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Are you busy, busy, busy?

Notes for the Journey with Sweetie Berry

Busy, busy, busy is often the feeling or words I hear from folks in business. However as a business owner I know there is a big difference between busy and effectively working your business. What are your goals? What are your meaningful moments set aside for each day? What makes a more meaningful life at the end of the week? Personally I am most comfortable when I am “busy” but I also have learned the hard lesson that simply being actively involved in activities does not a successful business make.

What makes your business succeed? For me it is clearly defined outcomes then deciding who does what tasks that align that outcome. I love to do graphics, to write copy and to build wireframes for our clients, however if I engage in those activities excessively and no one goes out to reach potentials and transition them to clients, we’ll have many beautiful ideas and perhaps a few great pieces of art, but the bills won’t be paid.

One of the most important things in my business is knowing who I am not. I am NOT the accountant, I am not the attorney for our contracts, I am not the deep clean specialist who comes to my home from time to time. I am the Strategist, and the creative director and at times the ghost writer. When we keep in mind to work to our strengths and to hire the strengths of others it is a win/win situation.

Many times individuals discount why doing something simple matters. An example is backups of their computer or blog. It seems simple, it is often done in less than 2 minutes, however without consistent actions when the computer or virus has malware or mechanically fails that basic action is the difference between business continuing the next day on a new machine or fresh load or days of lost business and records. The “why” we do actions matter much more than we often think through in that 2 minutes of option.

Effectiveness in a family owned business is knowing why you work to own a business. For our family it is to focus from a perspective that aligns with our beliefs as Christians. It is to allow us to work as a family as we homeschooled a youngest and to attend important events of our olders when they were in school. It was to set hours that worked for our family as a whole and to be able to flex our income up and down as we needed to support our family and the families of those who work with us. For us effectiveness wasn’t working eighty hours a week as a family, though we learned that the hard way for many months. Effectiveness was learning when to turn down the work for the expectations didn’t match the proposed offer, when to let go of clients who wanted to take advantage of our kind nature in business. Effectiveness is also knowing what makes our team feel cohesive and taking time to make sure each individual is valued and appreciated for the consistent work they do. It doesn’t matter if we top our goals if we become exhausted and ill for doing too much.

The next time you’re feeling “busy, busy, busy” take time to pause, look deeper than the activities going on around you and within you, are they the action your want for your daily life to be spent effectively? Are they bringing meaningful moments to your daily life? Are you choosing to create a well-lived life?

Do you identify your desired outcome?

Basics Matter, Focusing Success, Notes for the Journey with Sweetie Berry

Are you frustrated that something isn’t happening in your business or daily life? I recently had a client who was frustrated that a certain action wasn’t happening as an outcome of his conversations with potentials. When a few questions were asked, it was apparent that he had considered the eight or so calls he had made as significant. However, in my experience a new sales person only closes about 2-10% of the time, so with less than 100 calls made, there would not be the outcome desired each month! There was a significant gap in the experience expected to participate in and the desired outcome expected.

The desired outcome is important to identify in our business and personal life. If we desire to have a trip to Europe in the springtime, but have not achieved the identification of the price of the trip, then divided that number by the number of months we have to save for that trip, most trips won’t happen. Each of us do sequential builds daily. We pick up our toothbrush, we squeeze the amount of toothpaste on the toothbrush, we wet it under the faucet, then we brush at the right pressure to clean, but not harm, we rinse our mounths and our brushes and we put the brush back. Success.

The key to success for most of us is taking the goal and breaking it down. In some cases we may not know how to do a task or skill and we can realize we need to learn something new. In other cases, we have limited our options for success by not considering all the possibilities. I heard a client say just last week “I’m not always motivated to write in my blog daily, but Tuesdays seem to be quiet, everyone is out of the house, and I wish I could write all day” To which my reply was “why not? Why not write every Tuesday every post you are up to writing, then schedule them for the times needed, get ahead, enjoy knowing you’re not always on “oh my gosh this is due” timelines”. It was not in the options she had given herself to enjoy writing all day Tuesdays and get ahead so that her marketing and social media would be preplanned and more effective. There is no doubt in my mind she’ll not only be more effective with the new deconstruct of what works for her, but her writing will be more effective with additional social media planning for readership allowed by the additional time she’ll already know what is coming next.

One of my goals this year was to have more ease and margin in my life. I tend to be a “get it done” kind of worker regardless of the personal cost once I’ve committed to a task. I recognized that the value on “get it done” was not nearly as important as the value I needed to place on “is this worth doing from a business perspective?” before agreeing to a project. You see, not every project, offer, or role I am offered needs to be accepted. To achieve the goals I have for myself and my team, only those projects and roles that allow me to steward my best gifts are the ones I should personally engage. If someone else on my team is capable of doing the tasks, those tasks most likely isn’t the tasks I should be involved in, for my gifts involve seeing the vision, developing the tools, or writing the programs, I’m not the graphic artist, the social media manager, nor the secretary, I’m the producer, the educator, and the branding guide. Are you doing the roles and jobs you are best at doing? Are you spending your fee time on ten dollar jobs that could have been paid for by working at the level you work? Learning to give up doing what is not my best role increased my bottom line as well as focused my business profits.

Whether you need to learn a new skill, polish an old one, or perhaps consider deconstructing what isn’t working until you realize where you exited off the success train, it’s worth putting it on paper. What do you do? When do you do it? With whom is it best accomplished with? What does the client look like that needs your services? When we get focused on success, it is easier to achieve it!

What are you doing to create daily success?

Basics Matter, Focusing Success, Notes for the Journey with Sweetie Berry

Isn’t it true that we do what we know? Familiarity is a comfortable place, but it can surely rob you of your own success. When we are familar with a behavior, a surrounding, an outcome or experience, we transition to believe that the experience is the usual and expected outcome. Success is learnable. You can only succeed to the level that you are aware. Think about it. Can you become successful at something you are not aware exists? Do you need an interrupt of your familiar outcomes?

The last two weeks I had interrupts to my daily routines, surroundings and experiences. A cross country business trip challenged me to physically see differently, to experience the days differently and to engage the possibilities differently. On the road, much like at home, I have a formal schedule. I know when I’ll be awake, when I’ll be dressed for business, and I have a plan for my body’s nutrition. I have a set amount of time to work, rest, play, and engage with others. The hotel room reminded me that an uncluttered environment is restful. On my planner daily was a simple list that started from 7 am to 2 pm, my best hours of the day. The list identified the most important engagements, activities and opportunities with an end point. There was a plan for lunch, a plan for travel time, a plan for solitude after each appointment to take notes, or capture important points from the meeting. Each day there was time for social media “live” comments and/or pictures assuring my presence online didn’t disappear the 13 days I was on the road. You see, a daily plan of actions can multiply your daily outcomes that support you personally and professionally. Perspective is an essential ingredient to your daily experience, are you seeing the world through only your experience? Perhaps its time to explore new learning, new experience and perspectives through intentional research and learning, engaging with others and intentional identifying outcomes you desire to achieve. The world offers so many resources online and off, the most difficult question is “what do you want to learn?”

Are you engaging daily actions for success where you are? Whether you are in a home office, a corporate setting, or a local business do you have a clear understanding of what your daily business is about? Do you know what makes you money? Do you know whom you serve and how you serve them? What or who they need before they are ready for your service or product? Do you know how your service or product interacts with your clients success? Do you know the value of the time priorities for what you engage? If I work with clients who are unprepared for the strategy and branding services I develop, they will not enjoy or engage the outcomes our work produces. Are you taking time to make sure your potentials and clients are well educated of the purposes and value of your offerings? Awareness and exposure to why what you offer as services or products is essential before potentials or current clients can engage new offerings or levels of success with your products.

My business offerings in WordPress development was added for my clients because after several years I saw a lack of WordPress technical support was the #1 cause of my authors, speakers, and small business failure with their online business marketing and membership outcomes. After checking into resources, it became apparent that WordPress development was a service and product that would be profitable and protective for our clients. Our client’s profitable outcomes support my own success. What are your clients’ needs? What service or extension of your current offering could turn the key for expanding your success? Are you engaged in affiliate relationships for the services and materials you encourage in your business? Do you create strategic partnerships with others in your network? Do you know how to recommend strong business partners who will serve your client? How do you leverage your expertise and experience to communicate to your potentials that you have the solution to their need?

Active and successful business owners recognize that small, specifi daily actions matter. Whether you are working on networking with potential clients, supporting current clients, writing content on your social channels, learning new skills in your professional area, investing in the time to experience perspectives from someone more experienced or successful than you, or simply taking time to track where you are spending your time and energy. If you are stuck, if you are not sure what to do to change your current outcome, maybe it’s time to engage in learning. Are you ready to learn to succeed at a new level? Outcomes in personal and business life happen daily, the question is are you aware of your goals, are you taking actions that support your daily success for growing a well-lived life?

Basics matter, because life happens every day.

#BasicsMatter

Taking time to choose

Uncategorized

Has a day gone by that you simply realized you didn’t live the life you intended to live? Is it important to you to exit the ever revolving merry-go-round of life and to check in with yourself?

An elder friend of mine exemplified the choice of growing a well lived life. Her sitation was not perfect, there were many less ideal situations beyond her control daily, yet, she chose to live a well lived life.

What does that look like for me? It begins with realizing that what I think about is at least half the battle, how I think about what thoughts enter my mind is my choice. At fifty-one, my life is not a new experience, but how I live it has become new. As a child I intended to grow up, be someone who had the ability to empower others, live in a home filled with amazing aromas from the kitchen and gather with friends. My little girl dreams included living in the country and scenes from my childhood that one day the log stack I worked on with my Grandfather Geddie would be for my own fireplace. The house would be filled during holidays and weekdays with welcoming joy and folks we’d choose as family. Strangers would find warmth and work would be joyful.

It’s easy to get off track in life. To buy into some sort of daily competition to figure out how many ways someone else is more while you are feeling “not enough.” Personally, I got off that merry-go-round. It’s easy to let social channels visually take you to the “wow, they seem to have it so together” space, but most folks simply aren’t growing a life they love. I go to conferences, workshops and local spaces and when the topics go deeper there is almost always a solemness of conversation tides when it comes to questions like “are you happy, do you like how you’re spending your life?”

You know we are, we are spending our time and our life, and that spending needs to be an investment of intention. Time is our most precious commodity and our life is indeed limited in its days.

Have you heard from your heart lately? Have you taken time to think “What would today look like if I could choose how it would be?” It may be something as simple as it would start with the perfect cup of something, or as complex as ‘it sure wouldn’t be doing what I have to do today.” Awareness. Growing a well lived life begins with awareness. Awareness of what brings you peace, of where solitude engages, what makes your heart happy and how long it’s been since you laughed, played, found joy in a cool breeze or a sunset. I think we too easily get “numbed” to everything around us. We’re too often plugged in to routines, habits, and electronic devices that mindlessly take over our lives.

This week I am returning from a grand road trip. It has tickled me that most of the conversation fodder has been about how could I drive or travel the fastest. Folks have chimed in on how to save time through this caveat or that on the interstate. Personally, I’ve take the side roads, made time to stop and enjoy the beauty of a cross country drive. To drink in the smell of the air in different parts of the country as I drove over 1900 miles. I’ve stopped to hear the stories of the dairy farmer who happened to be out milking his cows.

I’ve taken time to pull in to a local shop and asked what it was like to be in a home that was built in 1775 as the fifth generation of that family. I’ve taken time to drink in the rich colors of Fall and to know that each day was filled with focused intention of being where I was. Rarely do I have the time or the intention to drink in the beauty of a road trip, but this trip had been planned with the colors of Fall in mind.

Sometimes the best way to use your time is to savor what is before you.

Personally, savoring the people and life that is before me becoming a focused daily habit.

When Time Needs to Be Productive

Notes for the Journey with Sweetie Berry, Uncategorized

As a creative who adores creating as well as a hybrid strategist for content and marketing campaigns time managemet is essential. Knowing that time stands still when I am engaged in work I love, developing systems to stay on task and on track mattered not only to my income, but also to be able to create a well lived life. The parameters of work are now so changed from the constructs of my childhood. In the sixties and seventies we had set hours for “business”, built in constraints for how often one could communicate via written expression or telephone. Time and costs required focused on a slower pace with defined end hours and identified “off” hours. News was available at two, maybe three times a day, and there was value placed on time with family daily as well as scheduled off hours and vacations.

Enter modern technology, 24/7 access to information resources and fluid work environments and time flows. You add in the multi talent level ability and the need for time management tools and boundaries takes on a whole new level of identification need.

How do you determine what you need to accomplish?

How do you prioritize what actions happen when?

How do you monitor the time you ACTUALLY spend doing what you do and the outcomes they bring?

Those three questions are three of the toughest ones most entrepreneurs and professionals face. The lists of need to do’s can overwhelm a forty hour work week. The overwhelming reality of not knowing what priority to do yourself, what should be outsourced or staff sourced often is the bottleneck of outcomes in business for solo preneurs, small business and enterpreneurs leadership.

Personally, I am a well able professional. No longer can I count on “If I am able, I should do it” mentality. My skills are vast as most business owners are, but the tasks that require me are best served by me, the ones that can be achieved by others need to focused to their realm so that the income and opportunities only I can bring to the business are MY focus.

Easier said than done.

Strategy involves knowing how you work, how you learn, what your strengths are and who you are NOT in business. Personally I am a highly disciplined tasker. However I also value completion of tasks at hand, so I must be focused on only putting in my space “to do” what is truly my task. As a content marketing strategist, WordPress specialist, and soft sells educator, it’s important that the content I write, the scripts I create and the blueprints for launches and campaigns be a priority for me. My method is to first, on paper, keep in front of me the time modules that need to exist each week. Time for health, time to write, time to just go have fun, time to work alone in developing products and time to engage with clients. For me the process involves predictable times scheduled each week to have some sense of “schedule” but also periods for flexibility so that when clients need support, or it would be more productive to work with my team, we can tag space for that to happen.

What are my personal five go to’s for time in space productivity?

I use a good old fashioned timer. I set up for 15 minute increments and I reward myself for staying on task during writing time, web development time, and focused work time. I know the exact outcome I am setting up to achieve and if finished early, that time is MINE…not more of the same. I then learn next time to expect different outcomes for that time. (careful, hyper acceleration of your productivity leads to burn out) Play more, find more 5 minute joys than figure out how to do 10 things in the space of 2.
I prioritize lists of “needed items” based on function for outcomes. I may have 7 things I want to do in my website because they delight me, or I can see how that would be advantageous, but that priority is down the list from the income producing opportunities that need to be accomplished FIRST. Tweaking can take on a life of its own and is better to be scheduled once a week, once a month, or once a quarter. Too many times, time management goes haywire when “flybys” on websites are engaged without proper planning, sites break, plugins break and then that “good idea” not only takes priority to “fix” but also wasted your productive writing or call back times. Keep an idea list to “brain dump” what you truly want to do, but keep prioritizing its value to the big picture goals you’ve set. When time unexpectedly presents itself I go to my “takes 10 minutes” “takes 1 hour” “needs an afternoon” lists and start in on the desired things!
Turn on your ease. I personally have “work flow music” that puts me in a programming zone of relax and enjoy this tedious work. Others may need to turn off the phone, Facebook, Tabs on your computer or time of day that you won’t be interrupted. Personally I know exactly when I need to be uninterrupted so I turn on the ease by scheduling those activities when my staff doesn’t call, when my family doesn’t come trickling in to be with Mom, or I am needed elsewhere for supervision. I identify to my staff, my family, and my clients I am “off limits” during that Monday write time except for ambulance level emergencies. That protection of time allows me to be productive.
Turn Off Interruptors. Your phone is not a switchboard you need to operate 24/7. Texts can wait, emails can be checked on predictable periods throughout the day. Communicate your system to those that matter. (I check mail at 7, 11:45 and 2:30) Turn off Facebook, Turn off Skype, Turn off Notifications on your screen. Do what you can do to stop the interruptors to your progress. Emergencies happen but few happen every single work flow day. If you are teaching your clients and potentials you are an amblance chaser, heaven help you, for its a really tough life to consistently do well in. Exhaustion happens when we try to be all things to all people. Ask me how hard that lesson was to learn. Find your lane, do what you do, and allow “no” to be your friend when offers “near” your space but not IN your space come up.
Monitor actions to outcomes. Personally I love checking off lists, drawing lines through completions. However I know given an option my lists would be 120 items long per day. Your formula for personal and professional success has to succinctly identify what makes you money, how that process begins, engages, and ends and where your actions are priority and where your directives to other processes are necessary. My best skill is problem solving, strategically identifying what is needed, and educating well able people how to enact their desired goals. If I am personally doing those skill actions, my income and my client’s income raises measureably. If I am working on software that I do not teach clients to use, if I am problem solving a solution in areas I do not work I am most likely going to see in my weekly and monthly measures of outcome goals to outcome realities a good bit of non productive or wasted hours with little return that is measureable. Sometimes you need a coach to help you realize where you’re wasting your time and talents. You only need the prescription, then monitor your ability to follow it, if you are truly lacking skills, then hire an educator to get you ready to succeed at the level you are able.

My last time management go to is perhaps my most important one. Do you monitor your own body clock? Are you working at your best time of day? Are you monitoring how your physical diet and activities affect your ability to stay on task. Many of us are greatly affected by sugar, by carbs, by the quality of food and exertion we have in our daily program. Personally I need high levels of protein to power out the level of work I do, I also need breaks with exertion and play to do my best work throughout the week. Play and creating are not simply breaks, they are fuel for my success!

What’s on your schedule? Whatever you put there and choose to focus on as a priority in your life! My goal is to create daily a well-lived life personally, professionally, and relationally. What’s your goal for this 24 hours of your life? Time is indeed our most valuable commodity.

Today’s Permission: Ease

Notes for the Journey with Sweetie Berry, Todays Permission with Sweetie

There is a often implied concept that success has to be difficult. That only the busiest people achieve the most in life. I’d like to suggest that perhaps focused ease creates success. What if you chose the perspective that knowing what your goals are, working specifically towards that with ease built in to processes and space between processes. Ease allows time for the things that matter, for walks in the autumn leaves or space to consider the joy of a sunset in Fall.

What if through time to create, play, and fellowship, your ability to synergistically engage rose much higher as you experienced ease in your schedule? Isn’t it important to know what fuels you? Time and time again I experience entrepreneurs and owners work harder and harder towards an unnamed end. They accelerate systems, they focus harder, they engage less with anything outside their heavily focused future. Too often, too much is continuously maintained, brought forward and the machine of progress gets bogged down from pulling too many cars of unfocused activities that are all pulling from different directions without rest.

Alas, today is the day we have. If we are spending our days on tomorrows the price of success may simply be too high. Each of us daily have the ability to create space for ease in our lives. Perhaps the ease is clearing space in front of you while you write or work. Perhaps the ease is planning your meals for the week so you do not have to think about how to pull dinner together for your family. Perhaps the ease is knowing you are best suited to do xyz while someone else does the items you loathe or that no longer bring opportunity to your processes, but are components worth the hire so you can gain ground only you can bring to the table.

Ease allows space for perspectives to be explored, experiences to be engaged. When we are so busy and directed that one cannot listen to your own heart, examine your spirit as you go through life, your personal navigational truths are ignored. Tasks may be complex, but often the most meaningful ones are simply executed consistently, they are not hard, they are sequenced, or time sensitive, which requires ease in schedule and the ease to say “I need this time daily, weekly, or consistently” and that doesn’t happen without permission to hold space in your life it.

Have you pushed yourself too far, too many times and missed the events that mattered to you? Ease allows you to say “not today” “I need rest” or “wish I could but this night’s for my family and I” after all, if you’re not advancing your goals for the reasons you do, why do them at all? Being fully present is a feat in this modern day age of 24/7 electronic interrupts and immediacy expectations. Isn’t it important to know you can simply say “not today” or “I’d be glad to talk with you at 10 am if your productivity clock says you do your best writing at 8 am. Create ease by protecting the times of day you are at your best to do the work you do while engaging others with less required energy for those times calls must be returned, new considerations given. Not ready to make decisions on the spot? Choose the ease of a new expectation for yourself that “I’ll look forward to this decision, I’ll let you know by xyz” building in the time to decide, check in with those meaningful to you, and time to consider the implications of the “yes” or the “no thank you.” Ease, knowing your own boundaries and choosing to enforce them.

Ease. It’s a powerful fuel to support your life. It doesn’t require complex considerations or the storms of life to pass to enact, but simply awareness of where you are, what would make this easier or more smoothly experienced and the willigness to value your own peace.