If you would like to know more, in-depth ways to manage your workflow please refer to the CreativeLive class by Lisa Congdon - 'Workflow, Time Management and Productivity for Creatives' – here – it's currently on sale so get it quick!
As Small Business Owners, we have the unusual struggle of having to motivate ourselves on a daily basis, always striving for growth. Here are 5 top tips to help you get started:
Start your day by creating your daily task list Pull all incomplete tasks from the day before so you can prioritise short deadlines first
No task is too small, add even the small tasks to your daily task list It's easy to forget the little things, make sure you have a good journal/system where you can even add small tasks, like 'reply to Sarah's Facebook message'
Keep track of larger tasks by including your client – use a platform like Trello Sometimes, if you're lucky enough to have a client who has thrown a lot of work your way, then a Project Planning system like Trello is very useful, check it out, they have a free version which is perfect for us Small Business Owners
Utilise Time Blocking In order to keep on track and be productive, blocking out time for a specific piece of work can really help to keep you focussed. Block out time of at least 15 minutes – about 1 hour without any interruption on a specific task
Plan as much as you can a week in advance, a month in advance, a year! This applies more to marketing and promoting your business throughout the year, setting it up a year in advance by month and by week will help you to keep up a regular momentum and helps you to ensure you don't book client meetings when you're supposed to be Live on social media at a regular timeframe
If, like me, you struggle with HOW to structure your day and need some journal prompts, then I can recommend this journal: The Daily Greatness Business 2021 Journal, it's not cheap (currently £44.95) but I find that when you invest that kind of money into a journal, you're bound to dedicate your energy and time into using it. You can go directly to buy this specific journal by clicking here
The reason why I find this journal helpful is that it's specifically made to help run your business. It even has helpful pages to direct your growth planning and even write out your Business Plan which I found really useful! It also has 90-day review days so you can track your growth. Then it lays out your planning in the following ways:
Full month planner – this is great for setting Awareness Days topics to help you plan social media content a month in advance.
Weekly Priority Planner – which is divided into 6 squares so that you can categorise your priority list: Urgent | Important | Waiting / Pending | Delegate | Decisions | Next Week – this is where you can scribble down your to-list for the week, with the knowledge that certain priorities can migrate to next week if needed
Weekly Action Planner – single page view of each day of the week with a space to jot down Projects & Appointments and the Tasks & Actions associated with them. It also gives you a prompt to list 4 Major Goals I'm Focusing on This Week
Week Planner – this is split out into time slots but also, each day starts with a prompt to set you up for the day, for example, today starts by prompting me to write down My Power Mantra for Today is:
The journal then encourages reviewing your week every Sunday, in preparation for starting your week motivated on Monday. It is your Weekly Check-in and makes you think about:
What did I do really well this week?
How can I utilise block time better?
What could I have handles differently this week?
What was this week's lesson?
What decisions do I need to make to move my business forward?
What current task can I delegate or outsource to free up my time? Who will I delegate it to and by when? The prompts change every week slightly too so that you really think about the week in an active capacity
Do you have a favourite journal? Are there any tips that you want to share? I'd love to hear them, if you want to share your workflow tips then I invite you to join my Facebook Group here
If you're already a member on my Small Business Branding Facebook Group then you may have been bombarded with a million notifications recently, I was planning my 'Lives' for the year. This year I've set myself the goal to increase my marketing and blogging around my Lives so that it forms a large part of my social media marketing. Incase you find it useful, my week schedule looks like this:
Monday: no customer meetings | go through inbox and schedule work and replies into the planner | typing out the weekly blog | planning out the weekly email campaign
Tuesday: send out the weekly email campaign | book in customer meetings | work
Wednesday: Facebook Group Live | check the blog is complete, add any impromptu content from the Live | work
Thursday: publish blog | direct audience to blog from various social media accounts | work
Friday: no customer meetings | go through inbox and check that work for the week is complete, follow up with status updates | invoicing | market this weeks published blog through social media | work
I hope you'll join me next week for another Live video on my Facebook group.
If you would like Mystery Hare to help you review your brand and advise you on simple changes you can make, along with a list of goals to start working towards please email me at caroline@mysteryhare.com – use the subject line: Let's book a chat
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