To Plan or Not to Plan: That is the Question

I once had a mompreneur of 3 little ones ask, “What’s the use of planning when my plan never works?” I think we’ve all been there. When you are a working mom, especially one that works from home, it seems that your day is often at the mercy of your needy toddler.  Kids are anything but predictable and aren’t always going to take that nap when they are supposed to or play quietly while you finish that project you penciled in from 1 to 2 pm. So if your well thought out day doesn’t always unravel the way you’d imagined it, should you trash your planner? I answer with a resounding NO!

In the book Alice in Wonderland there is a profound exchange between two of the story’s characters, Alice, the little girl who’s found herself lost in the forest and the Cheshire Cat -a strange feline who intermittently appears during Alice’s jaunt in Wonderland. Their brief conversation goes as follows:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?” asks Alice.
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” responds the cat.
“I don’t much care where,” says Alice.
“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you walk,” replies the cat.

What can we glean from that? Well, without a clear idea of where you want to go, there’s little to no chance that you’ll end up in a place you’d ultimately like to be. Success and balance aren’t a matter of chance. They are the result of living with a clear plan and acting on that plan. Now again, having a plan doesn’t always translate into a day without interruptions or emergencies – throwing off your carefully thought out schedule.  In fact, I guarantee it won’t! But if you will at least be committed to making a plan, you will then have a map to guide you through the day – helping you use your time in a meaningful, effective way. There is so much vying for our attention, much of it trivial and unimportant.  Unless we make a conscious effort to determine how we’re going to spend those precious hours, we’ll find our time whittled away without anything to show for it.

A word of advice when it comes to planning: Plan around your priorities (not the other way around) and do your best to stick to your plan. But when something more important comes up, something that is of higher priority, be flexible and address the greater need. Frustration often sets in when we fail to recognize the place of priorities and flexibility within our schedule.

To plan or not to plan? Remember, success requires a map and your map is your weekly/daily plan. Be committed to it and watch yourself rise to great heights!

Tara McCausland is a speaker, aspiring author, and the owner of her own success/life coaching business - Joy Quest Coaching. She’s also the happy mommy of one active toddler and has been married to her high school sweetheart for 4 years.

As a coach, Tara specializes in helping mompreneurs build their businesses quickly, find more customers, and make more money – all the while helping them achieve greater balance and joy in their lives. She offers 1-on-1 coaching as well as group coaching via telephone and email.

Best way to contact Tara is by email at tara@myjoyquest.com or by phone at (801)979-6244.

Use 15 Minutes Every Day to Grow Your Business

Fairy Godmother Erika Wilde of highly successful drop-shipping floormat business (featured in Real Simple last year!) Stop Dirt, writes: As a kind-of early New Years resolution to myself, I started last fall to dedicate 15 minutes a day to “pro-active” work on my business.

I spend hours every day taking care of the business “must do’s” that are time sensitive. With the demands of kids, church and the lure of my other hobbies, I found myself working only “in the business” and not working “on the business.” I was not spending enough time proactively growing my business.

So I committed myself to 15 minutes a day, dedicated solely to proactive work on my business. Not re-active work like answering emails, processing orders, or making price quotes. But proactive work on new projects that will expanding my existing business.

Many days my 15 minutes turn into an hour. But other days, when my patience and energy is thin, I tell myself, “It’s only 15 minutes.”

Here’s how I’ve made it work:

1.    Throw every plan, task, dream or scheme into a master list. And I mean everything. If an idea pops into your mind, add it to the list.
2.    Break each item on the master list into manageable 15 minutes jobs.
3.    Each day, pull up your list and choose a project.
4.    Let a larger task remain unfinished. There is always 15 minutes tomorrow.
5.    Don’t go to sleep until the 15 minutes are done.

Here is an example pro-active tasks I’ve done on 15 minutes a day:

1.    Research one competitor’s web site and product line.
2.    Make one extra phone call.
3.    Look at the day’s web analytics and compare to the previous week.
4.    Write one more “FAQ” or short article for my website.
5.    Update or “freshen up” one page on my website.
6.    Edit one photograph to make it work better online.
7.    Email one supplier with a quick thank you note.
8.    Solicit a couple of repeat customers for product reviews.
9.    Search online for one related product to add to my line.
10.  Start work on a press release.
11.  Add internal web links on keywords in one article.

Then there are the really big items on my to-do list like, “Make new color chart for Classic Carpet mats” and “Re-build Grand Impressions logo mat page,” which will take at least an hour. So I tackle that project on a night when I have more than 15 minutes to devote.

It’s been amazing what a big dent I’ve made in my very, very long to-do list with only 15 minutes a day. With just 15 minutes a day, I find myself being more inventive, more motivated and more receptive to flashes of business inspiration.

Be Realistic about How You Plan Your Day

Today’s magical wisdom provided by Fairy Godmother Mary Wilson-Burkett, professional life and career coach. Mary coached me last year and encouraged me to try the method below. At first I thought it was incredibly restrictive, but then it was liberating to give myself permission to succeed in baby steps… ideal for a mom entrepreneur like myself!

Several months ago, a very talented entrepreneur told me that she felt this idea of balance is a myth. Trying to stay in balance just didn’t work for her. The more we talked, I realized that at this stage of her life– married, with growing teenagers and cultivating a business, her definition of balance was about touching every base every day did seem unrealistic. In addition, she told me that “living by a calendar” was frustrating. Rather than point out that her definition of balance was unrealistic, I tried to guide the conversation to show her that her instinctual method for living each day was effective, to a point, and that she was living more in balance than she realized.

But to really get her to the point where she felt that she was living each day effectively, I asked her to start each day with a simple list of the three most important things she felt needed to be accomplished that day and check each one off as it got done. This method felt less restrictive but still helpful to her.

The bottom line? Don’t be afraid to plan but plan realistically. Make the method fit your life. Too often we get stuck trying to make our life fit the method. This is backward thinking. Find or create a way to plan that fits your life. Something as simple as a list of the three most important items for a day can help you feel more balanced and effective.

Plan Your “Free Days” for 2008

 

 

Today’s Post was written by Fairy Godmothers Carrie & Danielle. Their anticipated book, Style Statement will be available in April.

 

Harnessing time can be especially tricky when you’re creative and ambitious, and when you want to rock your career and have uninterrupted weekends. Quadrants of importance. Priority grids. Sticky notes. Ginko Biloba.

 

Between the two of us we’ve tried every time management and memory improvement system out there. What works beautifully for us is the Entrepreneurial Time Management System. As its creator, Dan Sullivan puts it, “…it allows one’s personal and professional lives to receive an equal amount of attention—indeed, to be in balance—and thus generate energy for each other.” Whether you’re running your own department or running a household, Sullivan’s principles are truly helpful for designing a balanced life.

 

There are 3 ‘Types’ of Days:

 

Free Days: A 24-hour period in which you do not engage in business-related action. You don’t even think about it. The best Free Days are planned in advance.

 

Focus Days: Spend 80% of your day on your most important business-related activities, relationships, and opportunities. This is your day to make things happen, without interruptions and with support systems in place.

 

Buffer Days: “If Focus Days are for performance,” says Sullivan, “Buffer Days are for rehearsals.” Handle all of the details that would otherwise distract your attention on a Focus Day. Catch up, clean up, delegate, brush up on your skills.

Personally, we’ve set Mondays and Fridays for Buffer Days. We return calls, explore, read our newsletters and artsy rags, and prioritize. We indulge in meandering conversation and doodling ideas (guess when our best ideas come to us?). For the mid week we zoom-zoom focus and resist the urge to be distracted by things that don’t fulfill our very immediate objectives. Velocity is our driving intention. As for free evenings and weekends and holidays—we have them! Plenty of sacred, unplugged free-flow time.

 

 

Today’s Magic Wand: Plan your Free Days for the year. What are your desires? More time with your family, a month in Hawaii, a naughty trip to Vegas, or a meditation retreat. Free Days can be also be for the very simple pleasures that you never get around to, like lunch with an old friend or an afternoon at the art gallery. Pencil it in to your calendar, months in advance if necessary. Even if you can’t immediately see a way to get the time off or where the resources will come from, create the space for it so that you and life can start conspiring for your freedom.

 

Funny thing about time…it’s what you make of it.

 

 

 

Update: 10 Hour Work Week Still Working for Me

Since a few people have asked me…yes, I’m still doing the 10 hour work week and loving it. Besides Blogworld in Vegas for a day, I’ve been pretty good about sticking to my goal. I appreciate (so does my family) the daily challenge of increasing my productivity and maximizing my time.

Yes, I was on vacation last week and so the temptation to work was lower, but that normally would not have stopped me from working…I would have usually still put in a couple hours a day before/after Disneyland (and yes, I WAS tempted, however, I was good, I checked email fast and got off). I have to admit that it was a very nice 5 days. But there was a consequence because I didn’t know about the trip until the last minute and didn’t have pre-scheduled posts ready, our site wasn’t thriving here, I’m afraid and RSS traffic decreased slightly. However, what DID work well was the Startup Princess team back here in Utah. Leslie Smoot, our new VP of Business Development was in charge of the Startup Princess event and Laurie Ann Thomas our admin support at the UVSC SBDC ran the show while I was gone and I literally got back at 2 am and showed up to the event at 10 am…it was a beautiful thing!! Having a team is essential!!
I spent my 10 hours last week at Startup Princess Networking Tea Party 2 hours, Editing our conference DVD for 4 hours (nearly done!), daily emails, updating finances, planning and strategizing for Startup Princess 2008.

Today’s Magic Wand: When you go on vacation, really GO on vacation…don’t check your email more than 1x a day and I challenge you to take Thanksgiving completely off!

Opportunity: 10 Hour Work Week

Last week I was absolutely skeptical about my “challenge” to work 10 hours. I was used to working uh, um…40-50? (leading up to the conference was a LOT). Well, I’m very happy to report that I did it just over 10 hours (business planning meeting went a bit long, I realized I was way MORE addicted to email than I originally thought and checking it just once a day was very very hard, some days were better than others, but every minute was logged. I also realized that work is like dessert, if you know you’re only going to “work” for 2 hours then you plan a lot more for what you are going to do…like if you know you’re only going to have 1 dessert a week, you think about what to have and make the best choice (Haagen Daz vs. Blue Bunny ice cream, you know?)

Here’s a brief overview of what I did and what I DIDN’T do as well.

DID:

• Planned a lot more, before I ever sat down at the computer I knew how long I could be there and what I needed to accomplish
• Blogged quicker, because I had more of a plan when I’d sit down…(set up the systems) less editing (good and bad, someone emailed me with a grammar error and I caught a few mistakes I normally would not have made)
• Delegated a lot more than I have before
• emails were shorter, still tried to keep them friendly, but quicker. I tried to follow after Seth Godin’s style of email (when he’s emailed me he’s always been quick, to the point, and left me feeling good about myself in a simple way like, “you’re great”)
• Looked at business models and systems (particularly for the Startup Princess profile pages) which are very time consuming to organize/manage–looking at software that will do it for us affordably
• Took time to have a great planning meeting on the phone and cleared distractions beforehand
• Mostly spent time on emails, writing, planning events/future strategy of Startup Princess, cleaned my office!
• Checked email after 4pm each day, a couple times after 10pm
• Spent most of my daytime with my kids, Halloween activities, did some service for neighbors, kept up on dishes better and laundry was DONE and put away all in the same week (miracle)!
• Early Dinner each night Put my kids to bed EARLY when they were ready at 6:30pm (18 mo and 3 yr old)-7:30pm(7 yr old) * except Halloween!
• Spent more time with my husband in the evenings than I usually have done which was good for us!
• Honest with myself and with you–telling you that it’s hard to be balanced struck a chord with many of you and multiple emails and comments demonstrated that we all need more harmony with our responsibilities
• “I’m doing the best I can and trust that it is enough” was my motto
• Relied on/Delegated to Leslie Smoot, my new partner here at Startup Princess and VP of Business Development and Laurie Ann Thomas, Admin Assistant/Sponsor of our Utah County Chapter to move forward with their projects and trusted they would fulfill their tasks (and they have)
• Eliminated a few projects
• Drank green smoothies everyday; My Magic Potion recipe: 1 c rice milk, 2 c spinach, 1 frozen banana, 1 c berries (YUM) Instant energy!
• Got up early several days and got showered/ready before carpool so that I could come home and be ready to face the day (instead of driving to school in pj’s and showering whenever), the early method is the plan!!
• Listened to my iPod more in the car, listened to an audio written about my great-great-great grandfather, Parley P Pratt and felt more joy in my heritage (instead of listening to a business book, which I often do)

DIDN’T:

• Didn’t read blogs, I only read eMoms at Home 1 day to catch up and learned about the Google Page Rank issues (which I would not have known otherwise)
• Didn’t miss working so much (besides wanting to check email) I feel more inner-peace and genuinely happier
• Didn’t get as stressed out or upset with myself or my children
• Didn’t feel worried that Startup Princess was going to dissolve, actually comments increased and the interest for membership was at an all time high last week; letting go actually, pushed Startup Princess forward! Tim Ferriss said that when he got “out of his business” it thrived, it’s that concept of micro-management, it doesn’t work.
• Didn’t exercise, thought about it, but I didn’t! (unless walking around trick or treating with my kids counts!) Ha!
• Didn’t go to bed before 11pm like I had planned, found myself reading magazines, catalogs, taking baths, etc…somewhat nice to “veg” because it had been soooooo long, but I could have been sleeping earlier, need to establish night time routines better, however, I feel much more rested than I have in a long time
• Didn’t go see Guy Kawasaki (bummed) my kids were sick, but that would have pushed me over 10 hours up to 15 getting up there and back, it would have been worth it!
• Didn’t hire a babysitter the whole week except for a date night/networking dinner with a few other couples

All in all, it was an awesome week…I’m up for week 2! Anyone else want to join me?

Today’s Magic Wand: Set a timer when you get on the computer (in your mind or a real one, decide what you’re going to do, get on, get it done, get off). If you only read this site 1x a week, that’s ok by me! Just tell 5 friends about our site and then our site will still grow without you here so often, haha!