Overwhelmed with work?

BUSINESS BITS
Aileen Santos

Learn simple strategies other entrepreneurs have used to achieve work-life balance I received one letter from someone who calls himself or herself “Working From Home”, which I think many entrepreneurs can relate to. The letter-sender laments, “I have visited websites, attended the workshops, bought the magazines, and read the books.

But now that I know how to launch my business, I have such a huge checklist of ‘things to do’ and I can't do it all! How can I increase both time and money abundance in my life, and still have time for my real passion - my family?”

Are you nodding your head in agreement? If it makes you feel better, realize that you are not alone. When I started my consulting business, one thing I realized about “being your own boss” was this: "When you work your own hours, you often end up working ALL hours."

The great news is that hundreds of other entrepreneurs have discovered solutions that really work, and they may work for you too. Here are five of the best that I've found:

Focus on your money makers. Develop the skill of choosing and focusing on actions and products that bring in the most money. When you make these your priority, even if you accomplish only three things in your business for that day, you would have done the three things that would bring you closer to success. Even when starting out, remember that your end goal is to work on your business, not in it.

Balance between customer creation and customer service Customers are the life blood of any business, and they go through a specific cycle when interacting with you and your company. Find out at which stage in the cycle you function best (is it in attracting new clients with marketing, or in keeping them happy with personalized follow-up service?), and focus on your strengths while automating or delegating the other tasks.

For example, if you know you get stressed when you answer questions from your product’s users throughout the day, hire someone with a helpful and cheerful attitude and train them to do it. Your customers will love your company more for it... and you spend less time being stressed.

Keep your eyes on the prize. Our expert shares three ideas to help you choose the things that will bring the most value. Entrepreneurs can avoid being overwhelmed by too much in their to-do lists, by learning to focus on money-making products and actions.
I’d like to expound on that, and add an even more important focus: How do you learn to choose the things that bring you the most value, both in terms of money and time abundance? Here are three tools and strategies to help you do just that:

Know that multitasking does not work. Numerous studies have shown multitasking's negative effects on learning and productivity. In one study, Microsoft research scientist Eric Horvitz found that after being interrupted by a phone call, e-mail, instant message, or even a 'quick question' from a colleague, workers took an average of 15 minutes to return to the task they were working on.

So if you only had an hour to finish an important letter and were interrupted (or you checked your e-mail or Facebook, even for “just a minute”) four times, you basically got zero amount of actual effective 'letter writing' done. Goodbye one hour! Focused attention (a.k.a. doing just one thing at any given time until it gets done) always brings better results, minimizes mistakes, and gets the important tasks done faster, freeing up more time for real rest. As Holistic coach Max Simon puts it, “Just because the whirlwind exists, it doesn't mean you have to get caught up in it.”

Choose a niche and build on it The most powerful way of using focused attention in your business is to specialize in a specific niche. Defining a clear niche makes it 100 times easier for you to build a recognizable brand. When people know you specialize in something, it's easier for them to remember when and why they need to work with you, and not just anyone else.
“What streamlines your business increases your income,” says money and marketing coach Kendall Summerhawk.

Recognize “The Best” from “The Good” Sometimes you’re tempted to do several things at once because they all seem like good ideas. The problem comes up when you finally get the chance to launch your Best Idea – the one that has the potential to bring you the most satisfaction and money, the idea that you could build on to become your niche – but you don’t have enough time to work on it because you’re already involved with too many 'good idea' projects.

When this happens, recognize it as a clear sign of your need to delegate the other projects to other people, so that you can give more time to your Really Important Project. But how do you know which idea qualifies as your Big Idea? Here's a downloadable tool to help you decide: it’s called The Decision Making Grid, and you can access it at http://www.mindtools.com/rs/GridAnalysis. This tool helps you make a logical and ultimately satisfying choice from several options, especially when you need to consider several factors. Try to implement at least one of these solutions in the following month, and tell me how it goes.
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Aileen Santos is a Life ReInvention Coach & A-Ha! Trainer who facilitates important “lightbulb moments” of clarity & creativity to individuals & teams. Learn more about her training & coaching work at LightBulbOnYourHead.com or visit her blog at AileenSantos.com.