16 Nov 2010 by Leave a Comment

5 More Things to Do So You Can Have More Time

Want to get more of the right things done? These tips are sure to help you.

6. Stop multi-tasking

Yes, you read that correctly 😉 When you try and do multiple tasks, your attention is split and you lose focus. The lack of focus means that you end up spending a lot longer completing your task because you’re not fully engaged.

What happens when you’re driving and you get lost? You switch off the radio so you can focus. Next time you have to work on a project, close Outlook so you’re not distracted by incoming email.

7. Write it down

Write down things to buy, things to talk to X about, errands to run, upcoming birthdays, etc.

You won’t find yourself returning from running errands only to find you forgot to return your library books. You will start being that organised person who actually has a birthday present wrapped days before the person’s birthday.

8. Declutter and simplify

Did you know that decluttering cuts your cleaning time by 32%? If that isn’t inspiration to declutter, then I don’t know what is!

Living a simplified life means you no longer spend hours looking for things. It also means your schedule isn’t jam-packed with activities and you actually have time to enjoy your life.

9. Plan your time

When you plan your time, leave enough time to complete the task plus some buffer time. Work expands to fill the available time so don’t allow 3 hours for a 1-hour activity because you will use the full 3 hours if you do so.

If you’re not sure how long things take to do, keep a time log for a week or two and see for yourself.

10. Organise your paper and email

Every time I run an organising workshop, I get participants to complete a Time Wasters Assessment. The results differ slightly depending on the type of group but since 2003, email has crept up the ranks and is now the top time waster! And paper is a close second.

Learning to correctly organise your paper and email will save you HOURS every day. Most business owners spend approximately 2 – 3 hours just attending to email; I spend 15 – 20 minutes!

Don’t get overwhelmed – work on just one of these tips consistently until it becomes a habit and keep adding another until you have it all mastered.

This is part 2 so please also read the five tips in part 1.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners make the most of their time. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

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2 Nov 2010 by 2 Comments

5 Things You Must Do to Have More Time

One of the most common goals my clients tell me about is that they want more time.

If you can relate, I have good news for you – if you put just one of these tips into practice, you will save hours every week:

1. Learn to say no

Saying no helps you set strong boundaries.

What do you have to say no to so that you can say yes to your goals this year?

2. Play to your strengths

With everything in life, I believe you should play to your strengths.

If you’re terrible at cleaning your house, hire a cleaning lady. If you’re not great at organising, hire a professional organiser.

3. Learn to prioritise

When you know how to prioritise, even if you only get one or two things done daily, they will always be the right things and not just busy work.

4. Set up systems

Systems save you space, time, energy, money and stress.

Meal planning is a system for organising and preparing meals. Regular computer back-up is another system to keep your computer running smoothly.

What kinds of systems can you put in place?

5. Work smarter

Group tasks so that you only do preparation ONCE. Make your client calls all at the same time. You’ll be on a roll, get through them a lot faster and save energy because you don’t have to get into phone mode more than once.

Make your work do double duty. If you type a certain type of email often, make an auto text entry and save the template. If you write a comment on a blog, expand that same comment and write a blog post of your own.

Don’t get overwhelmed – work on just one of these tips consistently until it becomes a habit and keep adding another until you have it all mastered.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners make the most of their time. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

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19 Oct 2010 by 1 Comment

The only 4 things to do with paper

One of the most popular questions I get from blog and mailing list readers is this:

How do I control all the paper?!

I understand completely because when I get lazy, that’s the first area that goes out of control for me too.

The first thing you have to do is decide and make decisions. I like using a timer because I’m naturally competitive (anyone relate?) and that inspires me to take action, and quickly too!

Before you start, gather the following items:

1. a timer
2. wastepaper basket
3. brightly coloured pen (I like a nice thick red gel pen)
4. notebook and/ or planner
5. post-its (the originals, not the cheap stuff)

Right, now you’re set!

There are only four actions you’re allowed to do once you’ve scanned each piece of paper. Don’t take longer than 30 seconds to scan the page.

1. Dump it

Throw it in the bin. The more ruthless you are, the less you have to file! Win-win!

If you only need one piece of information, write it down straight in your notebook and throw the piece of paper away. Some of you are hyperventilating – that’s okay 😉

2. Delegate it

If someone else has to attend to it (husband needs to phone), write the action on the paper itself or on a post-it note and put that in a separate pile.

3. File it

Please do yourself a favour and only put paper in this pile if you ABSOLUTELY need to reference it. Just a quick stat for you – only 20% of filed papers are ever referenced again.

Use your post-it pad for different categories. For example, when I’m doing my weekly paper sorting session, I use Household, Marcia, Dion and Business as my categories.

4. Do it

Here I apply the two-minute rule. If you can do it in two minutes or less, do it right there and then. When I say “do it”, I mean either action it or schedule it to action later.

For example, if you’re working on your papers at 10pm and need to make an appointment, you can’t phone right there and then, so write it on tomorrow’s to-do list. That’s within two minutes and it counts.

There you have it – the only four things to do with paper. If you stick to making decisions, your paper will be beautifully organised.

Marcia Francois is a time management coach and speaker who helps busy women break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and take purposeful and focussed action. Visit http://marciafrancois.com for your free Organising Success Pack.

If you’d like help creating a life you absolutely love, contact me about my coaching services.

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5 Oct 2010 by 1 Comment

Top 3 time tips to manage your small business

Small business owners have so much to do every day – the business of your business (or what you’re actually paid to do), marketing, administration (emails, voicemails, etc.), bookkeeping.

The list goes on and on…

And that’s only one part of your life!

In order to have a balanced life, you need to manage your time correctly otherwise you’ll be stressed out, burnt out and frazzled!

Here are the top 3 things I do to make sure my small business runs smoothly:

1. Eat your frogs every day

Every day decide on a maximum of 6 things to do. Before you even put them on your list, ask yourself if they bring you closer to your business goals or not.

Then do the most important task first. It often seems like that one is also the most difficult task. Once that is out of the way, your day gets better, your energy increases and the rest of the day is a breeze.

This way, even if you don’t finish your 6 items, the most important tasks will always be done. I use this method for responding to emails too.

2. Remember Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Many times we don’t know how long something will take so we allow hours and hours for simple tasks. If you genuinely don’t know, then start keeping a time log for tasks you do routinely, like writing a weekly Ezine, daily blogging or posting to forums.

Once you have an idea of how long regular tasks take, set a timer when you do them in the future and aim to complete in that set time, every time.

I recently posted on Facebook that I was allowing myself 30 minutes for my monthly pile of filing. Yes, I missed the deadline by 7 minutes but if I’d allowed 2 hours, I’m 100% positive that it would have taken the full 2 hours too.

Do you know how long your standard tasks take to get done?

3. Have monthly, weekly and daily checklists

For anything you do more than once (or plan to delegate to a virtual assistant), make a list as you go along.

My monthly checklists have accounting and computer back-up, my weekly checklists have article submission and blog planning, and my daily checklists have email and so forth.

This is so that you don’t waste time having to rethink your steps of action every day, week or month, or worse still, you forget to do something important. I have a whole system for automating your business (Business Control Journal) as part of my Organise your Business system.

I suggest that you have some self-care items on your lists too. I read every day for pleasure and aside from a 20-minute planning session for the week ahead, I take the weekends off.

If you start implementing these 3 tips on a consistent basis, I guarantee that you’ll free up at least two hours a day.

I’d rather spend an extra two hours with my family; wouldn’t you?

Marcia Francois is a speaker and time management coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://www.marciafrancois.com for your free Organising Success Pack.

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17 Aug 2010 by 3 Comments

5 steps to deal with overwhelm

So many readers write in with this question: “how do I deal with overwhelm?”

A few weeks ago, I was dealing with my own overwhelm.

I had many meetings day after day after day (which means you get behind on the office stuff), my normal business activities plus I had to re-write a LOT of the copy for the website. All on deadline!

Add the stuff of life like cooking, cleaning and gym and you can see why I felt overwhelmed.

Doesn’t it feel good to know you’re not alone?!

We all have our own stories but the FEELINGS are exactly the same – a sense of being out of control and a to-do list a mile long!

So what did I do to cope?

1. Make a list

I printed out 10 of my master to-do lists (get yours in your Organising Success Pack) because it felt like I had hundreds of things to do.

I used one page for each project – website, clients, etc…

The amazing thing was my imagination was much worse than reality because I only needed 4 of those 10 pages 😉 Honestly, it does help to see how bad it really is, or isn’t.

2. Ask yourself a key question

When you feel overwhelmed, it’s important to realise that “this too shall pass” and to CONTINUALLY ask yourself this question:

What is the MOST important use of my time right now?

Remember, it’s not about being busy, but about being effective!

3. Cut out all non-essentials

Once you have the answer to the question in number 2, it’s easier to cut out the non-essentials.

Let go of the minor website changes and the email responses to your blog comments. Rather answer only client emails.

When the busy period is over, re-look at those non-essentials and REALLY question whether you even need to add them back into your life.

4. Focus and eat your frog

Now that you know what is MOST important, switch off cell phones, email, etc. and get it done.

If you have to do a proposal for a company, do nothing else til it’s done. That’s so that even when your day is done and the to-do list is still half a mile long, at least you have a sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT in having completed that most important task.

5. Categorise and batch

Once you’ve eaten your frog, and you still have energy, then categorise whatever’s left and tackle those items in batches.

Take your to-do list and use letters in the margin, like P for phone, E for email, etc. Then pick up the phone and make all your phone calls in one go. You save energy because you prepare once instead of 5 different times in the day.

And THAT is how I dealt with my overwhelm.

Next time you feel overwhelmed, try these 5 steps and get rid of that overwhelm at once.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners make the most of their time. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

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11 Jun 2010 by 2 Comments

When life is hectic, nest

With the change of season I seem to want to nest more. I suppose it’s part of making your home feel more comfortable so you can hibernate.

So I’m nesting.

I’ve commissioned a painter to come and paint the outside walls, an old chest of drawers (some of you are snickering but seriously, that’s how non-DIY both of us are) and my study.

With all of this and active babies and work, work and more work, it’s no wonder that I’ve started feeling like I need to organise my life again.

What?

You thought I’m always ultra-organised?

I am mostly… but like with you, my life also gets off track now and again.

The difference is that I recognise the symptoms quickly and I know how to get things running smoothly again.

These are the four things I put into place when life feels hectic:

1. Make my weekly menu plan

When your meals are organised, life goes better. Or is that just in my house?

Seriously, we love food and we like to know what we’re eating. It’s really not that hard when you keep a list of recipes everyone enjoys and check your pantry to see if you have the ingredients.

2. Make a master to-do list

This is still the best way to quiet the overwhelm and the noise in your head. It’s also usually much less frightening than the noise.

Often I’ll feel like there’s “SO MUCH” to do and when I actually make a list, it’s only about half of what I thought.

Case in point – I felt like I had such a lot on my to-do list for May but when I made a list, there were only 18 items.

3. Choose no more than 6 items to add to my daily to-do list

This is where most people lose the plot.

They try to do those 18 items all in one DAY and wonder why they feel demotivated and like a failure.

I spread out things so that one day I may have only one really big item while another day I could do three smaller ones.

4. Eat frogs first

Eating the frog means doing the thing you most dread, first.

You should eat the frog daily. I even eat my business frogs weekly. That means I do the hardest, most difficult items on my business to-do list on Monday and Tuesday so that it’s plain sailing after that.

Your organising challenge

  1. Commit to do ONE of the things above to get your life running smoothly
  2. Make a note to add another thing each week until they’re all part of your monthly rhythm.
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27 May 2010 by 3 Comments

A quick tip about overwhelm

I thought I’d share a personal experience so that you can learn from my mistakes.

I’ve been thinking about doing things a little differently in my business and so I decided to consult with other business owners in a forum I belong to and gather some opinions.

Well, as you’d expect, this one said this, another said that, still another said a different thing. Multiplied by about 10. Or so it felt.

There were some great ideas in there but I soon realised that I’d come to a screeching standstill due to overwhelm and I was indecisive.

Me- indecisive!

(if you know me in real life even just a little bit, you’ll know I’m not in the least bit indecisive. In fact, I err on the other end of the spectrum in that I can make decisions a little too quickly sometimes).

Although the same thing happened to me when I first walked into a baby shop – too many choices, too much to think about – and I walked right back out 🙂

It’s the overwhelm.

This time I stopped working on ALL my projects because I didn’t know which were good ideas, which were bad and which ones I had on my list because of a “should have” and not a “want to” based on other people’s thoughts and ideas.

Again, overwhelm.

So I made myself a cup of tea 🙂 and checked in with my gut – immediately I felt good about proceeding with just one project.

When I have clarity on the rest, I’ll move on.

But this got me thinking –

How many times do we feel overwhelmed because other people feel that we should do things but yet it doesn’t feel right for us?

Things like volunteering for committees, at the children’s school, church, etc.

Also, if you’re online in any capacity, how many times do we do things, not from a place of authenticity, but because the Big Name Expert says to do so.

And yet it doesn’t feel right and so we stay overwhelmed and inactive.

This week’s organising challenge

* Think about areas of your life where you feel overwhelmed. Is it the state of your desk, your wardrobe, your children’s rooms, your business?
* Check in and examine why you feel so overwhelmed.
* Is it that you don’t know what to do or where to start.
* Take one small action and see how that sits with you. Keep building on that action, step by step, until you build momentum and can see your way out of the overwhelm again.

Break out of overwhelm is a fantastic 60-minute audio that was especially designed to unleash the secrets of getting out of the paralysis that being overwhelmed brings.

It’s accompanied by a comprehensive 27-page handout and is backed by my special guarantee if you’re not happy.

This is one of my favourite products because it helps you INSTANTLY get through your overwhelm.

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26 Mar 2010 by 2 Comments

Do you suffer from Big Shiny Object syndrome

Tami in Oklahoma says

My whole life is unorganized. I start decluttering/organizing one area, get distracted, and go to another area. Only creates messes!!

Tami, I totally get you!

You start organising your pantry, get to the baking goods, realise you’re having guests for tea, so start making muffins and before you know it, half the pantry is on the floor and the kitchen is a mess of flour and chocolate chips!

My suggestions are:

1. Make a project list with SMALL steps

When I feel overwhelmed, I use my master to-do list to note down everything that needs doing. Some people also like to mind map it.

I start big and then narrow down. So I might use one list for the kitchen, one for the bedroom and still another for the home office.

It’s very satisfying to tick off little projects as you get them done.

In the kitchen, you might have a list like this:

  • kitchen table
  • kitchen counters
  • pantry – shelf 1
  • pantry – shelf 2
  • pantry – shelf 3

2. Use a kitchen timer

Use it not only in the kitchen but wherever you’re working on a project

3. Set the timer for shorter periods than you think

If you set it for an hour, you’ll probably get distracted sometime during those 60 minutes. I like to set mine for periods of 15 minutes as it forces me to concentrate. Also, I can do a drawer, a shelf, a pile of paper very easily in 15 minutes.

4. Reward yourself regularly

Have a cup of tea when you’ve completed an hour’s organising or if you finish a whole room, buy a book you’ve wanted for a while.

How do you overcome Big, Shiny Object syndrome?

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Here’s more on how you can break out of overwhelm.

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