Tag: Baby Boomers

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Stay More Focused with These Five Simple Steps

Focus shows you have the drive and desire to want to achieve something. It’s about putting all your energy into one thing and getting it down with grit and determination. It ingrains your goals and keeps you on the path of success. However, it’s hard to maintain and easily affects your business if you don’t.

 

Here are five steps to improve your focus and prevent self-sabotage from destroying your success:

 

Step 1: Find Your Mantra

Everyone has something unique to them that drives them to keep going—for example, putting on music while you work or giving yourself words of encouragement. Whatever it may be, find what resonates with you and repeat it every day before you get to work. If you are not sure, try giving yourself a pep talk in the mirror first thing in the morning and see just how much more productive and positive your day becomes.

 

Step 2: Commit to Healthy Routines

Adopting a healthy lifestyle and exercise routine is one of the best ways to ensure you get the right nutrients your body needs to function optimally. Poor concentration and memory problems are direct messages from your body that it is missing essential nutrients to work correctly. Learn to listen to it and always strive to provide it what it needs.

 Avoid Burnout: How to Exercise and Sleep More

Step 3: Eliminate Distractions

Put your distractions like cell phones in a different room or turn on your StayFocused chrome browser extension to block YouTube or other sites you always lose track of time on. Create the right working environment that inspires you to work at your best and quickly. Throw out clutter and things that don’t provide value to your work.

 

Step 4: Commit to Mindfulness

To be more focused, you have to commit to do so and be mindful of your actions and surroundings. You can’t expect others to provide that information for you, nor will their perspective be automatically valuable. As only you know what you need and want from life, no one else. Only you know if music distracts you or if your set goals don’t actually align, for example.

 

Step 5: Plan More Effectively

Find the right time of day to do your work. All humans have a set number of productive hours and times of day that work best for them. Test and experiment with various schedules to see what works best for you. Just because everyone else works a 9 to 5 schedule doesn’t mean you have to, too.

 

Don’t let your lack of focus get in your way any longer. Determine what you really want in life, create an action plan, take responsibility, and control your own life.

Stay More Focused with These Five Simple Steps

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Always Plan First and Last

The thing that marks a good business is planning. A business plan for where they hope to bring their business and daily plans to guide their actions to achieve it.

 

You’ve likely heard the famous quote “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” many times before, and that is because it is so powerful and accurate. There is no other way to put it. Just because you don’t plan doesn’t mean you don’t know the direction it will go. As statistics prove over again, you are more likely to go down than up.

Business Plan Resources You Can Use

Here are a few tips and tricks to apply for better planning your day and business:

 

Plan First and Last

An often-used productivity hack by many businesses and entrepreneurs includes creating a to-do list at the beginning and end of their workday. This strategy improves your business overall by increasing your time management skills, consistency, and accountability.

 

When you start and end with a to-do list, you allow flexibility and ensure you are always working on your top priorities and staying on topic—enabling you to cut out unnecessary or mundane tasks that only keep you away from your main objective.

 

Not only that, but it can also be a great reminder and motivational factor. Lists enable you to be ready to go and can give you the push to get started sooner.

 

Make It Simple and Fun

Planning doesn’t have to be complicated, and business isn’t always dull. Use colorful pens or fun phone applications to write down your goals. Add fun and small rewards when you accomplish each step. Remember to keep it simple, and to the point, so it doesn’t overwhelm you.

 

Think Small, Medium, and Large

Think about three objectives you want to accomplish for that day but organize them into three separate categories:

 

  • One Large – The task you want to do right away as it’s the hardest to do and makes the most significant impact on your main objective for that month.
  • One Medium – This is the bulk of your day that isn’t too hard to do but likely to use more of your time—for example, a group meeting or coffee with a client.
  • One Small – This is the task you can focus on at the end of your day and relax. Ideally, you want this task to be easy and pretty mindless.

 

This method aims to give you a starting point and organize your day where you are not running out of energy and momentum.

 

Don’t let your days get away from you anymore with these planning tips. Remember, a business without a plan is one that will likely fail. Don’t let that be you when you have the power and control to make it happen with the right strategy and commitment to daily action.

 

How to Be Realistic About Time

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Invest in More Training and Education

When you invest in more training and education, you are investing in yourself and ensuring a successful life for you and your business. Through education, creativity and innovation are born. What you achieve and don’t do in life is a symptom of the knowledge and experiences you have gained.

 

As they commonly say, “You can’t know what you don’t know.” Simple to put, yet complex in nature when you really break it down. In other words, when you lack the knowledge, you can’t make the right decisions. This is why it’s essential to take the time to find and invest in the right education to be sure you do what needs to be done to live your idea of success.

 

The following are four important reasons you should never skip on an opportunity to learn and gain more knowledge:

The Importance of Continued Learning in Life and Business

To Increase Your Reputation and Trustworthiness

To make a sale in a business, you need to form trust with your target audience. This requires your ability to build a favorable reputation for your brand. The more you educate yourself within your industry, the better you can understand how to do this.

 

To Bring About New Opportunities and Experiences

Personal growth, innovation, and creativity are developed through the experiences and opportunities you take. You get a chance to see life from many different perspectives as you meet and interact with more people. Giving you more opportunities to network and to better optimize your business.

 Be More Proactive and Less Reactive to Achieve Higher Success

To Have A Competitive Advantage

The one consistency to life is change. While scary to most, it is actually a beautiful thing. Change has afforded you all the wonderful experiences, people, and possessions you get to enjoy today. Change in business can happen fast, and before you know it, you are no longer relevant. Education can keep you relevant and ahead of your competition as you are proactive to keep up and become more creative.

 

To Improve Strengths and Weaknesses

Finally, but certainly not least, education provides you the ability to improve your weakness and perfect your strengths. Even more so, it can unlock abilities and skills you never know you had. Further increasing your creativity and giving your business a unique and personal advantage.

 

To Improve Empathy and Compassion

Education provides you information and different perspectives about the world. Empathy and compassion help you develop a deep understanding of the world, its challenges, and how people interact. With empathy and compassion, you can create better products, ideas and get through obstacles more efficiently and successfully.

 

Investing in education will always be a gain, even if you can’t see it directly. It can improve the quality of work, increase your revenue, improve your communication and understanding of the world to better plan and be more effective with your time. Increasing your success and happiness in the long run, making it one of, if not, the best investment you can make in business.

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Essential Elements of The Realistic Optimist

If you want to be more productive, striving to be more of a realistic optimist might be the strategy for you. If you ask a successful entrepreneur what values or attitudes you should project, realism and optimism will likely be high on their list. An optimistic mindset should always be filtered with realism to see success. You can be a positive person all day long, but that doesn’t mean you will get what you want if you don’t act.

 

Here are a few tips to help you become a realistic optimist:

 

Unrealistic Vs. Realistic Optimist: Understand the Difference

One of the best methods to learning how to do something is to discover what not to do first. Being positive is great and has many benefits but doesn’t do anyone favors if it’s unrealistic. Toxic positivity only keeps you back and focused on the wrong things.

 

The distinction between a realistic optimist and an unrealistic one is their actions and their perspective on the world. Unrealistic optimists believe they will have success no matter what, even if they don’t work on it. They deserve and are owed success and the path to it won’t be complicated or challenging.

 

Realistic optimists are the exact opposite. While they too believe their life will be successful, they understand it is still up to them to realize that they have to seek knowledge and education, recognize mistakes, improve skills, and go after their dreams. They don’t wait around for it to come. They are proactive and always take on new challenges because they see them grow and gain more.

Changing Your Mindset: Attitude is Everything

Keep It Positive but Relevant and Attainable

An optimist is someone who is hopeful and confident about their life and the direction it will go. They believe that the world is ultimately good, and that evil will never prevail. While it sounds great, it’s not very practical on its own.

 

The world may be ultimately good, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be hard or challenging, which is why you need realism to balance it out. Realism makes sure that the plan you are taking is relevant to your ultimate dreams and ultimately attainable.

 

Only Focus on What You Can Control

One of the main objectives of a realistic optimist is to only focus on and control what you can. There is no point in ruminating or overthinking something that you have no ability to change.

 

You can’t change the weather; you can’t control people’s emotions, but you can control how you respond and which actions you take or don’t to get around it. You know the weather can change at a moment’s notice, so always have a plan B, for example.

 

Use these tips to be more positive and realistic to achieve maximum productivity, happiness and never miss any opportunity.

 

Changing Your Mindset: Attitude is Everything

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Your Lack of Realism Is Stalling Your Success

Realism allows you to manage your time better to plan more efficiently with improved confidence, clarity, and focus on tackling your goals. Realism ensures positivity and actions that result in creating attainable and relevant pursuits. Realistic people are said to be more independent and practical with their time.

Managing Your Mental State (When Times Are Tough) or (Through Adversity)

They use education, knowledge, and mindfulness to their advantage to make the right decisions. You will rarely see them go with the flow or not take a moment to recognize it for what it truly is. Without realism, you are likely down a rocky path of confusion and low self-confidence as you continue to accomplish goals that don’t lead to happiness or try to go after ones that don’t make sense and are out of reach.

This is a Great Jim Rohn Video that highlights the Steps to setting Realistic Goals. Pure Gold!

 

The following are a few tips to help you be more realistic to improve your business and life:

 

Always Stop to Think and Evaluate

Your parents might have told you this already, but it’s important to reiterate and harder than one might think. However, it’s the first step you should take to being more realistic. If you don’t stop and thoroughly analyze the situation, it could lead to more problems down the road. Miscommunication often stems from reacting right away rather than fully listening and being aware in that moment. It only takes a few minutes to evaluate your situation to be sure the information you are receiving and dissecting is accurate or not.

 

Develop More Awareness

Realism develops through experiences and education. Taking the time to learn about other people and the challenges or different things they go through in life allows you to see a different perspective and really see things for what they are. When you know all sides of the equation, you won’t be shocked at the result.  Join local events, industry conferences and surround yourself with more people that have similar interests and goals.

Ask for Feedback and Advice

Don’t shy away from constructive feedback, advice, or different point of view. The purpose is to provide you more insight and information you can’t see for yourself. Even if their opinions may not be true in the end, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t value you in some way. Now you know what not to do, for example.

 

Take Responsibility

Commit to being more mindful and responsible for your actions and inactions. This means being proactive with your life and gaining the knowledge required to form the success you want. Recognize your mistakes and find ways to improve, and always strive to be and do better.

 

Remember, the key to realism is to slow down, experience more, take in as much information as possible to create the right action steps to achieve your dreams and aspirations.

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Quit These Bad Time Management Habits Now

Adopting the right time management habits and routine for your business is essential for maximum productivity. Obviously, if you don’t have the time or can’t manage it appropriately, you will always be behind.

 

Here are five common bad time management habits you must quit now for better business success:

 

Creating Variable Deadlines

If your deadlines are not strict or hard, then you are only doing yourself a disservice and further using up and wasting time. More so than if you didn’t set one in the first place. Every time you move that deadline, you use adequate time to focus on action instead. Set firm ones to keep you on track and find the discipline you need to be a business owner.

 

Utilizing the Wrong Tools or Too Many

Tools are great until they are not. With any technology or resources, even if they work great for others, it doesn’t mean it will automatically be right for you. Each person and business is unique and needs to be studied, tried, and tested.

 

Doing Easy Tasks First

Don’t use your most productive time on easy or brainless tasks. Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean you should get it out of the way. Use these tasks at the end of your day, or when you don’t need to focus on a bigger or better project that brings you closer to your main objectives.

How To Manage Your Energy

Just imagine you start your workday full of energy, ready to tackle your most demanding project but then fall into the never-ending rabbit hole of emails. Your energy is drained before you know it, and now you have to slug through your work to reach your deadlines. Affecting the quality of your work and likely decreasing your willpower. Making you create excuses to give you permission to change your deadlines and delaying any results that truly make you productive.

 

Zero Time Tracking Tools

If you are not tracking the time it takes you to complete each task, you are not planning appropriately. Effective time management and planning include understanding precisely the time you need to get it done and then applying fifteen to twenty extra minutes to account for the unexpected.

 

Being Someone That You Are Not

Trying to go after all the latest trends or following the advice of everyone around you constantly without taking a break, being dishonest with yourself, and not being true to yourself is a recipe for disaster.

 

Their habits may work for them, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be the most valuable or comfortable for you too. If you keep doing things just because everyone else is but unhappy and uncomfortable about the process, your business and customers will see it too. Always be honest with yourself and keep the journey more personal for more success.

 

Don’t let these bad habits control your life. You have what it takes to do and be better as long as you put in the work and take a moment to reflect.

 

 

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6 Steps to Quarterly Planning for Increased Productivity

Quarterly planning is a strategic productivity hack that organizes your goals and objectives into a 90-day action. This method is designed to help you accomplish more goals in less time.

 

Here are eight steps to quarterly planning so you can better manage your time and increase your productivity:

 

Step 1: Start with A Clear Vision

Define your idea of success, dreams, and aspirations you wish to achieve for your business. Visualize what you want for your business and life. If you have already developed a business plan, then this should be pretty easy to get started.

 

Step 2: Set Your Dates

Choose the quarters you want to work in. Ideally, these quarters or 3-month periods should be set to make sense to your business and its processes. Keep in mind your busy seasons, when your customers have the most revenue or problems to solve, or any other important information that could affect the flow of business.

 

Most businesses and organizations use the quarterly schedule as following:

 

  • Q1 – January 1 to March 31
  • Q2 – April 1 to June 30
  • Q3 – July 1 to September 30th
  • Q4 – October 1 to December 31st

 

Step 3: Outline Your Main Objective

Now that you have determined your quarter dates, you need to develop three main objectives you wish to work on for the next three months that each can be accomplished within three to four weeks. These main objectives should get you close to your vision and idea of success that you set in step one.

 

Step 4: Create Action Steps, Deadlines, and Set Priority Levels

Develop three to four action steps that allow you to accomplish the main objective you set for that month. Be clear of the resources you need, what values and morals you need to instill for success, your strengths, and weakness and what obstacles may get in your way.  Then set deadlines and a priority level of high, medium, or low. This way, you know which action to take to get you where you need to be and on time.

 

Step 5: Be Mindful and Keep Track

Be mindful of your actions, practice discipline, and track your results for real success. Be realistic.

 

Step 6: Stop, Evaluate and Repeat

You can’t have a successful plan if you don’t take the time to evaluate. You need to make sure it is optimized for your goals and business success. Ask yourself open-ended questions and reflect on the actions and goals you accomplished. Keep in mind your emotions and feelings while doing it too. All successful plans change and grow over time.

 

If you haven’t already changed to a quarterly schedule yet, then use these six steps to get started in no time and reap the benefits before it’s too late.

Outsourcing: The Key to Success for The Life Affirming Entrepreneur

 

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Give Your Business A HIIT

HIIT stands for high-intensity interval training, a popular exercise routine that combines bursts of intense exercise with short rest periods. It is designed to maximize your workouts within the shortest amount of time. Believe it or not, this strategy doesn’t need to stay in the gym. You can use it on your business to reach maximum productivity too.

 

Here is how to use the HIIT method to achieve more and increase your productivity:

 

Work in Intervals but Be Realistic

Set intervals and break times that work with your schedule and the task you need to finish. Keep in mind that not every task is design to be performed in intervals or too short of periods. Be realistic regarding the activities you can do and be sure the time intervals you pick are optimal for quality, quantity, and other metrics you use to measure your business success.

 

A Pomodoro timer can be used to help you get started. With this timer, you work in a 25-minute burst with five-minute breaks. You can also adjust the times and intervals that make sense for you if you need more time to work. However, the faster you can push yourself, the better this strategy will work.

 

For example, content writers and authors will use “writing sprints” to encourage their creativity, find inspiration and reach a higher word count. They use the breaks to recharge and better manage their energy. They also use it to challenge their fellow writers in a fun writing game or challenge.

 

Check out Kiingo Writing Sprints on Twitter to give it a try and join the next challenge.

 

Don’t Skip the Break

All HIIT training sessions include quick little breaks in their routine to give you a short time to recenter and recover so you can better attack the next challenge. Therefore, you should be including five-to-twenty-minute breaks in your schedule before you start a new task.

 

If you skip the break, you are not using this method correctly or effectively. To reap the benefits, you must work as hard as possible during the first burst, meaning you’ll want the rest and need it to get back to the next interval.

Scheduling to Avoid Burnout: Learn to Take More Breaks

Keep Track and Measure Progress

Don’t rely on yourself or your memory to keep track of time and progress. Invest in a timer, stopwatch, and project management tools to record the intervals, cycles, and times required for each task.

 

Experiment and Adjust

Just because one set interval didn’t work doesn’t mean another won’t. Change up the interval number and times depending on the project. Then analyze the results to see which interval times allowed you to get the most done.

 

Overall, the main idea of HIIT is to work in short periods as hard as possible with a break right around the corner to encourage you to get to work and get it done faster.

 

 

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Stop Doing Everything and Hire Help

Being a business owner or entrepreneur doesn’t mean you must do all the work to see results or need to stay busy all the time. Having these kinds of high expectations keeps you and your business back from seeing the success it deserves. Low self-esteem and energy are not healthy for business or your overall health and mental clarity.

 

Here are five tips designed to help you let go of control and hire more help so you can better manage your time to lead a more productive business:

 

Highlight Your Weak Points and Other Stress Areas

The best place to start is the business areas that you are not too comfortable doing or lack enough education to do well. Accounting and customer service are by far the most common areas people outsource. Accounting takes years to understand, and customer service can often be tedious and stressful.

 

Develop A Clear and Direct Job Description

To gain actual value from having employees or contractors, you need to find the right person for the job. Create a clear and direct job description listing all your expectations and requirements for the job. Don’t skip on the little things or hold back on anything. In fact, always share the points of the job that you find the most challenging right away. The point is to be sure that those who try to apply for the job are the best for the position.

 

Utilize A Virtual Assistant

Let your virtual assistant take over the tedious and time-consuming tasks, including customer service or scheduling and setting up important meetings and other similar and repeatable tasks.

 

Hire Expert Freelancers

Hire freelancers that specialize in specific areas such as social media marketing or content creation. Expert freelancers can better set up your social media pages, add campaigns, and more to increase your engagement to maximize results and profits better. This is because they have the dedicated time and resources to become an expert in their field. When you can focus on one subject, you can master the processes and techniques to get it done faster.

 

Use Smart Phone Applications to Find Hires

There are so many different applications and companies designed for hiring help for many other business areas in a matter of seconds. Some popular choices include:

 

  • TaskRabbit – Find any repair person from your fingertips the same day. From moving trucks to cleaning services, contact deliveries, and more. TaskRabbit allows you to create tasks, send messages and pictures to a certified tasker easily and professionally.
  • Fancy Hands – The most popular US-based service to find your next virtual assistant all on the same day.
  • Fiverr – On this platform, you can find just about any freelancer or service required for business and more, starting at just five dollars a project.

8 Things You Should Outsource in Your Business

You don’t need to do everything to be successful. Use these tips and tools and get more help today.

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It’s Not the Deadlines; It’s Your Lack of Discipline

Deadlines are not the problem, nor are other people and the long list of excuses you have made for yourself. It’s your lack of discipline and willpower. Discipline is about regulating or training your brain to do what is right even if you don’t feel like it or want to.

 

It’s about taking responsibility to overcome your weaknesses and to fight off temptations. It’s about acting and going forward to achieve your goals and aspirations. Without it, you’ll let your procrastination ruin and run your life forever.

 

To better your self-discipline, try these five ideas:

 

Change Your Perspective and Mindset

Instead of saying “I should do this,” say “I must do this” and then provide a solid and apparent reason. We do things for pleasure, and we avoid pain. Don’t allow for excuses, and it won’t always feel right, nor will the stars be aligned perfectly every day.

 

Fight Off Distractions and Temptations

Set up your environment to avoid temptations, don’t have junk food in the house, and avoid the junk food aisles at stores.

 

Reward Yourself and Take A Break

Forgive yourself, take days off and build a healthy reward system for your goals and to-do lists. Good results don’t happen consistently if you are constantly running on empty or jumping from deadline to deadline with no opportunity to reward yourself and be proud of your accomplishments.

 

Define Your Consequences

If you don’t make your deadline or never realize your dreams and aspirations, what are the consequences? Record them and put them somewhere you are reminded of to give you the push you need to keep going.

 

If you don’t have any consequences, make them, and find an accountability partner to provide the punishment. Most deadlines are purposeful but hardly motiving due to the lack of consequences. Especially if you are sitting around waiting for the world to make you successful.

 

Commit to Self-Awareness and Reflect

Perform a self-evaluation routinely to dissect your weaknesses and strengths inside and out. List any resources or things you believe have contributed to your growth or current problems. Then voice them aloud to yourself and recognized your truths. The more you do this, the better you can understand where to practice and better develop your skills.

 

Remember, the path to improving your self-discipline won’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual process combined with the proper steps consistently each day to do better. Practice will make it easier, and one day you won’t even have to try anymore.

Perseverance Requires Persistence