Tasks to do in preparation

The first few tasks below aren’t things you are going to do in the first ten minutes of your day. Rather, they are things that you can do to make the first ten minutes more productive. Think about how you currently spend the first ten minutes of your day.

Like many people, you might tidy your desk, get your coffee, turn on your computer, open the programs you need for the day, check your voicemail, check your email, check Facebook, check Twitter, (and the list goes on and on). Suddenly, you might find yourself half an hour into your work day with nothing to show for it. So the first group of tasks deal with reducing some of those things you normally do in the morning.

Tip #1: The Day Before
I used to work in an office where the habit was to just walk out at 5:30 pm and ignore everything on your desk. When you got into work in the morning, you clean your desk and move over unfinished tasks to the next day and review your calendar. I couldn’t figure out why my mornings felt so unproductive until I stopped that habit and started finishing my day with a little clean-up and prep. Then I could start my next day fresh. So, before you finish your day each day…

• Make sure your tasks and calendar is set for the next day, moving over any unfinished tasks before you leave.
• Clean your desk of the clutter that tends to accumulate through the day.
• If you keep a paper list or paper-based calendar of your to-dos, have it front-and-center on your desk and make sure the tasks are prioritized.

Tip #2: Computer set-up.

When your computer starts up in the morning, you likely spend a few minutes opening the programs that you need throughout the day. In fact, depending on how many programs there are and how fast they take to start-up, it could take up the first five minutes of your day!

1.    So, if you’re running Windows, go to your Start Menu > All Programs > Start Up and right-click Start Up.

2.    Then choose “Explore” and copy a shortcut to the programs you open into the Start Up menu. (For example, you might copy in your web browser, Skype, your IM client, TweetDeck, and other programs you keep open during the day.)

Tip #3: Browser set-up.
In addition to the programs that you open, you should also set your browser to open the pages you use most often. I’m shocked at how often people have a home page set on their browser that they navigate away from and never return to. Make it useful to you! Make your homepage the site you use most.

And, if you use Firefox, take advantage of the fact that you can have more than one page open at start-up: Let’s say that you have 3 pages you want open; Google.com, Gmail.com, and Wikipedia.org. (Of course, you can use anything; I’m just using these three as an example).

1.    In Firefox, go to Tools > Options
2.    When the Options window opens, go to the General tab.
3.    See where it says “Home page” and has a URL in there? Change that URL to one of three sites you want to open. Then type “|” (which is the vertical line you get when you press Shift + the “”" button). Then type the second URL. Type “|” again and the third URL. So the line looks like this: http://google.com|http://mail.google.com|http://Wikipedia.org

Now, when you open Firefox, three tabs will open, each with one of those sites. Some suggestions you might consider:

• The page you visit most often during the day
• Your project management website
• Your online email access
• Your online telephone management console
• Your blog sign-in page

There are other Firefox add-ons that might be appropriate for you, either to recapture and optimize those first 10 minutes of your day or to make Firefox better throughout your day.

Tip #4: Organize your bookmarks
When I sit down to do my work, there are usually several sites I need to hit throughout the day. Now, maybe I don’t want to open them all when I first sit down to my desk but I eventually need to get through all them. For those sites, I’ve organized them into a single folder in the order that I will access them. (Since I use Delicious, which sorts alphanumerically, I’ve labeled them “01 – [the name of the first site I need to visit]“, “02 – [the name of the second site I need to visit]“, “03 – [the name of the third site I need to visit]“, etc. So all I need to do each day is click the next one in the list.

Why bother with doing all of this stuff? For the simple reason that a day which starts productively tends to be more productive. And if you start your day by opening programs and doing “busy work” (work that feels productive but doesn’t directly contribute to your business) then you miss an early window of opportunity to make a strong start.

Tasks to do in the first ten minutes of your day

The next tasks are the three things I recommend you do in the first ten minutes of your day. I’ve found that doing these three things can make a huge difference in how the rest of your day works out.

Tip #5: Review your goals and projects for the day (Duration: 1 – 2 minutes)
You should get to the point in your business where you know what specific goals you must achieve each day in order to attain the level of success you want. For example, you might need to write 1 proposal, make 2 follow-up phone calls, and do 6 hours of billable work in order to generate enough customers and revenue. Whatever your daily effort is, make those your goals and review them each day as soon as you sit down to work.

To get daily goals, use your annual goals and divide them by your workdays: You (hopefully) have annual goals for your business. Take those goals (perhaps a revenue goal, profit goal, number-of-customers goal, or some other kind of numeric goal) and divide it by the number of weeks you work in the year (probably 48 to 52) and then divide that number by the number of days in the week that you work (probably 5 or 6). So let’s say you want to earn $125,000 in income in a year: Divide it by 50 (and take a 2 week vacation) to get $2,500; then divide that number by 5 (for working 5 days a week) to get $500, which is your daily income goal.

Once you’ve reviewed your goals, quickly look over your projects, just to refresh your memory.

Tip #6: Get started! (Duration: 5 minutes)
Before you check your email or Twitter or Facebook or RSS feeds or (fill in other potential first-thing-in-the-morning distractions), open your first project and work on it for five minutes. Try to get in as much work as you can in just five minutes, just to get some critical mass building on the project. Doing this kind of work this early in your day can help set the tone for the day. You’ll come back to this important project later in the day and you’ll have already done some good work on it!

Tip #7: Anticipate (Duration: 2 minutes)
One of the best ways that small business owners can outpace their competition is by anticipating what is going to happen in the day and proactively dealing with it before it happens. Get into the habit of anticipating what is going to happen to you. Are you expecting a difficult phone call? Is there an email that will probably contain bad news? I’m not talking about being a fortune-teller and trying to predict what could happen; rather, I’m talking about being aware of your business and making it a habit to see the trends that will influence your day. One way to do this is by taking two minutes early in your day to list the two or three challenging things you expect to face in the day. For example, it could be an irate customer or a vendor who is wondering when they will get paid or a frustrated employee. Think about what you are going to expect in the day based on what you know is happening in your business. At first, this list will feel like you’re writing down the things you dread. But soon it will become almost another to-do list that is uniquely focused on issues that could bog you down (but which you can start dealing with right away).

Your first ten minutes of the day will race by. Once you’ve done those three tasks, move on to what you would normally do after you opened the programs on your computer. It probably includes checking your email or opening Twitter. But by optimizing your morning for a faster start, and by focusing your first ten minutes on goal review, head-start efficiency, and anticipation, you’ll set the tone for the rest of the day to be far more productive.

Related posts:

1. Mastering Google AdWords in 10 Minutes – Part 1
2. Mastering Google AdWords in 10 Minutes – Part 2
3. Mastering Sales and Selling More -Part 1

As business owners, we optimistically show up to work, sit down at our desk, and expect everything to go well. Every single day. Most of the time it goes okay but every once in a while something goes wrong. There could be any number of reasons but that’s the way it goes: Life deals us a bad hand one day and we find ourselves with a flooded office or a computer virus or a rabid dog that ate our records or a check that really does get lost in the mail.

These disasters can bring us down. They can grind our business to a halt and force us to put aside the important work that we normally do and instead focus on something that we’d rather not be thinking about. It costs time, effort, and money to solve, and those items are already rare at the best of times.

So, how can you manage these disasters before they even strike? And, how can you manage them if you can’t predict them? Obviously I could just list some basic business continuity procedures (like backing up your files, for example) but I want to paint a bigger picture first.

Start by thinking about the elements that you need to run your business. Many of my readers need to have access to email, to records, to a few specific programs. That’s it. The rest is locked up in their head as knowledge. If that describes you, how can your business survive if your current situation suddenly changed? What would you need to do to ensure that you could easily continue with those basic “must-have” elements listed above?

Here are some additional tips:

• Before you brainstorm strategies to back up information, brainstorm what you really need to run your business. You might not need to back everything up, for example. You might only need to back up certain files.

• Invest in the equipment that will allow you to switch quickly. One client of mine who relies on her computer, keeps a spare computer nearby and configured in the same way. It came in handy one day when a virus attacked her first computer. She simply switched over to her second one and kept working. Problem solved.

• Figure out how much it would cost you to keep your business running smoothly if you suddenly didn’t have your office. Assume it burns down or floods or something. Could you work from home? Could you work from the coffee shop? These are options but are you set up for it? If you don’t want to buy another computer, figure out how easy it is to borrow a friend’s or use the one at your local library until you’re back up and running. If you do that, how will get your data?

Backing up your files is important but that’s not the only thing you should do. I believe that a smart business owner should be completely ready to immediately move into an entirely new business environment and continue working without missing a step. When you’re ready to that degree then a lot of the interim continuity can work itself out.

Let’s go prepare for those disasters!

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Time is one of those elusive factors that we’re all desperately trying to get more of. We understand we only have 24 hours in a day and can’t actually add more time to it (except for the one day a year when we “fall back” an hour, but that single added hour doesn’t have much of an impact in the big picture).

So we focus on productivity, we talk about efficiency, we desperately search for more time. Blogs like the one by Meryl K Evans called “12 Ways to Find More Time” are widely read and tweeted enthusiastically. And that’s okay. It’s a good list with some great common sense time-finding tips that you can use: Things like “control your phone time”, “review your meetings”, and “save time in your calendar”. There aren’t any surprises on this list. That’s not an indictment against the post’s author. Rather, it’s an indictment against most of us!

There’s a reason why these “time-finding tips” blog posts are so popular. People want to find more time and they actively search for ideas to help them. But all of these ideas (not just Meryl’s great list but also the many productivity tools and resources available) are completely wasted if we don’t act. Action is the key to business success. It’s what separates the winners from the losers.

Many people search for more time but the reality is, they frequently squander the time the have. Rather than taking action to sell their products or services, promote their company, or serve a client, they end up on Facebook, or returning emails, or browsing the web. It feels productive, but at the end of their new-found time they have nothing to show for it. And so they go off in search of more “find more time” tips to help them.

Stop looking for new ways to find more time. Just for a moment. First, master the time that you have already.

• Eliminate wasted time by only watching specific TV shows (and turning off the TV after) rather than lazing in front of the television and watching whatever is on.

• Make better use of time at your desk by restricting your own access to sites that aren’t specifically geared to productivity. (For example, pull back a bit on Facebook if it is part of your social life but not part of your business plan).

• Closely review the work you do on other sites to make sure that it is not work that feels productive but really isn’t. (I’ve got a blog post about this which I’ll be posting in a week or two – stay tuned).

• Set hourly goals for yourself that stretch your productivity and help you to stay focused against the distractions.

• Before you invest in another time management system or project management system to replace the one you’ve got, consider what it is that you need to do to be more efficient and to use those current investments better.

Once you’ve done all these things, fine tune your time to do the following work:

1.    Position your company to generate more prospective customers
2.    Sell your services to those customers
3.    Serve all of your customers with great service

That’s it! Spend your time doing that critical work and you’ll have a super-strong, amazingly profitable business.

Then, after you’ve started to efficiently use the time you have, start looking for tips and ideas to help you find more time.

Good luck!

Related posts:

1. Saving Time with One Small Addition to Your Website
2. It’s December… Now is NOT the time to slow down
3. 7 Time Management Tips To Enhance Your Business

With only hours to go before 2010, your planning is probably finished. Your strategizing is tucked away. Your dreams are sitting on your desk, waiting for you to show up on Monday morning. You’ve done everything you can do this year and now it’s coming to close.

And the champagne is flowing generously.

Before things get too carried away, over the next few hours, take a moment to pause and consider what I’m about to tell you: The week between Christmas and New Year is often an INSANE week, filled with gifts and festive activities and diets-be-damned eating. And the entire year leading up to this moment has been INSANE for many people, filled with bad news compounded by bad news. This past week – and this past year – has possibly been all about you running around and trying not to go crazy.

All that is about to change
Take a brief moment and reset your thinking. Make the following 10 promises to yourself for 2010:

1.    Promise to give the very best of yourself to every customer you meet. (They will reciprocate with repeat business).

2.    Promise to be positive, upbeat, enthusiastic, optimistic, and encouraging. (Smile brightly and the world will smile back).

3.    Promise to see every crisis as an opportunity. (You might just find the springboard to stellar success).

4.    Promise to invest in yourself and your business. (You know it takes money to make money… so spend a bit on your business).

5.    Promise to be more productive and make the most of every moment. (You can do more in the same amount of time).

6.    Promise to find the balance between work and family. (It’s a reward that can’t be counted).

7.    Promise to leap into new challenges. (Action and boldness are key ingredients that will help this year to be spectacular).

8.    Promise to be productive and to fight procrastination at ever turn. (Cut out that time playing Farmville in Facebook in favor of more revenue-generation).

9.    Promise to focus on operating a smart, efficient, profitable business. (That’s what it’s all about).

10.    Promise yourself that 2010 will be a great year for you and for your business. (It all starts with this decision).

These promises aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams. They are achievable every single day and the business that commits to these 10 promises will have a successful 2010.

Here’s what I’d recommend
Write these promises to yourself. Put them on your desk. Read them every day before your day starts and review them every day before you sign off for the evening. If you’re REALLY serious about succeeding and these promises make sense to you, then create a metric for each one and use them as a checklist. (For example, for the “see every crisis as an opportunity” promise, why not create a list of things that stress you out and then choose on each week and find the opportunity in it).

When you countdown and shout “Happy New Year” today, you’re not just celebrating the turn of the calendar, you’re saying goodbye to a year of challenge and saying hello to a year of opportunity. This is an exciting time for business owners!

On that note:

10…
9…
8…
7…
6…
5..
4…
3…
2…
1…

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What happens when you decide to use the services of virtual staff? How does that impact your traditional office? What adjustments will you need to make? These are good questions and the answers can help you easily navigate the transition.

Robyn is the president of an online publishing software company and found herself faced with these same questions. She transitioned from working at a newspaper to operating the software company. Robyn was used to the daily interaction with other employees and discovered that there are some adjustments to working in the virtual world. Robyn shares three helpful tips when making this addition to your company.

First, “An employer must be intentional about creating a bond with a virtual employee,” Robyn states. “When you are in a traditional work environment, that interaction comes naturally, but when you deal with someone that you may never actually meet, building that relationship and establishing a bond of trust takes a little more effort,” Robyn continues. Of course, working on the relationship is part of the outsource staff member’s responsibility as well.

Good communication is essential to forming an effective working relationship, no matter where your employee is working: Establishing a good working relationship with your outsource staff is just as important as the relationships you have with your in-house employees.

Next, Robyn encourages other business owners to establish a schedule or routine with their outsource staff. Since these offsite staff do not necessarily have set hours, the employer and virtual workers need to agree upon what is expected in regards to a work schedule and the duties to be performed. Having a pre-determined list of expectations can prevent any confusion in the future and keep the lines of communication open.

Finally, implement all of the available technologies to keep the work flowing between employer and outsource staff. According to Robyn, the more you make use of things like instant messaging, teleconferencing , faxing and emailing, the easier the communication will be. “Don’t limit yourself to one method of keeping in touch. Be sure your offsite employee has all of the software that is needed to complete the work you have assigned,” emphasizes Robyn.

About the author: Heather Villa, MBA CMA MSM, is a Business Coach and Entrepreneur. She helps business owners achieve success in operations, productivity, project management, and social media. Read her other articles at http://hireheathervilla.com/resources/articles/ and visit http://heathervilla.com for more information.

Disclaimer: © 2009 Heather Villa. Permission is granted to repost this article. Article must be published in its entirety, including author bio, and all links must remain intact.

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1. 10 Minutes a Day For Better Staff Productivity
2. Home Office: Post 3: 50% Done
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The new AC has been installed.

The new desk has been installed.

The two 24″ monitors were swapped out for two 27″ monitors (and a beefier video card and power supply to boot – thanks @dszp).

The curtains were installed.

Still pending:

3rd 27″ monitor (my colleague Scott is calling this my Space Shuttle Pilot Cabin)

The ‘back up of my back up’ solution (which is still undecided).

New Chair (mine is 6 years old)

What I am going to do with the South East Corner which currently has the ‘utility shelf’ – I am thinking of a built in corner bookshelf w/ a little sitting bench or something similar.

As usual check out the picture feed below.

However, I wanted to take a minute to tell you all – that this new office (apart from the files of work that I have loaded on my desk due to being sick) has made me feel more productive.

Going to work in the office, no longer seems like a chore, my office has become my sanctuary in a way. I am being more productive, more organized and have space to expand and stretch (even with a file mess) without feeling cluttered.

I know many of my clients (and readers) work from home, and many of you have children (and I am currently raising my niece, so I now know how it feels), but investing in your own area – your own working space that the door can be shut and you have everything you need (remember my office was a second master bedroom, I have a bathroom and a mini-fridge in the office) can enable you to shut the door and shut out the distractions.

Just an idea!

Getting Organized and HAPPY,

Related posts:

1. New Home Office Coming Soon!
2. Update on Home Office
3. Incorporating Outsource Staff into the Routine of Your Office

If you’re a business owner who is stuck at your desk for lunch, you might be getting work done but you’re missing out on the powerful networking opportunities of a business lunch. That’s where BusinessLunchClub comes in. BusinessLunchClub is where entrepreneurs on Twitter have lunch. If you’re stuck at your desk but want to do some networking, tweet while you eat and add the hashtags #businesslunchclub, #bizlunchclub, or #blc.

Read 8 Ways to Use BusinessLunchClub to Grow Your Business.

Here are a couple of tips to help you get more out of BusinessLunchClub:

Either invite a handful of people to participate or tweet out that you’re looking for others to join you.

For example: @AaronHoos @IAC_Heather you guys around for #businesslunchclub?
Or: Stuck at my desk. #bizlunchclub anyone?

You might also want to schedule your next BusinessLunchClub meeting. Mondays with one group of colleagues, Tuesday with another, etc. Consider having a business problem that you’d like to talk about.

Check out BusinessLunchClub.com to see what other people were talking about or to review your conversation, or keep track of those terms in TweetDeck. (Ref. Thanks to Jeffrey Priebe for the TweetDeck recommendation)

Just like many business lunches have a purpose (besides eating at the same table), BusinessLunchClub is made more beneficial when you participate with a goal in mind. Perhaps it might be “I need to find someone to help me solve this business problem” or it might be broader, like “I’d like to learn something about a few of my followers or it might just be a nice way to make your stuck-at-your-desk lunch a little more valuable.

As originally posted on: Blog by Aaron Hoos

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1. 8 Ways to use #businesslunchclub to grow your business
2. Lunch 2.0 Launched! #BusinessLunchClub, #BizLunchClub, #BLC
3. Today’s #businesslunchclub discussion (July 13, 2009)

Everything you enjoy about business lunches is now available on Twitter with Business Lunch Club. If you find yourself unable to have a real business lunch, simply tweet while you eat and add the hashtags #businesslunchclub, #bizlunchclub, or #blc.

Here are some ideas to get the benefits of a business lunch from Business Lunch Club.

1. Find others who are stuck at their desks over lunch. You’ll make your at-your-desk time far more productive while you eat.

For example: Stuck at my desk. Anyone else in the same boat? #businesslunchclub

2. Start a discussion about a topic that you might normally talk about over lunch. You’ll engage others in topics that interest you and shape the discussion on Twitter.

For example: How has the economy been impacting your lead generation? #businesslunchclub

3. Participate in a discussion that someone else has started. You’ll add value to other people as you talk with them. Several people can join in at once, just like a real discussion.

For example: Re: lead-gen I’ve had to really ramp up the value of my offering. How about you? #businesslunchclub

4. Ask for help. Leverage your relationships to ask professionals for advice on issues you face in business.

For example: Can anyone point me to a good online bookkeeping system? #businesslunchclub

5. Get to know your followers. You have lots of followers but how well do you know them? Get to know them a bit better and perhaps you’ll discover some potential opportunities.

For example: Taking a break from work for #businesslunchclub. @IAC_Heather tell me a bit about your business

6. Talk about a joint venture or collaboration idea. Twitter is the perfect place to start up a discussion, test interest, and find experts to collaborate.

For example: @AaronHoos I’d like to work together on an ebook about sales. #businesslunchclub

7. Introduce a couple of colleagues who you think are a good match for each other. Network and help others to network. This is like #FollowFriday but far more focused.

For example: @IAC_Heather, you should talk to @AaronHoos about that book you’d like to write #businesslunchclub

8. Visit BusinessLunchClub.com and meet other people who are #businesslunchclub participants. Follow them to gain access to a whole new network of people interested in win-win business growth.

For example: Hi @AaronHoos I saw you on BusinessLunchClub.com and wanted to follow you #businesslunchclub

As originally posted on: Blog by Aaron Hoos

Related posts:

1. Tips to get more out of #businesslunchclub
2. Lunch 2.0 Launched! #BusinessLunchClub, #BizLunchClub, #BLC
3. Today’s #businesslunchclub discussion (July 13, 2009)