I’m going to be totally honest here, even at the risk of sounding like a bit of a brag! The last three weeks in my business have been amazing! Potentially the best weeks of my entire year in terms of productivity, performance and mindset! I ‘d like to share two recent changes that have transformed the way I work:

  1. The Whiteboard

This sounds a bit strange! “Come on Anthea, how is a whiteboard going to help”! It will probably just sit in your office unused for weeks on end. Absolutely correct! It sat in my office unused for three weeks!

However, one day I was feeling particularly overwhelmed with a rather long “to-do” list, a very short “done” list and just feeling lost in terms of priorities. I walked into the living room and announced to my Fiancé “I need your help planning!”.

Luckily, he was up to the occasion! We spent the afternoon discussing my ideas, plans and goals for the business. We used the whiteboard to:

  1. Distilled all my ideas into just one short term goal
  2. Outline all the steps I needed to get there
  3. Ordered those steps from first to last
  4. Prioritised those steps, by removing things that weren’t 100% essential

The difference this made to the way I work, my daily operations and my business performance is outstanding! The speed that i was able to complete each task and move onto the next impressed even me!

I walk past the whiteboard multiple times every single day, even subconsciously i was focused on my goal! Last night when I did this, I stopped dead still. I was looking through the list of things I hadn’t done yet. There was nothing! I had completed the whole list! I was floored!

2. Track your Hours

The second change I made this month, is tracking my own time in my business. I originally did this because most of my clients are packaged and I want to ensure that my pricing was correct. I certainly didn’t predict the way this would impact the way I work!

Time tracking has so many benefits, here are the ones I have found:

  1. It ensured I stayed focus on one task at a time. If I had recorded a start time to be working with one client, when I found myself getting distracted. I noticed what was happening and instead of disappearing down a rabbit hole, I was able to nudge myself back on track.
  2. Things do not take as long as i think they do! If I have 20 minutes before a meeting, I find something that I know I can complete in 20 minutes. This article for example, the clock is saying 20 minutes, and this is my third edit!
  3. It helped me to see what i do and what i don’t need to outsource. By understanding how long things actually took i was able to identify tasks that i spend too much time on, and things that although i thought were time consuming, are in fact relatively quick.

These two small changes have also made a huge impact to my mindset! I feel more confident than ever that I am on the right track and coming into a strong 2020. It also was a stark reminder that there is always opportunities to grow and improve.