OMG! Have I forgotten something? Did I remember to schedule my book-writing project? Did I allow too much or not enough time to revamp that workshop? Oops - forgot to schedule all my upcoming members' webcasts!
But my diary is full... Aaaargh!
The Universe is laughing hysterically at my plans - my beautifully-structured, well-thought-out, ready-to-implement, very-measurable, goal-getting time management plans. Go ahead and laugh, Universe, and while you're doing that, I'm doing THIS:
1. Is it more complex than it needs to be? Yes: Simplify!
Does everything in your project task plan really, truly, honestly need to be done? Nope. And I found that was exactly the case with my membership program: I was already offering more than members could digest each month, so I cut out one resource that was least used, add gave myself back the 2 days a month it took for me to prepare and deliver. That's the good old Pareto Principle (80-20 Rule) in action.
2. Will it directly help me reach my goals? Yes: Schedule it first.
Marketing is critical to every business, and one of my strategic projects is to strike up relationships with new alliances who have captive audiences made up of my target market. This DIRECTLY effects one of my (very measurable) strategic goals: to double the number of new subscribers signing up to my email newsletter. I made sure this was one of the first projects to schedule into my diary, and to get started on in February.
3. Do I have to do it? No: Find the right person to do it for me.
A new program I'm running this year needs a special members-only area built on my website. Can you believe I had planned to research and develop this myself? I brought this challenge up during my usual weekly chat with mastermind buddy BJ, and she said "I can do that for you!" (she's the Web Chameleon). What relief! Several days (and likely more) now freed up.
4. Big chunks or small chunks? Schedule the small around the big.
Writing and publishing my first book is a MAJOR priority for me this year, and when I created the task plan, I was setting up full day tasks to work on the chapters. Not necessary: Instead, I've scheduled 45 minutes at the beginning of three days each week to continue steady progress on the content.
5. Does it have to be NOW? No: Delay it.
Two more of my strategic projects, one to refresh my brand and the other to transform my membership program into an association, are not urgent. As much as I'd like to work on them now, they just don't matter as much as the other projects. So I won't start even the planning of them until mid year.
Now I'm finishing some days early and cooking something special for dinner, and taking some days off to go caravanning at the beach! Even better is that I'm finally working on the tasks that actually do directly progress my goals, instead of the stuff that just fills up my day.
TAKE ACTION:
Create for yourself a rough 2010 calendar, where you've allocated all your projects and service delivery and business management activities to date and time slots. Does it all fit? Have you filled up more than 5 hours a day? Do you need to rethink what really matters most for YOU to do? How can you delay, delegate or drop the rest?
