Project management is among a top skill to master in any business; especially one wanting to grow.
Why?
Because without project management, business owners will unnecessarily run into common issues:
You often get derailed by "the unexpected.”
It’s inevitable.
You get interrupted an unexpected number of times daily. Those interruptions come at unexpected times. They each take an unexpected amount of time with which to deal.
That’s why it’s "the unexpected."
These interruptions kill your flow, destroy your focus, and force you to work on the urgent instead of the important.
So how do you deter, prevent, and deal with the problems these unexpected interruptions incur?
I was shocked, hurt, and felt like my idea had been stolen. Though I had the idea first, Nintendo would be the star. Nintendo would make $millions. It took years before I was old enough to recognize the important lesson in this experience...
Are you second-guessing your next great idea? Are you downplaying the value you could provide to others? Are you upset that you found a competitor in the market who seems to be offering everything you want to (and seems to be finding great success doing it)?
It might be time to step back and realize a few important things.
It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?
The constant hustle. The endless grind. The relentless push to overachieve.
Every other social media post seems to have some self-improvement quote floating over a well-dressed celebrity, hustle-guilting you into working harder.
They tell us to never stop, never surrender.
They tell us to wake up at 5 am, exercise, side-hustle for a few hours, then put in a full workday and side-some hustle some more before hitting the sack.
You are only as productive as your environment. So let’s get your main work environment, your office, as productive as possible.
Here are 19 tiny changes (with affiliate links to products that I’ve personally used to enhance my productivity) that can do exactly that. Try one, or try them all. The more changes, the more you’ll find you have the clarity, focus, time, and energy to work on what matters.
Sometimes, at the end of the day, it feels like you've kept busy yet accomplished nothing.
It's not that you didn't work hard. You answered emails. You took phone calls. You attended meetings. You made decisions.
But for some reason you got nothing done.
Well, that's not true. You got other people's work done, just not your own. You've made little progress toward your goals. You've been running around solving other people's problems. You've been answering other people's questions, and spending time in their meetings.
There's a solution to this problem. It’s a way to move closer to your goals every day while quickly separating busy work from important work.
It's called the Eisenhower Priority Matrix. Here's how it works:
Now, here's how you deal with each quadrant:
Not Urgent and Not Important? Delete it. These are things like checking Facebook, organizing files on your computer, or other trivial tasks.
Urgent but Not Important? Delegate it. Making dinner reservations, dealing with unimportant emails, and booking flights would qualify here.
Not Urgent but Important? Schedule it. These are things that must get done, but keep getting kicked to the back burner. This would include activities like calling a family member, exercising, developing a marketing plan for your business, etc.
Urgent and Important? Do it. Right now. This is real work. This is where the rubber hits the road. This is where you make real progress toward your goals. Today.
That's it!
If you've ever wondered why you stay so busy but get so little done, this just might be the answer.
It's a simple tool, but should keep you massively productive every day, and leave you with a sense of accomplishment (and time for fun and games)!
I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.
Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.
If there's one thing that can confuse you, make you procrastinate, or cause undue stress in your day, it's thinking of all the things you should do.
I should meditate.
I should floss my teeth.
I should wake-up early.
Keep a gratitude journal. Plan my day. Update my website. Should, should, should.
It's downright exhausting. And what's worse, it's counterproductive.
Because people rarely do what they should do. But they always do what they have to do.
Take note though, I'm not talking about having to email someone back. I'm not talking about having to take out the garbage. I'm talking about something deep in your soul, telling what you have to do... what you MUST do.
Sure, maybe you should meditate. But if you have to update your sales funnel to convert a higher percentage of customers for your new product, then that becomes your priority.
Yes, sending that email is what you should do, but if you have to create a new Facebook Ad to generate new leads that will drive your new product sales to new heights, then that is your priority.
Should is not your priority. The things you should do are those nagging tasks that would be nice to have done, but not critical. Given enough time, the things you should be doing will turn into things you might want to do if you have time, which then will transform into things you know you'll never do because they really aren't all that important.
The things you have to do are your priority. And focusing on those tasks will bring you clarity, relieve you of undue stress, and make procrastinating an artifact of the past.
Forget about what you should do and start working on that which you have to do.
I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.
Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.
Half of us were annoyed. The other half were pissed.
“We have to let users ‘undo’. Our product is useless without it," I argued (I was on the pissed off team in case you’re wondering).
“But nobody is going to NOT buy our product just because there’s no undo," came the response.
We argued far longer than we should have, debating the intricacies of an undo button and whether our engineering team should develop this one feature for our customers.
After multiple meetings, half a dozen arguments, and hurt feelings all around, a decision was finally made.
Sort of.
The thought of burning cash on a new employee who can't keep up with the work and is making life worse for everyone around them is a real threat.
On the flip side are small business owners who need to hire but won't pull the trigger. They stand frozen by uncertainty. They don't know who to hire, and can't justify hiring to grow their business. So they don't act. Their businesses are suffering from overwork and stagnant growth.
What these unfortunate small business owners don’t have is a method to sort through the confusion, making it clear when to bring on a new employee, and what skills they should have.
This is the method I’m going to show you today. And if you’re not sure it’s needed, consider this:
