Focused Business Action

Many people have a tendency to turn their calendar and to do list  into a well-intentioned, but ill-conceived plan to spend each day doing things that are not gratifying or enjoyable in the least. It’s as if an awful “should monster” lives in our heads and forces us to write down a list of things we can’t bear the idea of doing. Then, we beat ourselves up when we don’t comply.

It’s time for a major re-evaluation of your planning if you find most hours of your day you are shoulding on yourself (because that really stinks).

Here’s the way that I look at it: Your daily action plan works for you, you don’t work for it!

• Make a conscious choice of what to do next rather than choosing what is most enjoyable in the moment.
• Your daily action plan is a tool that you manage and you can be flexible with it by moving non-time-bound events around. Just remember that you’re in charge.

As you practice flexibility, your schedule can help you see more clearly what you’re trading for what. You can ask yourself questions such as:

• Is this conversation more important to me than sending out invoices?
• More important than getting to my meeting on time?

The answer may be “yes.” This may be a person who is important to you whom you haven’t seen in a long time. You may have an important issue to discuss with this person. Your daily action plan doesn’t forbid changes in the plan – but the operative word is “plan” instead of “Oh, shoot! I lost track of time.”

If you have action items on your schedule that are not time-bound (in other words not attached to a specific time), be open to moving them to somewhere else on your schedule when life gets in the way. Here’s the key, though. To keep from postponing the item indefinitely and never getting it completed, give yourself a limit of 2 times to move the item. After that, get it done at the time you planned.

I’m so excited (that I just can’t hide it).  On last month’s Marketing Action Seminar, Linda Claire Puig spoke about how to publish an Ezine that makes you money. Mine was a complete and utter failure at that. Why? Because getting my newsletter out consistently has been a challenge (until now). It always felt hard and I would drag my feet in getting it done. My experience of fretting was very similar to one Linda describes about one of her clients.

The fretting continues for a week or two, and he feels the pressure of not getting it done. Eventually, he lets it go, figuring he’ll do one next month. But the same thing happens next month. By the time he actually sends his newsletter, six months have gone by and he practically has to reintroduce himself to his subscribers.

Does this sound familiar?

The bottom line (quoting Linda):

A newsletter that is sent inconsistently–one here, another four months later, the next six months from that–is almost not worth sending at all.

But now all that’s changed. On the Marketing Action Seminar call with Linda, I got very clear on why and what I need to do.

First, the why. I have a number of subscriber lists including ones for my blog, the Marketing Action Seminar, and my newsletter. I thought about how my newsletter list is the biggest of all the lists I have and as all the marketing people say, “There’s gold in that list.” I was losing an opportunity to demonstrate my expertise, build credibility and trust, develop a loyal following, and add value to people’s lives. Getting in touch with that put some fire under me.

So with that newly found inspiration, I now publicly commit to the following two suggestions that Linda shared during her presentation and which support my sending out the newsletter consistently.

1. Keep an editorial calendar.

When you lay out your newsletter topics for the whole year, you always know what you are supposed to write about. When you write the tasks in your calendar (and follow through), you assure yourself that your newsletter will go out like clockwork, the hallmark of a great newsletter strategy. So when you create an annual newsletter calendar, you know what you want to write about in advance and you’ve scheduled the time to do them.

So here’s what I did. I first made a list of all the topic ideas in my head and I brainstormed more ideas using Linda’s Ezine Planner. I then printed out a calendar and figured out the 2 days each month the newsletter is going out.  I finished by filling in each day for the rest of the year with the topics that I’m going to write about .

One last thing: I also scheduled myself at the beginning of each quarter to update the editorial calendar. That way it can be up to date with any new events going on in my life.

2. Always have newsletters in the hopper.

Linda has a service where you can buy newsletter articles which you are then free to edit and use as you please.  I bought 5 articles from Linda just in case I get behind. Not that I’m planning to break my commitment to send out the newsletter consistently, but hey, everybody’s human and I’d like to have a plan B that I know I can fall back on if needed.

I feel so..well.. organized. I have the editorial calendar to guide me and if I do get stuck I can always use one of the articles I bought from Linda.

What do you do to stay on top of newsletter writing? Share in the comments.

( By the way here is Linda’s article service. She also has a minicourse on how to generate great, targeted content easily and learn other unique newsletter strategies. Download your FREE copy of the Easy Ezine Content Creator. I highly recommend it.)

One of the things I’ve learned over the years of owning a business is that the more you be yourself, the more you stand out amongst the crowd, connect with your people and have an easier time promoting your business.

Often that is easier said than done, not just because we might not know how, but because of the feelings that come up. You feel scared to lay your thoughts on the line and vulnerable to the “judgments” of others. And yet it feels exhilarating to put your authentic self out there and share the true you.

That’s what I’ve been feeling lately as I have been updating the About Scott page on my website.

Here’s what I’ve learned along the way and some questions to get you thinking:

• To really connect with your audience you need to evoke emotion in your readers. That means including emotional elements to make your personal story come alive. How much emotion do you share on your website?
• Tell your story so that your readers can identify with you, your mistakes, your triumphs. That way they will care about you and your business. What brought you to where you are today? How is it you’re succeeding? Your readers will relate to this.
• We’ve all overcome barriers and trudged on through to where we are today. I say, “Share your challenges.” Just make sure you are coming from a place of offering your wisdom and supporting their learning. Don’t overdo it with an overly-dramatic “woe is me” sob story. That turns me off and I’m guessing it does for others, as well. What challenges have you overcome? Have you shared them with your audience?

Little, unimportant things often become important because they weren’t dealt with in the first place when they would have been easy to handle. When you put off taking care of them, they eventually demand much more attention than they deserve.  And many of them can be “fired off” very quickly and efficiently in the moment.

As you come upon new action items to complete during your work day, remember David Allen’s Two Minute Rule:

If the action item will take 2 minutes or less to complete, do it immediately. Otherwise, schedule it for later.

Two minutes is recommended because it is roughly the amount of time it would take for you to defer the action and pick it up again later. Plus, many small tasks are better addressed immediately than added to your action list where they can weigh you down and might never get done.

So take care of those little things now because over time they will add up to a BIG impact.