In a couple of days, my calendar is going to ping me with a reminder. It’s going to say “One month in – how’s it going, Heather?” This reminder is for me to review the new business strategies I intended to integrate into my business this year.

Each year, I list out a bunch of strategies I want to integrate into my business. Some are marketing strategies, some are productivity strategies, some are customer service strategies; that kind of thing. I always have a really bold and vibrant vision of the year ahead and it’s easy for me to actually create so many strategies that I simply can’t implement them all effectively.

What I find is that over time, some strategies simply can’t be done in the day (because I don’t have time, for example) while other strategies become quickly integrated into my daily routine.

I was speaking with a colleague of mine who does something similar. She had developed several strategies she wanted to integrate into her year. For example, she wanted to increase her article marketing and she wanted to do more blog commenting. We usually chat about our strategies from time to time so I asked her how hers were going nearly one month into the year. The blogs were easily integrated in and are now a habit for her. The articles, however, are not. We talked about the reasons that could be and what she and I discussed might be helpful for you, too:

• Integrating new strategies into your daily schedule is important to do from time to time, but not always easy. I’ve found that if you want to be more successful at making them habits, you need to do everything possible to make it super-easy to do. The easier they are, the more likely you’ll do them and the more likely they will become habits.

Take exercise as an example: Lots of people make a New Year’s Resolution to start exercising… and then they fail. One of the reasons is that exercise might be an hour or two commitment a few times a week: Driving to the gym, working out, showering, driving home. It adds up so it’s not compelling to do. The secret to integrating it into your life is to make it really easy at the very beginning. Start with a 5 minute workout at home; have a friend call to remind you. Then, increase your workout to ten minutes. Then to fifteen. Then twenty. Eventually you will find yourself at the gym doing a full workout, but by then it will be a habit. To get there, though, it had to start easy.

It’s the same with my friend and her articles: Instead of writing an article a day – her original goal – she should start with an article a week. Or, split the work between herself and a freelancer. Eventually, she can increase her own effort. And she should decide ahead of time what the article will be about, rather than staring at a blank page.

And it’s the same for your 2010 goals. The goals that easily integrated into your business – celebrate them. And the ones that you’re struggling with one month in – take baby steps and make them easy. You may not start out as boldly as you had originally dreamed but making them easy will help to make them habits.

Have a great time!

Related posts:

1. It’s March. Do You Know Where Your Resolutions Are?
2. First Things First
3. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 2

There are plenty of good time management techniques out there, and I find that different techniques are right for different people, depending on lifestyle and what kind of business is being run.

One technique that I really like is Stephen Covey’s First Things First “Habit”. Covey (who co-wrote First Things First with A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill) recommend a time management system that might also be considered a relationship management system. Note: I am briefly describing their Roles/Goals calendaring system here and am not summarizing the entire book.

They recommend that you start each week by thinking about what your roles are – for all aspects of your life. In my case, I’m a business owner, wife, mother, friend, and volunteer. Then, beside each role, I should write down a couple of goals for the week. Maybe a goal as a mother is to go to the park with the kids. And maybe a goal as a friend is to get together with someone I haven’t touched base with in a couple of months.

What makes this concept even better, in my opinion, is the step in which you think about how you can connect goals across roles. For example, maybe I can accomplish two goals at the same time: I can bring my kids to the park at 1PM on Saturday and invite my friend to bring her children to the part at 2PM. I get some time with my kids, I get to see my friend, my kids get to play with other kids, it’s all good!

Scheduling these goals in becomes one of the first things we do, like placing the biggest rocks in that proverbial jar before placing the smaller stones and pebbles in.

I like this scheduling methodology because it is far more flexible than other methods of scheduling (like the classic “A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, etc.” method). And, it respects who I am. Most importantly, it pushes me to think about what roles define who I am and how I can be better at them.

I’m not saying that everyone should adopt this practice all the time. I certainly don’t. But there is value in revisiting your roles and goals from time to time and if you’re looking for a different way to schedule some proactive lifestyle-changing time, give Covey’s First Things First schedule a try.

Happy Blogging!

Related posts:

1. The Metrics of Social Media
2. One Month In…
3. The Work Isn’t Over

Haha, okay that might be a serious anti-meeting sentiment but I know that most of you chuckled because deep down you feel the same way. Meetings are rarely an enjoyable experience. And yet, we have them and can’t imagine doing business without them.

In spite of my little joke, I don’t think that we need to get rid of meetings altogether. However, I think that they wouldn’t hurt to be a little more palatable.

A colleague of mine used to work as a reporter in a daily newspaper and he tells me of the apocryphal rule of newspaper writing: That the editor takes a pair of scissors and starts at the bottom and cuts off paragraph by paragraph until the article fits the space available in the paper. Thus, the most important stuff needs to be at the front. While this is (hopefully) an exaggeration, it gives us some inspiration for when we are creating agendas.

Put the most important stuff at the beginning of the meeting. Leaving it to the end is a common habit because people know that it’s a big issue and will take a lot of time so they want to spend “the rest of the meeting” on something. Unfortunately, by that point in the meeting, no one wants to spend the rest of the meeting on anything!

Also, think about whether your agenda items are informational or discussion oriented or analytical or require brainstorming. These are four very different types of activities that are often jammed into the same meeting. My advice? Put the informational stuff into an email and send it out. (And 3/4 of you are saying “But Heather, no one will read that email”… which might be true but then it’s your job to remind them that they either read the email or show up at a meeting). If you HAVE to have a meeting about informational stuff, aim for a 2 minute meeting at the start of the week to get it all out. Or, do what they used to do in school sometimes: write a memo with everyone’s name at the bottom. Pass it around and have each person initial beside their name once they’ve read it. Again, it’s elementary but if you tell people that they can either do it this way or attend another meeting, a majority of your staff will initial the memo without another word of complaint.

For your other agenda items, group discussion and analysis together in one and hold those periodically. It’s okay to have several items on the agenda, provided that they don’t take a lot of time. Set a limit on each item because discussion will often fill the amount of time allotted and if people know there’s a limit, they’ll say their piece and shut up.

Lastly, pick a good time when everyone feels smart and juicy with brainpower and pick a topic and brainstorm. In fact, it might not hurt to have a Monday morning brainstorming session from 10 to 11:30. It’s not too early for people to hate it, but early enough to get people pumped up. And if you don’t have a specific item to brainstorm, then create a topic like “How can we be more efficient in the office?”. A lot of the collaborative, creative energy and ideas that comes out of that weekly brainstorming meeting will carry many of your staff through the week.

Related posts:

1. 5 Common Productivity Barriers and How to Eliminate Them
2. Productivity issues are the same everywhere
3. The Advantage of Virtual

But in my last post I mentioned that not all business growth is good. Growth that happens too fast, for example, without any warning, can cause financial, manufacturing, warehousing, and customer service problems galore.

In this blog I want to talk about another problem of too-fast growth.

Problem 2: Rapid growth that is unpredictable may decline and leave a burden on the business. I’ve seen this recently in a colleague’s business. Just two years ago, business was inferno hot for him! He was so busy he couldn’t keep up with orders for the product his business created. Then the economy slowed. Today, his business is sound enough to pay his bills and allow him to put a little away for the future so he’s not worried about feeding his family. But he is concerned about his tax bill. The spike was unexpected and when he pays taxes this year on last year’s income, he’s paying taxes out of less money this year than he was earning last year. Not only that, as a manufacturer of goods, he has a small storage unit full of unsold items. That’s because he ramped up production quickly during that busy season, but he didn’t anticipate the decline… so he was still producing a high number of goods when the slump struck.

Solution 2: When your business grows, manage it carefully. Don’t just ride the rapids with an oblivious smile. Be aware that it may eventually slow down. Make sure you have money put away for taxes and other expenses that might lag into a slower period. And, watch the warning signs very, very carefully to make sure that your production doesn’t match today’s demand… but rather, that it matches tomorrow’s demand. Warning signs might include slowing orders, but even that might be too late. Get in the habit of proactively calling your customers and estimating capacity into the future. Offering discounts on bulk orders, even when times are good and customers are willing to pay top dollar, can help you keep your finger on the pulse of your customers’ needs.

So, business growth that is not carefully managed and spikes, then falls, can also be costly for a business in inventory and warehousing, taxation (and other lagging costs).

In the next blog, I’ll talk about one more business growth problem I’ve seen.

Related posts:

1. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 1
2. When Business Growth is Bad – Part 3
3. Free Teleconference: Fast, Efficient Business Growth for Busy Entrepreneurs Who Want to Be Busier