Improve My Business

As October, and the fall, continue to march forward, we start to notice the loss of daylight more. This may require us to shift our schedules - exercising after work rather than before, for example; or starting to prepare dinner earlier than in summer since the kids have to go to bed earlier in preparation for those EARLY morning reveilles….

As your daily pattern changes, remember to examine those changes to see if there are positive plans that you can implement.

Some ideas:

- during those dark hours in the morning, when the day still seems ‘quiet’, can you meditate, pray, or practice some self-renewal ritual?

- Is there a way to incorporate movement into your daily routine - parking farther away, taking stairs, or walking briskly during breaks and lunch? Can you do an indoor workout? Movement will have a positive effect on your mental as well as your physical well-being.

- Incorporate family time and movement/exercise. Our family is somewhat typical - we have game systems in the house… so we have Dance Dance Revolution, a game involving rhythmic stepping/dancing for the PlayStation, and are looking at the Wii Fit. This is something that the whole family can do together, and involves lots of laughter (mostly at mom) as well as lots of movement (for all of us).

- Make an extra effort to get outside during daylight hours - studies have shown that exposure to natural light has a positive effect on the production of endorphins which has been shown to be a natural mood-lifter, and necessary for vitamin D absorption, among other benefits. See this article on Shine for more and resources. Lack of sunlight is also responsible for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in some people. You can learn more about SAD at the Mayo Clinic website. (see above suggestion for walking during lunch)…

Embrace the change in season and see how you can improve your business!

Technorati Tags: efficiency, flexibility, living your life, Time Management, well-being

Before I attended my conference, I went on safari.  Going on safari, by yourself, is an interesting experience.  First, you are pretty isolated; no internet, no phone (although others told me that there was cell phone reception out there); and no television other “Bush TV” (campfires).  This provides a wonderful opportunity for introspection… which I took advantage of.

I also took advantage of the twice-daily 3 hour safari rides into the 20,000 acre reserve, where I was able to see all sorts of animals in their native habitat (in fact, we were the interlopers…)

Some interesting phenomena - zebras and wildebeests were often together.  They do that both for protection (it’s harder for predators to pick them off in a larger group) and because they are complementary grazers - zebras are bulk feeders, eating even the most straw-like grass, while wildebeests are soft-grass grazers only.  So both animals can graze the same area without competition.

Who can you graze with?  Who can you work with in order to minimize your solitary weaknesses?  Is it time to look around for a partner, a JV, or just a friend to buddy up with?

Technorati Tags: Africa Safari, lessons from nature

Last time I shared an article about being efficient versus being effective by Robert Rolih. Now here are the rules on goal setting from http://www.time-management-toolbox.com/articles.html:

1st rule: Your goals should be specific. The clearer the goal, the clearer the outcome. So, always set specific goals that can be measured. Let me give you an example. If I say, “Next year we will increase our market share,” is this specific? Well, not really! But if I add “by four percentage points,” it makes this goal specific and measurable. There’s an old saying that goes, What gets measured, gets done, so always be specific when you set your goals.

2nd rule: Every goal must have a deadline. Human beings operate best when they have clear deadlines. Deadlines get us moving. So every goal you set should have a deadline – the date by which you will accomplish it.

3rd rule: Your goals should be challenging. Aim high: Set goals that will provide you with a challenge; but be careful – they must be realistic! You must believe you can achieve them.

4th rule: Write your goals down. Gene Donohue once said, The difference between a goal and a dream is the written word. So, write your goals down. This will make them concrete.

Ok, those were the four goal-setting rules.

But what if your goals depend on a boss, and you don’t know what they are? Then go to your boss and ask him! Always be clear what your boss expects from you. Otherwise, you will be doing the wrong things most of the time. So, the real secret of effective time management is choosing the right things to do. That means choosing the things that help you achieve your goals. And those things that help achieve your goals are the tasks that will bring you to your goals faster.

Best-selling author Timothy Ferriss once said: Doing the right things is infinitely more important than doing things right. Efficiency is still very important, but only when you do the right things – the things that will bring you closer to your goals.

Technorati Tags: effective, efficient, goal setting, goals, Time Management

What exactly is the difference between being efficient and effective? We hear those words all the time, but do we really know how to be efficient versus being effective, or vice versa? Take a look at one man’s perspective on the two and share your own thoughts on efficiency and effectiveness! Here is the article from http://www.time-management-toolbox.com/articles.html:

Key to good time management.

By Robert Rolih

Imagine the following situation: You want to buy a new, big screen, high definition TV. You want a really good one and are prepared to pay a high price for it. You also have a very good friend who is a tech geek – he knows all about new technologies and owns three big screen TV sets himself.

What would you do?

Would you go on the Net, spend five hours comparing different TVs, read a ton of information about each one of them, and then go through a thousand customer reviews?

Or would you simply call your friend, ask him what he recommends, and only after that go on the Net and check his choices?

Well, with the first option you could be very efficient if you are good at searching the Net. As a matter of fact, you could be extremely efficient for the whole five or six hours you are doing the research.

You could select great search terms, read the content really fast, and so on. But it’s still the totally wrong thing to do if you have a friend who can help you achieve your goal in a few minutes.

So, calling your friend is effective. It’s the right thing to do because it will bring you closer to your goal fast.

Doing research on your own is not effective; it’s not the right thing to do in this situation, but it can be efficient and you can be very good at it. So, let me recap: effectiveness is doing things that bring you closer to your goals.

Efficiency is performing a task in the most economical manner possible. Now think about your work. Ask yourself, “Am I being productive or just active? Am I making up activities just to fill my time? Or am I doing things that will bring me closer to reaching my goals? And then ask a crucial question: “What are my most important goals right now?”

I see a lot of very busy people in companies all the time. They are constantly under pressure, they work all the time, and they are stressed. But when you take a closer look at what they are doing you will often find they are doing just a lot of stuff that has little value.

They shuffle papers, get interrupted all the time, surf the Net searching for god knows what, check every e-mail when it arrives, and so on. They spend the whole day doing activities that don’t help them achieve their goals. They are just doing stuff. The first thing you have to be clear about if you want to be good at time management is your goals.

What do you want to accomplish? Are you clear about that? If you own a business or manage a department, you probably have very clear financial and development goals. Like “open three new locations by the end of the year,” “launch a new product by the end of May,” or “increase our sales by 30% in the next year.”

Clear goals are crucial for success. If you don’t have them, set them now! When you set your goals, it is critical that you follow some rules about goal setting.

Check back soon for the rules on goal setting!

Technorati Tags: effective, effectiveness, efficiency, efficient, goals, Time Management

As many parts of the country prepare for back-to-school, moms and dads are mentally preparing to do battle with their kids over the need to set school routines – get to bed at a reasonable time, get up at a reasonable time, get cleaned up and ready for school; schedule their extracurricular activities; and set aside time to do their homework.

All of these point to the need for a routine – what time to eat meals, do work, have down time, etc. Are routines really necessary?

Consider two people who do a job regularly – one who has a routine, and one who doesn’t. The person with the routine may forget a step less often, or notice when an input material is running low better than the person who doesn’t have a routine, simply because they do the same thing every time in the same order. Folks with routines may or may not have them documented; however, the routine if designed well should provide them with a higher chance of getting a consistent result.

The routine is not the tool for efficiency, however; notice the last statement – the routine if designed well should provide them with a higher chance of getting a consistent result. This doesn’t say that it gives us a ‘good’ result; just that the result will be consistent. This is where process improvement comes in. You can analyze your routine to determine if it meets your needs, and if it meets your needs effectively. Let’s look at your morning commute. If your commute gets you to work on time 95% of the time, it’s probably a good routine. If it gets you to work 50% on time, although it may be ritualized, it’s not necessarily meeting your needs, so it a good candidate for improvement efforts. You need to analyze why you are late – is it because you routinely forget something and need to go back for it? Lay it out or put it in your briefcase the evening before. Is it because traffic is unpredictable? Keep a record of on-time arrival vs. leave time – perhaps a shift of 10 mins will affect this positively (that’s certainly true here in Austin, where a 10 minute delay can often mean arriving 30-40 mins later due to traffic). Do you stop for a coffee or breakfast on your way in? Does that sometimes delay you? See if your local shop will have your order ready at a set time every day and allow you to bypass the lines… perhaps even pay a week in advance so that no money needs to change hands daily. Do your significant other, children, pets, or co-workers impact you? See if you can figure out a way to minimize the impacts? Sure, there are going to be times when we spill something on our shirt, a fender bender ties up traffic, or your carpool buddy is running late; but if we work to minimize the normal reasons for delays, these ‘special’ causes should be rare.

Technorati Tags: back to school, efficiency, routines, Time Management