Keep Your Short-Term Work Aligned with Your Long-Term Goals

I call this “connecting your day to your dreams”.

I believe that the #1 reason people struggle with productivity is because they don’t know how to connect their long-term dreams with their short-term schedule.

Are you filling your days with work that isn’t actually connected to getting you where you want to go? If so, you’re probably experiencing an inner struggle that manifests itself as doubt and procrastination.

You may feel distracted because you aren’t actually honed in on WHAT you should be doing or HOW you should be spending your time.

Who else has struggled with this at times?

Here are my fave tips to keep you aligned...

***Keep your long-term goals by your workstation to keep them top of mind when prioritizing tasks.

***Distinguish between compulsive and conscious behaviors. Are you acting out of boredom or blind habit (like logging onto Facebook) when you could be doing something that would be serving a more important goal?

***Prioritize your important work. Doing busy work is easy, doing your best work is hard. It’s the hard work, the process, that makes us better and builds character.

***Use progression markers to track your progress. When working on significant projects it can be hard to know how much progress you’re making. You need a system to make yourself feel like you’re making progress and to help keep you motivated.

***Make your progress visible. Marking progress is a huge motivator for long-term projects. Make your daily achievements visible by keeping a "Done" list!

It's Time to Step into the CEO Role!

We all started our own businesses because we wanted to be our own boss, calling all the shots with no one to answer to except ourselves. Except,
a lot of women entrepreneurs (myself included!) seem to fall into the trap of replacing ONE boss with a dozen or so clients, who we often put in the BOSS role.

If you’re not being the CEO, who is? Whose business is this?

Over and over again, I see amazingly talented, brilliant, genius women who spent the vast majority of their time NOT as the world-changing leaders and messengers they are meant to be.

It’s time to step into your role as the CEO of your business and life!

Too often, women entrepreneurs find themselves feeling trapped and burned out by their business because they are constantly checking things off the to-do list without making time to reflect on the progress of your business. This is more than just planning the next thing to do…it’s really ensuring that the action you’re taking each day, week, and month is moving you closer to your DREAM business and life.

Have you ever felt like other people were taking over the boss role in YOUR biz?

Let's Get Focused

The single most important change you can make in your working habits is to switch to creative, productive work first, reactive work second. This means blocking off a large chunk of time every day for creative work on your own priorities, with the phone and email turned off.

Here is a tip that has absolutely transformed my productivity: get your most creative work done FIRST THING in the morning. Don’t put off your intensive challenging work for later; you’ll rarely have the energy to get to it even if you do have the time.

It takes willpower to switch off the world, even for just an hour. It can feel uncomfortable and sometimes people get upset when you don’t put their needs first. But, it’s better to disappoint a few people over small things, then to surrender your dreams for an empty inbox.

Little distractions suck away our potential to do big things!

Ok, now that you've figured out WHEN you are most creative and productive, let's talk about what that looks like.

When it comes to creating your best work, environment is everything. Where can you go to be inspired, get your creative juices flowing, and minimize distractions?

The most successful people always have their “routines” or “rituals”.

Try different things out. Test out working outside, alone in silence, or surrounded by the buzz of your local coffee shop. Once you find what works, stick to the same tools, the same surroundings, even the same background music so that they can become associative triggers for you to enter your creative zone.

Personally, a coffee shop is way too distracting to me, so I prefer my local library for a change of scenery. At home, I ALWAYS have background music on, I can't work in silence.

How about you?

Protect Your Time!

Or, in another words, “If it’s not a ‘Hell Yes!’, it’s a 'no'.”

Setting up the daily and weekly schedule we chatted about earlier this week is a great way to protect your time. If your time is blocked off in your calendar to be working with clients or actively creating paying clients then this isn’t the time to be running errands or getting distracted by other tasks or requests.

By knowing your goals and why you’re doing them it makes it much easier to say ‘no’ to the activities that aren’t actively moving you towards achieving these goals.

Remember that your time is one of your most valuable resources, so make sure wherever you regularly spend it is on something that’s important to you and that you love.

How are your boundaries when it comes to your schedule?

My Fave Productivity Tips

I’m all about setting and achieving goals, but there’s A LOT that goes on behind the scenes to make that happen. Today I want to talk about productivity. I know, I know, it's not the most exciting or sexy topic, but let's get real, as entrepreneurs we need all the help we can get with staying on track.

Here are a few of my favorite productivity tips...

***Plan your day
This is essential. Without planning, you can go multitasking and not really know what you do. Set top priorities for your day. Decide what's urgent and important to do (consider deadlines if you work for clients or launch dates and other necessary work in your own biz).

***Switch off your phone's notifications
I know, it's not realistic to switch off everything for the whole day - we live in a world where social media is part of our life and more importantly our business. We need some time though, when we have a clear focus and concentrate on our work.

***Be excited about the final outcome
Productivity is all about self-motivation. What are you looking to achieve? Think about the big picture. FIND REASONS to get you through your slump. Think about the final goal. Envision yourself there, and make it happen.

What are your favorite tips?

Looking Ahead

Last week we did our year in review, so this week I want us to look forward.

You know that I'm all about setting strategic, SPECIFIC goals in order to scale-up your biz. And while I still 100% believe in that, I want to do things a little differently this time. I'm feeling a shift in myself and in my biz and I want to explore it a bit.

Instead of focusing on concrete numbers, let's focus on how we want next year to feel. Danielle Laporte's "Desire Map" book is a major inspiration for me and this is exactly what it's all about; setting goals around how you want to FEEL.

I want you to take some time to really think about what you want to achieve next year. Then I want you to vividly imagine that it’s one year from now and you had the BEST year ever! You achieved some incredible goals, you completely excelled and made it happen. Close your eyes and take a few moments to picture that – really connect with how you FEEL.

If you don’t want to think all the way to the end of 2018 (I get it, that can be overwhelming), then just focus on the first 90 days and get super clear on what you want the first quarter to be like.

THAT is your perfect year! Tell me about it in the comments.

End of Year Review

There's only a few weeks left in 2017...what the whaaaa? While I believe in doing monthly/weekly check-ins with how your goals and biz are doing, I also think it's important to do a bigger-picture review at the end of the year. Let's tackle that this week!

Let's start with the wins...

***What amazing things did you achieve? Big or small, write them all down.

***What did you do to achieve them? That's your success strategy right there! Keep it up in 2018!

Ok, I get it, not everything in 2017 was all wins and celebrations. That's ok, it's good to reflect on those things as well.

***What did you want to achieve but didn't? Don’t feel bad about the fact that you didn’t make it happen. I like to remind myself that everything happens in the right way, at the right time, and everything I experience is a stepping stone to get me to where I w ant to be.

***Why didn't you achieve them? If you want, give yourself permission to release the goal, park it to one side.

***WHAT WERE YOUR BIGGEST FRUSTRATIONS AND CHALLENGES?

Get it all out! Once you know what holds you back and what’s stopping you, you can make a plan of action for how you can make sure it doesn’t hold you back moving forward.

4 Easy Tips To Try This Month!

It’s a new month! Here are 4 easy things to try to level up your business. Let me know what you’re going to try this month!

SURVEY YOUR TRIBE---Feeling like you’re no longer connecting with your tribe? Use a service like Survey Monkey and send out a survey to your audience. Think of questions that will generate answers that could help you serve them better.

DO SOMETHING CREATIVE---Step away from your computer during the day and do something creative. Draw, doodle, sew, knit or paint an old piece of furniture. Even if there isn’t a project in mind, just try something!

REMEDY TO-DO LIST GUILT---Find something that has been lurking on your to-do list for at least a week and ask yourself why you haven’t done it yet. Either it isn’t important enough (to you) and you can ditch it, or it is important and you can think about why you are procrastinating on it. If it is too big, then break it down. If it is a boring task, then put a time limit on it. If you don’t have the right tools, then get them ordered, etc.

TAKE SOMEONE SUCCESSFUL OUT TO LUNCH---For the price of buying someone lunch, you could dramatically up-level your network and have the priceless opportunity of being able to learn first-hand from someone you wish to emulate. Many successful people love being able to share their story with people who are sincerely seeking guidance.

Have a 10 minute goal review session today!

We’re in the last quarter of the year! Whaaa? Now is the time to focus in on our goals and MAKE THEM HAPPEN. We still have time!

The challenge I find with goals is that often things get in the way of them… life, time, money, circumstances outside of our control. But the biggest thing of all that gets in the way (normally) is ourselves.

That is why it’s soooo important to make the time to have a goal review session with yourself.

Here’s how to do it:

1---Review the goals you set at the beginning of the year (hopefully you have them written down somewhere).

2---Have you reached any of your goals? If so congratulations and try write down how you made it happen (that’s a success strategy right there!)

3---Are there any goals you’ve gone off track with? If so, why has that happened? Really dig deep with this one. The more consciously aware you are of what’s going on, the more you can do about it.

4---Now decide which goals you really want to make happen by the end of the year – get super clear about them – no being vague ok?

5---Create a plan of action for how you’re going to make it happen and then create a schedule for the actions you need to take, so you know what to do and when to do it.

There’s plenty of time left to reach your goals. You’ve just got to get really focused and clear about what you want and need to do. Your turn, how do you stand with your yearly goals?

3 things you need to do to set your day up for success

As an entrepreneur, one of the best things is having the freedom to do whatever you want to do; you get to decide what time you wake up, how much time you take off and what you do. However, I also find this the biggest curse too.

The idea of having the freedom to do whatever you want is so dreamy, but the reality is a little different… have you ever had a day where you wake up and struggle to get out of bed, because you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing, no one is telling you want to do or when to do it by, so you end up having a totally unproductive day? I have and I’m sure most us have!

The point is, having all the freedom in the world can sometimes be the hardest thing to deal with… all of a sudden you have to decide what you do with your time, you have to be super motivated and focused in order to make stuff happen!

So in order to be an amazing boss for yourself and get stuff done, so that every day can be a successful one, here are 3 things to do when you wake up (or the night before)…

1. Set your daily intentions: Yes, I know it’s simple and obvious, but if you’re being honest with yourself how often do you really do this? If you do it every day then amazing, but if you don’t then start doing it.

2. Make a daily game plan: Once you know what you want to achieve spend a few minutes writing down the steps you need to take in order to make it happen. When you know exactly what you need to do you’ll be able to get up in the morning much more easily, because you’ll know what your purpose is for the day. You’ll also be more focused and get more done.

3. Schedule your action steps: Once you know what you need to do create a timetable for yourself and write down what time you want to work on each step and how long you want  to work on each step for.

This is going to take your productivity to another level. When you can look at your daily plan and say “Ah it’s 3pm and right now I should be doing X” you’ll get less distracted, because you have a schedule to stick to, you’ll feel more motivated, because you know exactly what you need to be doing and everything will become so much easier.

When you get organized and become the master of your time, you’ll feel so much better and you’ll have way more successful days where you have breakthroughs and achieve lots of wonderful things.

So there you have it, 3 things you must to daily to set your day up for success! These things have transformed my days and I hope they transform yours just as much.

If you're feeling like you can't even start with these steps because you're in a tailspin in your biz, I've been there and I get it. Try my FREE guide to discover your flow, for your biz to get you started in the right direction!

What things do you do daily that help you to have a successful day? Leave a comment below!