Crazy to Sanity in Business – Flow vs. Completion

• Have you had it up to here with being late, missing appointments or running behind? Isn’t it time for you to be ahead of the game, with others doing the pushing gladly on your behalf, giving you more time to envision, create, design, conquer and express your full self and potential?
• Are you tired of using your memory to store and manage appointments – leaving you with embarrassing misses, opportunities lost and a tired brain overworked from having to keep your business working? Is there a better alternative to your poor, overworked mind doing all this heavy lifting?
• You wake up and already dread the day, staying in bed, curled up with your pillow –  remembering the overwhelming list of things on your plate.
• You get to your desk, and you wince and grimace as you look at your calendar which looks like a spider’s web of convoluted and crowded blocks of time. 

Conundrum:

You think that the way out of the drama and sufferings in your work life is to work harder, but working harder is not yielding results. In fact, it is only making you more burnt out and frustrated, if not angry.

People tell you that you need to work smarter, but what exactly does that mean or look like?

You want to tell them what they should do with that advice and where to store it biologically.

It feels like everyone’s advice is like fitting a square peg in a round hole (no pun intended.)

Solutions:

1. Gently optimize your workflows

I define a workflow as a process that takes a request or trigger for work (e.g an email request to you to do something) and brings it to completion. 

Everyone pays attention to automation and to the calendar (usually in the most grotesque and most non-useful ways.)

But virtually nobody pays attention to designing how your workflow should really look optimally and also whether that workflow really should exist. 

The source of many issues for entrepreneurs is that their work flows are not at all necessary (in fact down right unprofitable and joyless) and that their work flows are not well designed i.e. they do not efficiently or effectively address what is needed. 

A simple accounting of your workflows is always enlightening and … “lightening” ie. A simple accounting usually lightens your work load and makes your days go a lot better and smoother. 

It is not uncommon for me to start with about 25 workflows for a client and whittle them down to 12.  Then I take those 12 and automate them or assign affordable virtual admins to manage at least part of them.  This is partly why I can safely declare (okay boast) that my clients can easily hit 7 more hours of free time per week. 

With this optimization, the stress levels go down. With the additional free time, we now spend it looking at how to increase your prices and reduce your time at work even more. 

“Not only did I get 8 more hours of free time per week, as promised, but I also had a 50% percent increase so far in income this year with a marked improvement in productivity. Also, I now charge about 50% more without any guilt because I know my value in the marketplace.”

– Christi Williford, Founder and Creative Director, Elemental Studio Design Co.

Also the reduced stress results in more accuracy in your work and less chances of mistakes like missed appointments, deadlines and promises. From our more advanced understanding of the brain, we know that a less overwhelmed and stressed brain (due to unaccounted for or runaway workflows) has an easier time accounting for deadlines and making better decisions. 

2. Know the difference between “finished” and “complete for now”

Once you look at your work flows, the next question to answer is how do you know when your work is finished and when your work is sufficiently on track that you can take a break and not stress about that workflow?

Many people overwork themselves because they rather completely finish one task or project at the expense of their personal life, health and doing other things that restore and rejuvenate them. 

Seriously accounting for and redesigning your workflows ensures that you also can “pace” or spread out the completion of your work flows over several days – reducing your stress and calming your mind that you are indeed on track and thus can take a break, go home or do something else important or that you prefer to do. 

Again, this process results in a seriously good stress reduction coupled with confidence and energy boosting productivity increases – all good for your brain to avoid making mistakes and miss appointments etc. and fall into a cycle of overwhelm and despair. 

3. Understand how your workflows can work FOR and WITH your calendar, NOT AGAINST IT.

When I teach people how they can incorporate their workflows into their calendar, the management of projects becomes a lot easier and things not only get done on time – they get done well. 

This teaches my clients the value of being less worried about filling up your time with busy work to assuage your guilt, frustration, fear or resignation. 

Imagine a world where entrepreneurs have little or no guilt, frustration, fear or resignation. 

What would be possible for you?  What would be possible for your family?

What can you do to apply this in your work and life?

1. THE “EASY, JUST WANT TO GET ON THE MAT” OPTION: If you want to start easy: download my free report – www.JoyfulCalendar.com 
2. THE “WANTING TO MOVE FORWARD FAST” OPTION: If you want to start easy and you are committed to move forward with speed, then learn more and register here for a free discovery session. https://calendly.com/sunilbhaskaran/the-joyful-calendar-discovery-session 

See you soon,

Sunil Bhaskaran