How much of your business is organization and how much is production? If you guessed a ratio of 80 to 20%, you would be right. Think about it. Take a look at your day. Look at your business,see how much administrative duties are done to get a successful product made and to your customer.
Whether you are doing the tasks your self or having some one else do them the administrative duties take up a big chunk of time. Make it easy and follow these organizing tips.
Organizing your time.
Now this is the “biggy” for everyone, I know from first hand experience. I have worked from home almost all of my working life. I come from a family of the self-employed; five of my six sisters are self-employed, must have caught it from my dad.
Know where you are going. Write exactly what you want to achieve and your purpose for achieving it. The only way you will know if you have strayed from the path is if you know where the path leads.
Have a strategic plan. Every army that has ever gone into battle has guidance from the top. The big brass have laid out the strategic plan to win the war. You want to when the war.
Map your plan. Visually lay out your plan. I have a map of my blog. It shows incoming and out going traffic. It shows all of the things I do to create that. It is a map of my strategic plan. I can add to it or take away depending on what comes up. Mapping it out keeps it from rolling around in my head, puts it where I can see it and show it to others.
Set a target for the month. What would you like to accomplish this month and (most importantly) how you plan to meet those targets. Be sure to write it down. Keep it as your guideline for your weekly targets. Now check to see if it fits the strategic plan.
Write up this week’s”to do list”. DON”T just leave it at that! Write your battle plan. How you are going to accomplish your list. How you are going to use your troops, your time, your money.
Weekly battle plans are based upon your monthly targets. At the beginning of each week set your targets for the week and how will go about accomplishing them.
Write your battle plan for the day. Setting targets for the day and meeting them is the key to getting a lot done. Write up your “to do list” as the things you want to accomplish, write your battle plan.
Start all over again. At the beginning of the week, look at last week’s targets. Did they get done? Congratulations on what you got done. Take it as a win. Now look at what did not get done. What made that occur? Should you put those items on this weeks list? or drop them because they were not important?
Organize your space.
Throw out the old make room for the new. Specify a day of the week to clean up, file and throw away unwanted items. Provide space for the records you need to keep, shelving, file cabinets etc. Clearly mark all files, if you notice your computer makes you do this. Make room for the battle to occur.
Organize your computer.
You can feel lucky that your computer does a lot of organizing for you. Of course it needs a little help from you. Once a week clear your desktop, do your back up, organize your files, emails and bookmarks. The more you do this the easier and faster this task becomes.
I love my Mac. I use Mac’s system for quick notes call “sticky notes”. It is the perfect place for my to do list, quotes, to copy and paste something I see that I don’t want to put my attention on right now.
Using the Internet.
The Internet has loads of tools for organizing. You must take advantage of auto responders, analytics for your stats, a good web browser and picture storage . The trick is to learn how to fully use each tool when you set up your accounts. Use the tutorials for your new applications. If part of your daily battle plan includes time for learning such tools you be two steps a head.
Feeling overwhelmed?
My husband is the king of organization. He has a place and time for everything. To give you and idea of how organized he is; in truck he has a little can for his change, a sunglasses holder on the visor, a box for his window cleaning supplies, a box for “just in case stuff ” with a flashlight, duct tape, toilet paper, Tylenol, etc. If you ever got stranded or lost, this is your guy.
Now I have learned a lot from Mr. Organization. He runs a landscaping business. At the end of the day he makes sure all of the equipment is clean and ready for the next day. He files any receipts and makes sure his logbook is up to date. Then he makes any phone calls needed for up coming business. Things run smoothly and he is not overwhelmed if a problem comes up. Tax time has been made easy, he has kept good records and has all of his receipts neatly filed.
Following his model, I end my day getting ready for the next day. It is now standard operating procedure. I make my “To Do List.” Clean up my mess, and file away any documents I am done with. This makes the next day easy to confront. In the morning my battle plan just rolls out of my head.
Right now is the time to get organized. Start with something you can confront and get busy. Start now to make life easier in the future.
Write your strategic plan. Map it out. Write your monthly targets based on the strategic plan. Write your weekly battle plan based on the monthly targets and the success of the week before. Write your daily battle plan based on the weekly plan. Now go out and win the war.
To your success!
Sheila
P.S. This reminded me of Pareto’s principle, the 80/20 rule.
P.P.S. “Organize your life around your dreams-and watch them come true.”
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You make me feel ashamed of my messy desk. I am far more organized, than I was when I started my first site. Now that much of my info is in folders, my corkboard doesn’t look like a garbage truck collided with it. Perhaps, there is hope for me yet.
I think that a good tip for “to-do” lists is to list actions that can be completed in a short amount of time. If you put “Write novel” on your to-do list, it will never get done. However, if you put “Write 1 page of novel” it very well might get done!
The 80/20 rule is great, as long as that 20% is quality time. When you sit down to produce, it needs to be high quality production. Otherwise, I would argue that more time should be spent towards producing, because that’s the world’s impression of you.
Monster article here, with tons of value. Way to go!
Sheila, very thorough rundown!
After I read Lincoln’s “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe” i am fine with 80% of my time for planning.
I do not like working hard, better off working smart. Doing more is not achieving more. Getting results is about better planning and better practices – many of which you have covered here
Good stuff!
Sheila, I am beginning to think you are inspired. You always seem to post things that I am currently struggling with. I have so many things to do that I feel I am getting nothing done. I need to sit down and think more about where I am going so I can get going in that direction. Thanks!
Hi Shawn,
Thank you, it is always nice to know that I can make a difference. I will take this as a win.
Sheila
On second look, this gives inspiration to keep organized!
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