping
    • Movies you’re dying to see
    • Books you want to preorder or check out of the library
    • What summer clothes are going on sale soon

    To-Do Lists

    To-do lists are a staple of planners. There’s something calming about writing all your tasks down in one place. It’s like taking all the noise out of your head and placing it neatly down on the page.

    Much like planning your day, planning your to-do list can help you sort your priorities and admit that some of those things weren’t as important as your brain insisted they were.

    It’s extremely satisfying to be able to cross something off and watch your list shrink. Just be careful though—if you keep adding simple tasks just for the sake of crossing them off, you probably aren’t being your most productive.

    Vacation Planning

    This is one section where your imagination can run wild. You can start by making some lists of places you want to go and what you want to do. Add some pictures of beaches or museums you’re dying to visit.

    Once you’ve settled on a goal, list some specifics:

    • What travel companies could you use or would you rather plan your trip yourself?
    • What are the things you absolutely must see or do and what would be a nice bonus?
    • What airlines are you considering?
    • Can you find any discounts?
    • What’s a realistic budget and how will you stick to it?

    Every time you flip through your planner, you’ll be reminded of that dream trip and be more inspired than ever to make it happen.

    Child Care

    Raising children is hectic and your planner is the perfect place to organize all the things you need to do for them or get them to do. Keep up with appointments, plan chores for the kids, and keep up with due dates or field trips.

    You can keep track of child care in your planner, such as for daycare, a nanny, or a babysitter.

    If you drop your kids off every day, you can keep a list of important information like phone numbers, addresses, pick up times, snack regulations, or any other things you need to know.

    If you have a rotating roster of babysitters, you can list their numbers and rates and keep a calendar tracking availability or when you’d like to plan a date night.

    You can also use printable pages to write down important info to give to the babysitters. If you keep a base copy in your planner, you’ll never accidentally forget to mention something important.

    Organizing

    I’m sure you realize planners are good for organizing, but the first thing that comes to mind is probably simply taking what’s going on in your life in terms of schedules and appointments. If there’s only one thing you get from this post, I hope it’s that your planner can organize much more than that.

    Think about what being organized means to you. This could mean having a place for all the miscellaneous stuff that doesn’t quite fit anywhere or it could be a place for organizing your thoughts or aspirations.

    Maybe you need somewhere to keep track of projects or draft workflows and systems for your business. The possibilities for using your planner are endless.

    Try journaling, meditation, or some ideas about how you want to organize the various areas of your house or life. Add in some DIY projects you can’t wait to get to or list the things you want to change in various areas of your life.

    Exercise/Health

    A daily planner is perfect when you’re struggling to keep track of healthy habits. Set up a meal plan, complete with a grocery list, and set up an exercise schedule. Maybe you want to keep track of your sleep schedule or make sure you take your vitamins.

    You also keep track of gym days and rest days. Even if you have a gym membership, there are so many free resources online to use in your planner to create at-home workouts.

    Here are a few more ways you can use your planner for better health:

    • How often you eat out
    • Track fruits and vegetable servings
    • Recipes you want to try
    • Workout videos or classes that look like fun

    You don’t have to be perfect at everything all at once. You could start with drinking more water and walking for thirty minutes a few times a week and then add on more habits as these become easier.

    As you gradually build up your habits, your planner is physical evidence of how far you’ve come.

    Want more ideas for what to track in your planner? Check out the free teaser module for my planning course.

    Creating a Daily Planner Routine

    Now that you understand a little more about why you should use a planner and what you can potentially include in it, let’s talk about having a daily planning routine.

    Creative pensive ladyboy

    Why a Daily Routine?

    Building a routine will serve multiple purposes. The routine first motivates you to use your planner on a daily basis. It’s not uncommon to be excited about getting your planner set up, but then fall behind on it.

    Your planner is most beneficial when you can use it on a regular basis, preferably every day.

    This not only allows you to add more to your planner pages but to also check-in and look at the progress you have made so far. It really encourages you to stay productive and get more done, not to mention how much more organized your life will be.

    Eventually, you won’t even have to remember to start practicing your routine. It’ll become something you instinctively perform.

    Use Your Routine for Self-Care

    Starting a daily routine with the planner can also become part of your self-care routine. Maybe you use the planner in the morning when having a cup of coffee or tea, or you meditate or do yoga before or after using your planner.

    Through using your planner, you can create a daily routine that is better for your physical, mental, and emotional health.

    Creating Your Daily Planner Routine

    The first step to starting the daily routine is choosing what time of the day works best for you.

    Ask yourself when you have a few spare minutes or when it would be most effective for you. If you’re writing to-do lists for each day of the week, then that’s naturally a good thing to get done first thing in the morning.

    On the other hand, if you have more free time in the afternoon or in the evening, do what works for you.

    Once you know when you want to do your planning, you can then decide if you’d like to include other activities in your planning routine. This might be writing in a journal, doing some creative activities, or maybe meditating and practicing mindfulness before you start your planner routine.

    More tips to help you fit planning into your busy schedule and create a planning-friendly morning or evening routine can be found in my mini-course Creating a Planning Routine.

    Tips for Setting Up Your First Daily Planner

    If you’re working on your first planner, you might be a little intimidated and are not sure where to start. Luckily, planners are pretty easy to use and you’re free to use them however you like.

    Once you have decided on the type of planner you want—whether it’s a store-bought planner or you’re using printable planner pages for a binder—you’re ready to start with the basics.

    Fill Out the Calendar Pages

    The first step to using any life planner is filling out the calendar pages. Start with the monthly calendar—input dates like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. You can then follow that up with any appointments or events you know about right now.

    The monthly calendar helps you fill in the weekly calendar pages. Those are good for adding tasks of what to do each day of the week or expanding on appointments or important dates coming up.

    You can then fill out some of the other more specific pages, such as daily planner pages for organizing your home or planning parties.

    Write Down Some Goals

    This is also a good time to write down some of your goals. Keep them simple and realistic, with just a few goals to start with.

    After writing down each goal, come up with a broad list of tasks that needs to be done to achieve them. You can then narrow down these broader tasks to more specific ones and add them to different days and weeks of your planner.

    Now you’re ready to get started with your planning routine! All that’s left to do is to use your planner daily.

    Ready to start your first planner?

    Even with all these suggestions, this is really just the beginning of all the things you could do with a daily planner. This is a truly customizable tool that you can use in any way that best suits your needs and lifestyle.

    If you use a binder style planner, you have even more opportunity to customize to your needs. You can add or remove pages as your tastes change. Or maybe you want to try different page layouts until you find the ones that work best for you.

    How you use your planner is up to you, but by tracking the different areas of your life, you can achieve a more organized and mentally calm state of daily living.

  • Productivity

    Plan Your Day the Night Before to Increase Productivity

    If you’re like me, you can plan out the perfect day in the morning, but then your plans go awry once it’s finally time to execute them. The reason for this is that we try to make decisions on the fly, and we’re too influenced by what feels good in the moment.

    Nighttime is great time to make plans for the next day. Consider these ideas for effective planning at night and then following through with those plans.

    Table of Contents

    Know your goals

    What do you want to accomplish? You can’t make effective plans until you know what you’re trying to do. If you don’t know what your goals are in the short and long term, now is the time to set them.

    Set aside time each night to plan the next day

    Each evening, at a certain time, plan out what you’re going to do the following day. Do this with the same regularity as brushing your teeth.

    Be ruthless with prioritization

    Make sure to prioritize any scheduled activities. You only have so much time, so it’s important to make the most of it. Since there’s a hard limit to how much you can accomplish each day, work on the most important things first. You can determine the priority based upon your goals.

    Ideally, your list will be pretty short. If you have 10 things on your list, that might be a little much. Stick to the most important 3-5 things. Can you imagine if you actually got 3 vital tasks completed each day instead of trying to float around the 50 things you need to do to achieve a big goal?

    Once your biggest priorities are set, you can create another list for things that can be done after the items on the priority list are accomplished.

    Make your evening decisions count

    At night, it’s easy to decide that you’re going to go to the gym the following day. It’s easy to decide that you’re going to eat in a healthy manner. It’s during the day that you struggle to make wise decisions.

    How many times have you planned on going to the gym at certain time, only to talk yourself out of it when the time came?

    The solution is to make as few decisions as possible during the day. Make your decisions at night and then just focus your energy on executing during the day. Avoid giving yourself the opportunity to change your mind. Just believe that you made the right choice the night before.

    You can defeat procrastination

    You made good decisions last night, so there’s no reason to delay beginning your day. When you prioritize your activities, you can be confident that you’re spending your time well.

    Your decisions when you’re decision-making powers are at their best at night. It’s obvious what you should eat tomorrow to be at your best. It’s obvious that you should go to the gym, read a chapter of a certain book, or meditate for 20 minutes. It’s much harder to follow through on them when that time comes.

    Make your plan at night and then focus on executing it the next day. Avoid allowing yourself to make decisions regarding those items during the day. You already thought about them and made your decisions. There’s no reason to re-negotiate them.

    Sit down and make a plan each night for the following day. Fight like mad to stick to the plan the next day. You’ll love the results!

  • Goal Setting

    Why You Need Goals as an Entrepreneur

    Success is about enjoying what you have and where you are, while pursuing achievable goals.
    —Bo Bennett

    Have you considered setting concrete goals for your health, life, or business? You’ve probably thought about it at the very least.

    People who regularly set goals for themselves create a framework or a plan for their lives. If it’s just something small, having a goal to work towards puts you on a path to achieving something you want.

    Everybody feels good about getting what they want, right?

    Just thinking about your goals isn’t enough. It’s better to write them down so you have something physical that represents your intentions.

    Some people live by this process and may even go a bit overboard sometimes, while others have never considered actually writing down their objectives.

    It’s best to find a happy medium between these two ends of the spectrum. By determining short, intermediate, and long-term targets for your life, you are actually laying out your intentions.

    Table of Contents

    5 reasons to set goals in life and business

    Setting goals is a powerful step toward your intentions, rather that’s for self-improvement or to grow your business. If you’re not quite convinced yet, here are a few reasons why setting goals is better than not.

    If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you.

    Les Brown

    Maximize focus

    If you’ve ever had one of those days that just flies by without seeming to have accomplished much of anything (like me over the past couple days, yikes!), you have an idea of what a life without goals can be like. Drifting through life without a plan will likely lead you to wondering why you didn’t manage to accomplish more.

    Fortunately, by setting aside some time to make a plan for what you want to achieve now, next week, next month, and even over the next several years, you can regain your focus and begin to account for more of your time expenditures. Having a target on which to focus will improve your likelihood of success.

    Achieve better results

    It’s true that goal setting isn’t 100% necessary for attaining achievements. You could have lots of successes without creating any short and long-term goals and objectives.

    What’s important to realize about goal-setting is that it provides you with a solid target to measure your progress against.

    The focus that comes from creating intentional life markers allows you to accomplish even bigger things because you’re able to measure your success based on your past placeholders. Your latest triumph will be like an ordinary goal on steroids.

    Inspire motivation

    Motivation is tricky (which is why I’m able to create an entire website around inspiring it, btw). No matter how much you may logically understand the need to accomplish something or to finish a task; your mind will often play tricks on you that keep you from taking the actions necessary.

    The reasons for this are probably due to the fact that you are being motivated by factors outside yourself, such as meeting your client’s deadline or reaching a far-off desire. In order to give your motivation some much-needed oomph, you’ll want to make it more meaningful and internal to yourself.

    Internal motivations are the things that matter most to you and that will have a profound effect on your life. Setting goals allows you to make the target something that is personally relevant, increasing the likelihood that you will follow through to the finish.

    Stretch past your limits

    Setting goals for yourself allows you to stretch your limits—limits that are often self imposed. How many excuses have you made for not doing something even though you know it would likely result in growth? More clients, a better product, or growth in yourself?

    Growth does not occur if you continue to do the same things you’ve always done over and over. Without goals to reach for, timely objectives to meet and targets to surpass, you’re just standing still or, at best, coasting along.

    If you truly wish to achieve more in your life, creating a goal plan will give you the push you need to make all your desires a reality.

    Now that you understand why setting goals is important, hopefully you feel motivated and excited to jump into the creation of your life’s plan, or maybe just a plan for the next week. It’s okay to start out with goal-setting baby steps.

    Positive thinking is a valuable tool that can help you overcome obstacles, deal with pain, and reach new goals.

    Amy Morin

    The benefits of goal-setting are immense and can move you forward in your journey faster than you might expect, whether your goals are for your own personal growth or for business growth. By developing a plan for your future with measurable targets along the way, you’re making the first steps in turning your thoughts into actions.

  • Goal Setting

    Managing Multiple Goals at the Same Time

    You may think life would be so much simpler if you could just concentrate on one thing at a time—such as completing an online course or finishing that ebook you’ve been working on. The reality is that we all have to juggle a wide variety of goals.

    A number of studies suggest that breaking goals down into specific action steps works wonders when applied to a single goal. However, that approach tends to backfire when we have a lot more going on. It seems we become more aware of the potential obstacles in our way.

    So what can you do if you need to make progress on multiple fronts without getting overwhelmed? Consider these strategies.

    Table of Contents

    Evaluate Your Current List of Goals

    First, you need to evaluate your current goals. You can do this in 4 simple steps:

    Select three priorities

    If you feel like you’re being pulled in all directions, take time to reflect on what matters most to you. You may decide that preparing simpler meals is an acceptable tradeoff for having more time to spend with your family.

    Be realistic about time limits

    We often underestimate how long it will take to complete routine tasks. Ensure you know how much time you really have to work within a typical week.

    Decline requests tactfully

    Learning to say no graciously will spare you from taking on excessive obligations. It’s okay if you want to skip a baby shower for a former coworker you lost touch with years ago.

    Stay up to date

    Our objectives shift at different stages in our lives. Go ahead and scale down your career ambitions if you’ve found greater meaning in your spiritual practices.

    Juggle the Goals You Want to Keep

    Once you know your goals and which are the most important, it’s time to work towards those goals. Using the following techniques will make it easier to stay on track, no matter what you want to achieve.

    Select role models

    Interestingly, researchers have found that we’re more optimistic about handling multiple goals if we think the people around us are busier than we are. Get inspired by a neighbor who’s also working towards multiple goals.

    Define your success

    Figure out how to grade yourself. Maybe you want to excel at parenting, but you’re satisfied with getting your car washed once a month.

    Merge projects into one

    Just spotting the connections between one concern and another may make your life easier. Focus on being healthy rather than counting every calorie.

    Resist rushing

    Slow down. Chronic stress undermines your performance across the board.

    Segment your time

    Break your day up into broad time slots. Budget an hour to spend on writing a report. Devote the next half hour to walking through the park. Switching between activities will keep your mind fresh.

    Master logistics

    Organization helps you get things done more quickly. Calculate the best route for completing all your errands in one trip instead of making separate outings to pick up the dry cleaning and drop the dog off at the groomer.

    Work as a team

    Encourage a spirit of community and cooperation. Thank your kids for pitching in with age appropriate household tasks. Take turns cleaning the office refrigerator.

    Seek expert help

    Shorten your learning curve by consulting those who already know the ropes. Financial planning is one key area where professionals can help you understand how to balance different needs.

    Know your best time of day

    Schedule your most challenging demands for the times when you’re at your peak. If you’re an early bird, study foreign languages over breakfast. Night owls can review their finances after dinner.

    Stay fit

    Protect your ability to pull off everything you want to do in life. Make sure your goals include staying in top physical and mental condition.

    Pare down your to do list and coordinate your efforts around the goals that are most important to you. You’ll worry less and get more accomplished.

  • Productivity

    Bolster Efficiency in Your Online Business by Using Systems

    Here’s a little business secret any serious entrepreneur knows (or at least learns after doing it the hard way for way too long).

    The key to running a successful online business without running yourself ragged is to have systems in place for everything. You’ll be surprised how much time you’ll save each week and how much more productive you’ll be once you have a specific process for completing tasks you perform regularly.

    “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

    —W. Edwards Deming

    Let’s take a look at a couple of different types of systems you may want to implement.

    Don’t forget to document your systems and create checklists for them as you start to create them. They will come in handy over the coming months and years, especially if you start to build a team or outsource tasks to freelancers.

    Product Creation

    Your systems for product creating will depend on what your products are and how you will deliver them, but some of the things you may want to document in the form of a check list are:

    • Topic Research
    • Creating An Outline
    • Writing or Recording the Info Product
    • Editing and Formatting
    • Uploading It To Your Site
    • Creating Sales and Download Pages
    • Creating Marketing Materials

    In addition, it’s a good idea to create a template you can use for all your short reports and ebooks to make sure they look consistent across the board. This will also make your job a lot easier when it comes time to format your product.

    Content Creation

    Templates and calendars will make your life so much easier when it comes to content creation.

    Spend a little time each month creating an editorial calendar for your blog. Figure out how often you want to blog and what topics you want to cover. With that in place you’ll never sit down at your desk with no idea what to write about.

    Having templates in place is also helpful. Look at what content you create on a regular basis. Is it a newsletter, short reports and eBooks? Make templates for them. Most of your formatting will be taken care of and you don’t have to start with a blank page.

    Social Media

    Make your social media interactions faster with a system in place. Figure out how often you want to post and during what times—when will you post your own content, when will you ask a question or make an observation, and when will you share other people’s posts?

    Having a schedule in place allows you to work ahead when you need to and just like the blog schedule it helps you get things done faster if you know what you’re writing or sharing ahead of time.

    Website Maintenance And Security

    Here’s a big one that should not go overlooked. Ae you keeping your site safe, updated, and secure?

    If you’re using a CMS like WordPress to run your site, you want to make sure it’s updated regularly. Make sure any plugins and themes you use are up-to-date as well.

    Backups are also a must. Schedule them on a monthly basis, at least, and review your sites regularly to make sure everything is safe and secure. Set an alert on your phone or add the task to your calendar each month so you don’t forget.

    Customer Service

    Customer service is an excellent place to use business systems. You’re likely to have questions that get asked over and over again or get support requests for solutions the same types of problems.

    Having a page with Frequently Asked Questions (and your responses of course) is always helpful. You’ll be able to point customers to the page and be done for most questions.

    A list of “canned “responses to common questions will also save you a lot of time. Personalize them as needed, but have the bulk of it ready to copy and paste. This will also come in handy if and when you hire extra help to manage your customer service.

    “In order for any business to succeed, it must first become a system so that the business functions exactly the same way every time down to the last detail.”

    —Rick Harshaw

    Using systems helps you run your online business more productively, and it makes it easy to outsource those portions of your business to a Virtual Assistant. As you grow and there’s more work to be done than hours in your day, you’ll appreciate having having systems in place not just for yourself, but for your team as well.

  • Goal Setting

    The S.M.A.R.T. Way to Set Goals as an Entrepreneur

    “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”

    — Japanese Proverb

    Do you set goals for yourself and your business? You probably find yourself struggling to stay on task, hopping from one thing to the next if you don’t.

    You also might feel like your progress has become stagnant. Maybe you’ve been one thing that has worked for so long that you haven’t even thought to change it up.

    Setting goals can you spring into action when you’ve otherwise become complacent or set into a certain way of doing things. By giving yourself a deadline to figure something out, you push yourself to learn more and actually take the steps needed to break a plateau.

    On the other hand, you may just be getting started and want a solid plan to follow so you can get things up and running.

    How much do you think you could achieve in 100 days? There’s a lot you can do in 100 days (or much less!) as an online entrepreneur:

    • Grow your email list
    • Grow your social media following
    • Write content for the next quarter
    • Create a new online course
    • Write an ebook
    • Update your website’s SEO

    What I told you could accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days or less? That there is a formula that you can use to guarantee success?

    While three months might be a bit long for some of these goals, you can certainly use this method on any goal you’re prepared to work on. You can do it if you follow the SMART method and use the 6 tips outlined below.

    S.M.A.R.T. Goals for Entrepreneurs

    Keep your goals S.M.A.R.T.

    Your goals need to be tight, focused, and concrete. To make them easier to achieve, make your goals S.M.A.R.T.—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

    There are a lot of different variations of this acronym, but this one works best for me as an entrepreneur, so that’s what I’m going to share.

    Specific

    Work on keeping your goal as focused and defined as you can. It’s harder to get distracted or lose time on figuring out what to do next if you have a specific goal in mind. You’ll also have a defined finish line so you’ll know when you’ve hit your goal or how much more you need to work to complete it.

    Measurable

    Keep your goals tangible, whether it’s running 10 miles or writing 60,000 words of your novel.

    One way to measure your goals is to keep a journal or even a blog about your journey as you work on various goals. This is a great tactic for end goals that have more emotional outcomes, as well.

    This is something you can do publicly or privately. Having a public blog about your experience can add extra accountability and support from your readers, increasing your chances of success (though don’t ever fall into feeling like you’re letting people down when you’re struggling with your goal).

    You story may also inspire others to make similar goals or help them to realize they aren’t alone in their own struggles.

    Attainable

    Your goal should be challenging but not impossible. You can check your emotional response to the goal to gauge this.

    Do you feel excited or overwhelmed? Do you feel like your goal will be really easy to reach?

    Adjust your goal so it excites you and feels like you will have really accomplished something by the end of it. If you feel like your goal is too easy, then it’s better to use as a short-term goal for a larger goal.

    “The greater danger for most of us isn’t that our aim is too high and miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

    – Michelangelo

    I also find that it helps to keep your goals centered around outcomes you can actually control, especially if you’re new to this whole entrepreneur thing. If you fall short of a goal like gaining 500 email subscribers, you may become discouraged, even though it’s not entirely your fault that you didn’t hit that goal.

    Audience growth goals aren’t bad, but they tend not to go as quickly as we think they will. So for those who are new or don’t have the traffic that build a large following from, set goals that aren’t dependent on action from other people. Focus instead on goals that will allow you to grow your skill set or put systems in place for when you do have a larger audience.

    Relevant

    The way I see it, there are two ways to approach relevancy when setting a SMART goal.

    Your goal could be one that speaks to your heart and will move your life forward. This is a good way to look at relevancy for long-term goals. Make sure that these are *your goals—*not your manager’s, or your friend’s, or your partner’s. You won’t be as motivated to complete a goal that doesn’t benefit you.

    Another is that the goal should be relevant to the project you’re trying to complete. This is best used when setting short or medium-term goals that lead up to a long-term goal.

    For example, if I want earn $1,000 next month, it wouldn’t make sense for me to set a short-term goal of gaining 300 Instagram followers since more followers won’t make me more money and Instagram isn’t the best way for me to get people on to my website.

    A better goal would be to create a short email course or something else that I could use to promote my products, or to create a new product entirely and set goals around marketing it.

    Time-bound

    Always give yourself a deadline to complete your goal. This is another step that should be a little bit challenging, but it shouldn’t be so short that you feel like there’s a chance you won’t be able to finish it in the time you’ve allowed.

    A good time period to shoot for with most goals is about 100 days. That gives you 3 months to accomplish a medium-term goal that may be a part of a long-term goal.

    Though we’re talking about setting a 100-day goal right now, you can use SMART for any length goal you want. You can even set short-term SMART goals that you can use to achieve your 100 day goal.

    Work on your goal

    “A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

    — Zig Ziglar

    Once your goal is set, it’s time to get started with the hard part—actually working towards achieving that goal! Here are some tips to keep yourself motivated throughout the entire 100 days.

    Know what you need to do

    As you may be able to tell already, SMART goals work best if you know the steps you need to do to achieve your goal already. If you aren’t prepared to create a plan for your goal, you may need to take a step back and learn what it is you need to actually do to achieve that goal first.

    This will also make it a lot easier to set a timeframe that you can feel comfortable with.

    Have a plan

    It’s all well and good to set your goal and know what you need to do to achieve it, but you still need a plan to carry out that will get your from Point A to Point B.

    How will you grow your email list? What steps will you take to create your course? What will you do to get people to follow your Instagram?

    You can use SMART-goal-ception to create smaller SMART goals inside your main SMART goal that are steps towards achieving the larger goal.

    Which actually brings me to my next point!

    Take small steps

    Keep focused on small actions and steps that add up to achieving your main goal. Work out what you need to do to get there and in what sequence. Remember that your daily, weekly, and monthly actions all add up to success.

    For example, if you want to grow your email list in the next 100 days, a basic goal plan may look like this:

    • Research what would be a good opt-in incentive
    • Create the opt-in incentive
    • Promote the opt-in incentive

    Check in on your progress

    “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, but never the goal.”

    You’ll keep your motivation high and your project on course if you make regular progress checks. You’ll be able to see if any aspect of your project is slipping and make adjustments early to get back on track.

    Set progress milestones and make sure you include rewards for hitting each one. Keep that positive feedback loop going by celebrating and rewarding success.

    Be accountable

    Achieving your goal will be easier if you’re accountable to someone else. Ask a friend, coach, or mentor to be your accountability buddy and share your progress reports with them.

    There are lots of Facebook groups for entrepreneurs and people love seeing the work of others. Try sharing your progress there. As long as you’re not being overly promotional and posting links to your content when you shouldn’t be, you’ll probably find a pretty good support system in one of your groups.

    Don’t give up!

    Commit to yourself that you will keep going to achieve your 100-day goal. Everyone has bad days, and sometimes life can throw you a curveball, but it’s more important that you pick yourself up and stay on course.

    Keep it simple and stick to the five-step S.M.A.R.T. formula whenever you set a new goal, whether its large or small. You’ll be on your way to accomplishing your goal before you know it!

    Don’t forget that you can also use this approach to complete smaller goals within a long-term goal. Whether it’s creating a new product, building your email list, or learning a new skill, the same principle applies. Break your goals down into smaller, more achievable chunks and go for it!