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Help! I'm sitting at my desk, knowing I need to finish Projects A & B before I can call it a day, BUT I don't wanna! It's a beautiful day outside; I'd rather be in my garden. Or, I need to do the dishes (this comes up especially when I'm writing).
I'd love to hear what you guys do to motivate yourselves to get the less-than glamorous work done--especially when you don't feel like doing it!
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bizlady08 wrote:
Help! I'm sitting at my desk, knowing I need to finish Projects A & B before I can call it a day, BUT I don't wanna! It's a beautiful day outside; I'd rather be in my garden. Or, I need to do the dishes (this comes up especially when I'm writing). I'd love to hear what you guys do to motivate yourselves to get the less-than glamorous work done--especially when you don't feel like doing it!
I have to fight with this feeling just about every day; I work in beautiful San Diego, California and every day is a nice day.
Here are a couple of things I do to pull through:
- Keep my head down and just DO IT; it's easy to get distracted and it's easy to try to put stuff off, but when I start getting distracted I grit my teeth and try my best to get it done.
- If I really can't do it, and sometimes I can't, I will try to work on something else for a little while just to change up pace, then I'll get back to the important projects.
- The best thing you can do for yourself is to ask yourself: is it REALLY critically that I get this done now? I'm really hard on myself and sometimes I need to take a step back and realize "you know, I've actually been really, really productive today and my ROI is diminishing with every additional minute I spend sitting at my desk being frustrated at my own lack of focus. I think I deserve to take a few hours off and cool my jets." Sometimes, when you're feeling worn out or distracted it's because your body is telling you that YOU NEED A BREAK.
Hope that helps!
Aaron Stannard
Editor of Working Smarter
Owner of Marketing Ninja
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In any contest between the will and the imagination,
the imagination ALWAYS wins!
I learned this lesson back when I was in my 20s, just starting out, and
it's had a ripple effect throughout my life. Motivation comes through
the imagination, and is particularly an emotion. It's not a
feeling---as in a sensation. Nor is motivation a logical, intellectual
analysis; that's an obligation.
People come up with all sorts of tricks to fool themselves into getting
motivated. If they're not motivated, it's because they don't want
whatever it is they're doing: simple as that.
So two questions descend. How come they're doing what they don't want
to do? Why do they believe they should be motivated when they have no
intention of liking what they're doing?
Life is supposed to be fun. To that end, a business should also be fun,
and include not only the hard work, but also the time for that fun,
recreation, and getting recharged. What that leads to is A Schedule.
More often than not, a newly self-employed business owner is so totally
involved and engrossed with their business, they "forget" to create a
schedule. It can be whatever schedule anyone wants to make, as long as
it includes at least one, and hopefully, two days off.
Those days off can be together, split, on weekends, or in the middle of
the week. But without some days off, there won't be any time to
remember that it's supposed to be fun!
Look at what you're doing. Look at your processes, and start
calculating how much time it takes to produce one completed order. How
long does it take from the moment you receive a notice that a customer
wants to buy, to the time you close out your accounts as a "finished"
transaction.
What are the steps, their breakdown, and their times. Caculate how many
transactions you can complete in 6 hours. That leaves you 2 hours for
unplanned extras. Working 5 days per week, in some format, that's 30
hours with 10 extra hours for unexpected events.
Figure out which five days would be most productive in any given week.
When you've got all the numbers, that's your "capacity." If you
routinely are going over your capacity, then it's time to hire someone
to help---an employee.
We sell flags, and another of the most instructive lessons I learned
was the concept of calculating purchases in terms of the "thing" that
generates revenues. So instead of saying a prime rib roast costs $35,
we now say that it would take 5 flags to buy a prime rib.
By converting dollars to whatever it is the business creates, you can
begin to see how to apply your capacity. You also can get a sense of
your growth path. Our current capacity, based on doing things the way
we're currently doing them, is about 60 flags per week. At $7/flag,
that's a gross revenue of $420/week.
For us, that's a workable number in a boutique business. What's your
product? How much "per unit" do you charge? What's your capacity for 30
hours in 1 week? Convert that to dollars, and decide if it's "enough."
If not, then you need to start looking at ways to either increase your
capacity, increase your prices, or restructure your business.
Motivation isn't something you can force. It's what I'd call "emotional
logic." The motivation always is the "why" of things, and it can't be
an intellectual reason. You may "need" to do something in order to pay
the rent, but that's an obligation not a motivation. It also means
you're dependent on something other than your free choice.
Edited by: CraigL - Jul. 04 2008 at 12:45 AMCraig Landes
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Defining the undefinable. "There are 10 kinds of people in the world---those who understand binary numbers and those who don't." - Unknown
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Success = Passion, Patience, Persistence!
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I promise myself a treat when I have completed the dreaded task. I also have learned to delegate the 'unnecessary for me personally to do" stuff. Example: I have a mobile pet grooming business. I need to design flyers, advertising, AND I need to clean the van to get it ready for the next client. I could choose to delegate either one or both. I hired a neighbor's teenager to clean the van while I tend to the design of the flyers. Then I have someone do the addressing. If it was just me by myself, I have to look at which one is time critical. That would be the van so that has to come first. I can take the completed flyers and address them while I sit at the park. When those things are done, I get to choose what activity I would like the best to do, whether internet surfing, going out to dinner, or maybe going to the beach.
Also it is important to know your own "best times of day" to help you focus. I am NOT a morning person so as much as possible I plan easy tasks when I am still waking up. When fully awake and full of energy I plan phone calls, writing and other heavy thinking work or the actual grooming of pets. Know yourself and do what feels right at certain times of the day. Don't expect to be able to go full blast all the time. Break your day into "work or relax chunks" so you have balance.
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