2021 – A New Year, New Opportunities, New Decisions

Posted on by Regine Albrecht

If you followed my Advent Calendar, you know that I shared some tips and food for thought for you and your business. The last one will be this blog: setting you and your business up for a successful 2021.

We all are happy that 2020 is almost over, and we can move on into a hopefully better year. There are things that are beyond our control, but there are also many things that will be up to us to make 2021 a good year. As you may know, I’m a big believer in planning. The reason being, without a plan you don’t know where to focus your energy and discern what is important. You may start projects because they appear interesting, only to find out that they are not the right move for your business at this point in time.

It takes some reflecting and strategizing to determine what your business needs right now, what projects to start, what projects to continue, and what projects to abort to reach your business goals. By the way, the same is also true for your personal goals.

Around Christmas and before the start of the new year is my “quiet time.” Most people and businesses take a break. It’s the perfect time for me to take stock and have a look back. I invite you to do the same.

Looking Back

The first step is looking back at what has happened the last twelve months, or whatever your chosen timeframe may be. What has happened, and what impact did it have on your business. Write it down.

Finding the Truth

Especially in cases where I haven’t achieved my goal(s), I dig deeper and ask myself WHY and WHAT happened. Be like Sherlock Holmes and find all the big and little things that have led to the current situation.

Please don’t fall into the trap of making excuses such as no time, no money… that’s not what we’re after. You may not have had the time, but there is often an underlying reason for that, the real reason. That’s what you’d like to uncover. You may not have had the money, write down why. The insights you’ll gain will guide your decisions for the next year or the time period you chose.

Maybe the cost for an assistant or a new team member is outside of your budget and you have to rely on the resources at your disposal. It means you’ll have to plan without having the additional help. Maybe a project went south despite a promising start. Figuring out why is essential for avoiding the same mistake(s). Maybe you haven’t reached the number of subscribers you had aimed for. Analyzing what happened will inform your next steps.

But it is equally important to look at the things that went well. Asking WHY in these cases will give you insights into what you should do more of. For example, you may understand what type of projects are a great fit for your company, you may find out which people you work with really well. You’ll learn what triggered people to subscribe to your new service.

Write it all down. The good and the bad.

Planning the Future

Now that you have a clear picture of where you are at with your business, you have to decide where you will go from here. Write down all the ideas, plans, and projects you have in mind.  After you are done, take a close look at them and ask yourself which ones truly align with your business purpose and goals. If all of them pass this test, you need to consider the one or two that will have the greatest impact on your business.

You don’t need to discard the other ideas, projects, or plans. But focusing on one or two major projects will ensure that you stay focused and get things moving forward. It also helps you avoid feeling overwhelmed–at least some of the time–because you have too many balls in the air. A good rule of thumb is to account for problems along the way. Often things appear simpler than they really are. And experience has shown me that everything usually takes longer than expected.

This is it for me for 2020. I’ll take some time off and hope to see you again in February 2021.

I wish you lots of success, and may your businesses flourish and grow.

Say NO more more often

Posted on by Regine Albrecht

Imagine this situation: A friend, family, or team member approaches you and asks you for a favor. It’s a small favor, you think. And without even thinking about it, you say yes.

A couple of minutes, sometimes a couple of hours, later you realize that this small favor is really cutting into your day more than you had bargained for. You start to move your own commitments and responsibilities around to make it all work. You’re angry, and you feel stressed. You wonder why you said yes in the first place.

How do you avoid this situation? Don’t say YES right away. Ask for a bit of time to consider your answer and give it later. This way you can check in with yourself and your calendar what impact this YES will have.

In my blog “Darn, why did I say yes…. I wrote in more detail about it. Check it out. Or have a look at this blog.

Focus Time

Posted on by Regine Albrecht

In a previous post I explained why multitasking is impairing your productivity and efficiency and suggested turning off notifications on your devices.

I know this may be easier said than done. We don’t want to miss important calls from a prospective customer or an urgent question from a team member. So, how to go about it?

Here are 3 steps that’ll help you work around this problem: 

  1. Ask yourself the question: What is the time of day with the least calls or disruptions? This could mean dealing with kids at home, answering calls from your team or customers, you name it.
  2. This time with the least disruptions is your focus time, time to work on your complex and important projects or tasks. Turn off notifications on all your devices or set them on flight mode, turn off everything that would distract you, and yes, that means TV and radio, and get to work.

Everything that will land in your inbox or on your voicemail will be attended to after your focus time.

  1. Last but not least, don’t allow anybody to “steal” this time from you (emergencies excluded of course). Inform your team, your colleagues, or your family that you’ll be offline for x-amount of time and available afterwards.

I know, it’s far more difficult with kids. But even with kids there are periods in your day during which they won’t need you. Maybe you have to be more flexible. Maybe you have to limit your focus time to 20 minutes instead of one hour. Whatever time you can carve out make sure you use it well.

Remember, there is no such thing as perfect, but there is always the best we can do.

Take a Break to Make Progress

Posted on by Regine Albrecht

Sometimes the best way to make progress is stepping away from whatever we are doing. It may sound counterproductive, so let’s have a look at why this may be true.

Imagine you are working on a project and have made quite some progress, but all of a sudden you get stuck. You run into a problem and, for the life of you, you can’t figure out how to solve it.

Instead of wracking your brain hour after hour, going for a walk, talking with a colleague, getting your daily exercise in, may be far more conducive to finding the solution because you allow your brain to shift and get a fresh perspective.

How often have you struggled with a task and just because you were called away from it you later realized that the solution was staring you in the face, you just didn’t see it? Or you notice something that has escaped you before?

Don’t wait for someone to call you away. Take the initiative!

Take a break. Do something unrelated. Give yourself some time to look at the problem with a fresh set of eyes. I bet you’ll come up with an answer.

Give it a try and see what happens.

Multitasking Kills Your Productivity

Posted on by Regine Albrecht

Every time I hear the word “multitasking” I cringe. Why? Because 99% of humans can’t do it. It’s a myth. What we may perceive as or call “multitasking” is in fact the splitting of our attention between tasks. Our brain very quickly moves back and forth between tasks and that is costing energy and brain power. 

The worst part? We tend to make mistakes or overlook important details and have to redo our work or correct our mistakes.

What does this mean in terms of our productivity and efficiency? Instead of being faster and more efficient, we actually need more time. This is particularly significant when we’re working on complex problems or tasks. Once taken out of our train of thought by a notification, a phone call, a quick chat, you name it, we need to find our way back to where we have left off. 

Do you have time to squander? If the answer is no, I invite you to turn off your notifications on your devices, turn off your TV, and turn off your radio when you need to concentrate on a complex task. Your work will be better for it, and you will be done quicker. If you want to read a little more about multitasking, go to my blog: The Myth of Multitasking

Make Working from Home Work for You – Part 3: Habits that help you succeed

Posted on by Regine Albrecht

We made it to part 3 (here are part 1 and part 2), the part that is in fact a constant work in progress: developing and cultivating good (work) habits. Especially during very busy times or at times when motivation is a little low in supply, they can be a lifesaver.

According to the Oxford Dictionary a habit is “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.”

Since we’re focusing on good work habits, that’s exactly what we’d like to achieve. We aim for minimal effort to get something going or help us getting over a hump. Yes, I do realize that habits also have a dark side, but for the purpose of this blog let’s focus on the positive ones.

How do you go about cultivating good work habits? As the word “cultivating” implies, it takes time, effort and experimentation. You start off with a strategy or idea and over time you learn if it’s working for you or not. You may get tips from others, observe others how they do something or deal with a situation, or you read about it. In some cases, you’ll know right away what won’t work for you. Perfect. This saves you time, so don’t even bother. In other cases, you have to try to find out if this suggestion suits you, and tweak it a bit to make it yours.

What it actually comes down to is that you really have to get to know yourself, the flow of your day, situations that may throw you off, and all the other little sneaky things that keep you from doing what you should or need to do.

Cultivating good work habits isn’t a skill, it’s a practice.

Planning Your Day

Calendars – Planners

One of my most crucial habits is planning my day. My preferred way is to plan the next day the night before. Sometimes that doesn’t work, so I do it before I start my day in the office. I noticed, however, that when I do it the night before I get up in the morning and already have a plan. It just feels good to visualize the day ahead, know where I have to be when, and what I would like to have done by the end of it.

Insights & Actions

In one of my previous blogs I mentioned that at the end of most days I take a moment to check in and see what worked and what didn’t. I call it “Insights & Actions.” By doing so I discovered what my most productive environment looks like, when I’m getting things done, but also when I struggled to finish or do my work. I include these insights in my planning.

The Most Difficult Task

If I have something that I find difficult to do, I try to get it out of the way as early as possible in the day. Good-bye procrastination. By getting it done right away I feel good about having tackled a difficult task, but, maybe even more importantly, I also avoided allowing it to become a “bigger” problem, at least in my head. A win-win!

Calendar Miracle

I have also started using my calendar in a better way. Why do I mention this? Stay with me, I’ll explain. To keep track of my tasks I use Microsoft To Do. Each morning I go through “My Day” and check the things I plan on doing. That includes quick things like calling someone or checking on the status of something, but it also includes all my projects such as redesigning my website, doing research for and writing my next blog. What it doesn’t show is the amount of time I may need for the individual tasks. That was a BIG problem for me. The number of tasks I wanted to tackle per day was simply unrealistic. After I started blocking chunks of time in my calendar for the bigger projects, I got much better at estimating what I can accomplish each day. A tiny change with a huge impact.

Dressed for the Occasion

Dressed for the occasion

Be Ready

In order to be able to focus on your work, it is helpful to have everything ready before you start. Like a chef who prepares his workstation and has all ingredients handy before he starts cooking, putting everything in place for the work you intend to do avoids distractions. I’m talking about files, documents, notepaper, pen, something to drink, you name it. It’ll cost you precious time, for example, if you have to search for a specific document in the middle of your work. The same idea can be applied when you are finished with something. I still remember that I was turning my office upside down in search of a document I hadn’t filed away after a conference call. I had buried it under a pile of paper totally unrelated and it took me quite some time to dig it up again.

The Myth of Multitasking

Multitasking is an interesting concept, at least when used in connection with humans. Women are supposedly much better at it than men. Unfortunately, this is a myth. Multitasking is a concept from the computer world and should stay there. We, as humans, usually do a lousy job if we try. We either sacrifice our attention or the quality of our work if we attempt it. What does this have to do with good work habits? It’s simple. If you work on a complex task or need to focus on something a good work habit is to eliminate distractions.

Lack of Motivation

What can you do if you lack motivation? Do you need a break? Would calling a friend help you? You most likely know other solopreneurs or “home workers.” Go ahead, call someone and ask for a little pep-talk. If you can afford the time, do something else on your To Do list. I’m sure there is something on it that’ll kick you into gear again. Move your body, exercise, take a walk around the block, do your laundry, turn on music, do some jumping jacks.

A friend of mine rewards herself with a good book, a coffee, a movie, something fun after she has finished a specific task.

And sometimes you have no other choice but bite the bullet and do it, whether you feel like it or not. Sounds familiar? Then you may know Steven Pressfield’s book “The War of Art.” If you don’t know it, it is “A vital gem… a kick in the ass,” according to Esquire.

Batching

Before I come to the end, there is one more habit I’d like to mention: batching. Batch similar tasks. It’s much easier for the brain and needs less energy. As an example, don’t pay invoices or enter a payment each time you receive one. Wait until you have a couple, and do them all at once. If you have to make a bunch of calls, schedule a time to do them all. If you need to find images for your blog and/or newsletter… you get the idea.

Now let’s wrap this up for today. I mentioned a couple of habits you may consider trying out. If you do, be consistent. Give it some time (I’m not talking about days, I’m talking about weeks!). Ask yourself along the way, what works and why and what doesn’t and why. These answers will hold the information you’ll need to find and cultivate your own best habits.

A good time to look at your habits and routines is when you or your business undergo change. The questions to ask are: Do these routines or habits still serve and support me? Is there a better or easier way to do it?

And with this, I am turning this over to you. Do you have proven habits or routines you swear by? Please let us know.

Until next time,
Regine