Time Management

  • Here’s Your Motivation to Keep Business Going This Summer

    Lost and Found: Here’s Your Motivation to Keep Business Going This Summer

    Just a short post for you today because I don’t want to keep you from getting your work done! 

    Summer should be about enjoying yourself, getting outside and hopefully getting away from it all.

    Of course, most of us don’t have the luxury of avoiding work all summer long. Sometimes, we’ve got to roll up our sleeves and get busy, but it’s not always easy if you work from home. I’m sure just about any home or Internet business owner can relate, so here are some tips to stay motivated this summer.

    Work hours are your friend: We talked about this in the avoiding distractions post, but it applies here too. When you know when you’re supposed to work, you’re more likely to do it. If you leave your days wide open and think you’ll squeeze work in somewhere, it’s less likely to happen.

    Focus on what you like doing: There’s nothing worse than dreading something on our to-do list. Not only do we procrastinate from getting that one thing done, but it can remove our motivation to do anything at all.

    Always focus on what you’re good at and enjoy. Hire others or take on a partner to do the things you despise, but they enjoy. I’ve never understood why some people love crunching numbers and doing the accounting, but I’m so glad that they do.

    Set summer goals: While you may not be working as hard in the summer as you do other times of the year, do set some goals for yourself. Set daily, weekly and monthly goals. Make them challenging, yet attainable and outline the steps you’re going to take to achieve them.

    Reward yourself: When you accomplish a goal, give yourself a reward. Whether it’s a camping trip, a weekend away or simply an iced tea on the patio, everyone likes to have their work appreciated.

    Appreciate yourself readily!

     Give yourself a break sometimes: As entrepreneurs, we can be pretty hard on ourselves. We try to pack so much in, create ridiculously long to-do lists, but it’s not really necessary.

    Always re-evaluate your work plan and adjust it to make sure you get the most important things done.

    I guess the real lesson here is to know where you want to go and how you’re going to get there.

    Always have a plan, but be prepared to adjust it where necessary.

    Of course, if your motivation has gone down because business has slowed down, we have another problem. We’re going to talk about reviving a slow business in the next post.

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  • How to Focus on Your Business When It’s Time to Focus

    Avoiding Summer Distractions:


    How to Focus on Your Business when it’s Time to Focus

    Summer should be about enjoying yourself, getting outside and hopefully getting away from it all. Of course, most of us don’t have the luxury of avoiding work all summer long. Sometimes, we’ve got to roll up our sleeves and get busy, but it’s not always easy if you work from home.

    I’m sure just about any home or Internet business owner can relate. 

    For me, the distractions are the nice weather, having the kids home from school and the desire to just be out camping or even sipping drinks with friends on a patio.

    One of my best friends is a teacher with summers off and she’s always trying to corrupt me! Even though summer can be great fun, I have learned to set my limits and turn off the distractions as needed.

    Here are some tips for you…


    Set your work hours: It’s business organization skills 101, but it’s an important aspect to staying focused. If you set your work hours, not only will you know what’s expected from you, but so will your friends and family. Take out the calendar and figure out what will work for you from week to week, so there is no confusion for anyone, including yourself.

    Reduce your work hours: If you work 5 days a week the rest of the year, you might consider whittling down to 3 or 4 in summer. Even if we have the best intentions, we’ll always find ourselves looking out at the beautiful sunshine, thinking about how we’re like to be out there too. Give yourself a break and just don’t work so much. You can achieve this by cutting down your schedule (for example, don’t blog as much), doing a lot of work ahead of time or hiring some help.

    Plan your work week, in detail: Now, don’t overload yourself with tasks, but make a list of items that absolutely need to get done and put them on your schedule. If you know what you need to do each time, you can motor through those items each day and perhaps you can even knock off early if you complete your list quickly.

    Plan your vacations: Just like you should plan your work hours, plan those vacations ahead of time. Knowing when you’ll be in town and out of town, will help you plan your work better and get all the necessary tasks done before you leave.

    Try multiple short trips away from home: While there shouldn’t be anything stopping you from taking an extended vacation, if it does cause you stress or you don’t have the help you need while you’re gone, try a few short trips. A few days away here and there can be a whole lot of fun and can reduce the overwhelm when you return to your computer.

    Limit social media to down time: While I see the value of social media for business, I think most of us waste a heck of a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter and the like. I’d challenge you to keep your social media usage outside of your work hours and leave it for any downtime you have. Perhaps, while you’re relaxing on the couch in the evening or just soaking up some sun by the pool. Reserve your work time for…well…work.

    If you have kids, get them busy: There’s no reason kids shouldn’t have fun all summer long. Get them involved in summer activities in your local area. Whether it’s summer camp or activities at the local library, there’s always plenty to do. And for goodness sakes, send them OUTSIDE to play often. If your kids are young and need supervision, consider organized activities or swapping babysitting favors with your neighbor. 

    Again, if you have kids, get them involved in the business or their own business: If you can’t always get the kids to entertain themselves, get them busy working with you or on their own business. There are plenty of business tasks that children can handle and what they do will certainly depend on their age and abilities. We’ll be talking more about summer business ideas for kids in a future post too.

    Turn the phone off: If you don’t have to answer calls from clients or customers, turn your phone off while you’re working. That means no text messages or personal emails too. If you do have a business line that you need to answer, don’t give that number to your friend who keeps trying to get you to head to the beach or a patio to sip margaritas.

    Outsource more: I’ll have plenty more tips in future posts, but you’ve got to get help for your business. It doesn’t mean you have to hire employees or people need to come to your house, but running everything yourself means being chained to your business all the time.

    At minimum, you should have a virtual assistant that can help you with administrative tasks, keep you organized and can handle most of your business communication. 

    Keep the fun in summer, but don’t sacrifice fun for productivity. If you’re organized and focused, you can most certainly have both.

    Now, I admit, being focused can’t come without a whole lot of motivation and that’s what we’ll be talking about next. Talk to you again soon.

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