Are you a control freak? You know what I’m talking about – have to do it all yourself, micro-manage anything you do delegate, and feel overwhelmed most of the time. We’ve all been there and I bet that some of you are still there.
Time management, systems management and customer relation management all have one thing in common – did you notice the word “management”. Unfortunately, that’s not something that a lot of people do well naturally.
I know that I have tried to put time management systems in place that were so complicated they needed their own time management system! “Life needs to be fun and easy” is my motto or I’m not interested and that goes for my business too. So here are some tips, tools and resources that have helped my business flow smoothly and easily that you might benefit from also. You’ll probably have way more fun too!
What do you need to do this week? Keep it simple. Focus on just this week. Write it down, preferably in your daytimer and don’t try to do more than 4 or 5 things in a week. This is not a laundry list – these are things that you simply MUST do to move ahead in your business. No excuses, no exceptions, just DO them!
Can it really be that simple? Yup, it can. I’ve used a time management system for over 2 years that has helped me accomplish more than many people accomplish in a decade with little to NO stress. Entrepreneurs who follow it, love it and have amazing results. You can learn all about the system in my Getting It Together CD. An important key to that system is focus on a week at a time – not a month or a year or 5 years. Too large a focus is enough to put most people into overwhelm.
Get through this week. It’s really a Bible principle. “Each day has enough of its own worries”, said Jesus. Don’t be freaking out about something that hasn’t even happened, may never happen or may happen very differently from what you thought.
Delegate. I know – that’s a difficult one. The greatest gift that I was ever given was learning about Sacred Gifts. I have a CD on Sacred Gifts and recommend the Discover Your Sacred Gifts workshops regularly, because I am serious about how important this foundation is to the success of your business.
I attended the last Sacred Gifts workshop and one woman was beyond ecstatic about doing Excel spreadsheets. Let me tell you, the day I am beyond ecstatic about doing any kind of spreadsheet, please commit me to a psych ward – there is definitely something wrong with me. It has never happened, it’s not going to happen. I don’t even want it to happen! So I simply look for people like this woman at the workshop who LOVE doing those kinds of spreadsheet, formatting type jobs.
My ex-husband used to salivate over balancing a company’s check book to the penny. I couldn’t balance my check book to save my life. So I don’t. I have a wonderful bookkeeper who has kept me out of trouble with the government for years now and is about as close to my ex-husband in passion for accounting as I have seen.
I guess I could build a website – I learned enough HTML in a couple of hours to do my newsletters every month. But to spend my time building a website – I’d rather scrub my kitchen floor and yours and the neighbors and everybody’s in between before I build my own website.
Do you get my point? You will thank me a million times if you just get this one lesson. Get very clear on what your God-given Sacred Gifts are – what makes you passionate, excited and on-fire, what you get amazing feedback on, extraordinary results in, and stick with those things. Delegate the rest.
I only accomplish what I do in a year because I have stopped thinking that I can do it all. I can’t. And perhaps more importantly, I DON”T WANT TO! And then even more importantly, I don’t feel guilty that I don’t want to do it all.
Use technology. My good friend Leesa Barnes is putting on an 8-day Social Media Telesummit which starts next week. If you are afraid of technology, you are missing out on a goldmine of assistance to make your life simpler and easier, more lucrative and prosperous. Does that mean that I think everybody should join a social networking site, blog, podcast or do a thousand other things we’ll be learning about from Leesa’s 26 experts? Absolutely not! In fact, I am adamant that you shouldn’t. It’s why I am doing the final keynote address at the Social Media Telesummit on how to have an outrageously successful business without the guilt.
What am I going to talk about? Exactly this: Learn your Sacred Gifts and then delegate the rest. Don’t try to do it all – focus on one or two things that either you enjoy or find people who can do it for you.
Right after the Telesummit, Leesa is going to help me launch my next set of
podcasts. I’ve had great success with podcasts in the past and am excited about this group. But follow this closely. I don’t do editing, recording of intros or outros (that’s the introductory voice and music and the exit voice and music), graphics of the podcasting cover and I don’t place the podcasts on the podcasting stations. Oh no, I have found people who do ALL of that. I do exactly and only what I love to do. And that was interviewing the people for the podcasts. That’s it, that’s all. I don’t like anything else and so I don’t do it. But I do understand the technology overall and so knew what pieces were missing so I could fill them. I understand the technology that is out there, I just don’t do it all myself. Big difference! It’s why I recommend getting the knowledge such as Leesa and her experts will provide and why Leesa has me speaking on this very topic. Delegate, delegate, and then delegate. When you find people like my amazing formatter, my incredible
bookkeeper or my perfectionist web programmer to work with you, you don’t need to worry, micro-manage or babysit. They are as passionate about what they do as I am passionate about what I do. It’s a dynamite combination.
Business today is exciting and more fun than ever. But it’s only that when you are in your element, your passion, your sacred gifts. Anything less than that and you are cheating yourself and others from being of service to you.
I take this very seriously in my business. A friend recently asked me about
Wordpress blogs. Yes, I have wordpress blogs but I didn’t set them up. Anu from India does that kind of work for me and she does it well and reasonably. However, my friend looked at the directions to set up the blog and said to me a few days later, “It doesn’t look very difficult. The directions are fairly straightforward.” I looked at my friend and said, “Kimberly, if I have to read directions, that is more than I want to do and for the $15 that Anu charged me to set up my blog, why would I even begin to read directions that I don’t want to read, do something I don’t want to do or struggle for one minute when I could be doing work I love and earning much more than $15.” She couldn’t argue with that.
So I thank and bless Anu for being there to do my Wordpress blogs along with all of the other amazing people I have on my team, from web programmers to formatters to bookkeepers to recording experts. I love them for the gifts they bring into my business which make my life so much easier, peaceful and joyful, never mind prosperous. Everybody wins.
I hope that these suggestions have helped you to have a different perspective of some aspect of your business. As spiritual entrepreneurs, we have so much work to do in our own businesses and in helping others. By applying these few simple pointers, you will gain more time, more freedom, more joy and consequently more abundance in your business. Go for it. Let go of the control and surrender to your gifts and the gifts in those around you.
To Your Outrageous Success!
P.S. I strongly encourage you to learn more about the Social Media Telesummit running from February 20 – 29th with 26 experts on all aspects of social media. A banquet of learning to be had for a very reasonable cost. Check it out today!
P.P.S. If you are wondering about websites, my web programmer, Krista Garren has prepared an amazing ebook called The Website Survival Guide. You have got to see what she has done to make websites easy, even if you aren’t building it yourself. This is an “Everything You Need to Know about Websites but were Afraid to Ask” type of guide. Invaluable and so needed for entrepreneurs. Have a look at the Website Survival Guide
Popularity: unranked [?]
Be The First To Comment
Related Post
Please Leave Your Comments Below