I’m sure you’ll all agree that staying focused has a major impact on your productivity and thus ultimately your success.
Why? Well, focus allows you to stay on track and avoid the many distractions that life will put in your way.
Of course, focus isn’t just about work or business. Focus impacts many other areas of our lives such as study and our relationships and if you lack focus it can cause many problems in these areas so it is well worth learning how to stay focused!
Medication and lack of sleep can cause people to lose focus so it is definitely worth taking these things into consideration if these are relevant to your particular circumstances.
So how do you stay focused?
Well, there are many ways and in this post, we are going to look at a couple of ways that you can keep your focus on the right things.
OK, on with the show…
By this I mean that you need to avoid the temptation to do things you would rather be doing!
Let’s be honest, most people don’t actually enjoy doing work. It takes a lot of time out of your day that you’d rather be spending either relaxing or getting small things done around the house, and it’s not always very fulfilling.
When you’re working for a large company in an office, it’s not so hard to stay on track. There are people around you frequently, and if you’re goofing off and watching Netflix during work hours, people are going to know.
However, while working from home, kicking back and relaxing instead of doing work is much easier. If you’re working on your own computer, you’re just a click away from watching some TV or movies, or a second away from pulling out your phone and checking social media.
For some, avoiding the temptation isn’t too difficult. You might be able to just set it all aside and get all of your work done before you choose to relax, and if that’s the case, that’s great!
However, some people have a more difficult time resisting the urge to go and do something that they enjoy instead of doing somewhat tedious work. One trick for people like this is to use a sort of reward system.
For doing a certain amount of work, you can engage in a specific amount of down time. If you do an hour of work, you can watch an episode of your show. This isn’t exactly a permanent solution, but it should instead be used to wean yourself off of these distractions so that you can really have a full workday to get as much done as possible.
This option essentially makes your computer only able to do work related things during the hours that you want it to, and even on certain days. It’s understandably tempting to blow off work when nobody’s around and you have the freedom to do so, but in order to grow your business and bring in a good amount of money, you need to fully commit to working hard and not get sucked in by random distractions.
OK, now you have managed to avoid temptation, here is the second tip that can help you to stay focused on the task(s) at hand…
Part of being creative is being somewhat distracted by the world around you, because it allows you to draw a great amount of inspiration that you can channel into your work. The problem is, when people think about being distracted, they think about the wrong kinds of distractions.
Instead of being distracted by things that can help you be more creative, you might be getting distracted by things that can make you completely unfocused and uncreative. One of the most common types of sabotaging distractions is social media.
In fact, even if you’re only following things related to what you’re being creative with, you’re still not going to be coming up with many of your own ideas, and instead might end up accidentally ripping off something or someone else.
Another major distraction for people is video streaming services. There are so many popular ones out there, from Netflix and Hulu to YouTube or Twitch. All of these can easily suck you in, just like social media, and you’re still going to be uncreative during the entire process.
The reason these distractions aren’t very helpful is a simple one. The whole point of being unfocused to boost your creativity is that it helps broaden your vision, and instead of being hyper-focused on one little thing, you’re more open to the world around you.
With things like social media and online streaming, you’re still very focused, just on something unrelated. Being distracted and being unfocused are not entirely the same thing.
This allows you to gather more inspiration to fuel your creativity. Even if you’re unfocused, you can still have creativity at the forefront of your mind, so you can at least try to pick up on things that can help you be more creative.
Distractions, on the other hand, just give you something else to focus on. If you’re really invested in a show and you’re watching it closely, you’re going to be heavily immersed in what’s going on. That doesn’t leave much room for your mind to wander or for you to be creative.
Having a strong mindset is critical to any attempt to stay focused, so click on the featured resource below to get a free report on how to develop a strong mindset. Download, it read and take action 🙂
Everyone has certain goals they want to reach. It might be weight loss or finances in your personal life, or specific business growth goals in your career. Regardless of what milestones you want to achieve, you won’t get there if all you have is the end result in mind.
There are four easy steps you can take to ensure your goals are met. It’s a process that allows you to map out where you want to be and take steps to get there with ease.
In order to know what steps you need to take, you have to know how you’d like your journey to end. This is your outcome or end result. You have to be able to concretely define what you want that result to be.
This is the bottom line of everything that you’re attempting to do. Many people aim for something without ever knowing what they want the end result to be. The problem with not knowing your end goal is that you won’t realize it once you’ve reached it – if you even reach it at all.
Your end result changed from a generic goal of losing weight and getting in better shape to the end result of competing in the marathon, which has a specific length and is on a specific timetable.
Only you will be able to determine your end goal. It might be to finish college, grow your business by $50,000 in the coming year, lose 25 pounds, and so on. Have a large, verifiable goal to reach.
Knowing the end result is imperative for whatever it is that you want in life. You need to know this to be able to work your process. This might mean that you figure out different end results for different areas of your life.
What would make you happier, specifically? Visualize that end goal that you want. For now, don’t worry about timing. You’ll be working on that as you develop your specific goal setting strategy.
Goals are something that can be used to improve your life. By having goals, you can check to see if you’re on track for how you want your life to turn out. Goals are helpful tools that can keep you headed in the right direction when you need to make a decision that involves changing some aspect of your life.
Encouragement is a by-product of having goals. Whenever you have a setback, goals can encourage you to keep going. By seeing how far you’ve already come, you realize that you’ve already made some strides forward.
Dreamers who do very little action taking often focus on long-term goals, forgetting that they need a specific path to get them there. They stay paralyzed, feeling the long-term goal is too far out of reach.
Having short-term goals means that these are things that you do in the present or in the very near future – such as within a week or a month. An example of a short-term goal might be setting up an email autoresponder system within the next 14 days so that you’re ready to build a list.
A long-term goal is usually something that you can’t reach as fast as a short-term goal. A long-term goal is one that you plan to reach within a few months or a year or longer after making it.
Long-term goals will be realized over time as each of your shorter milestones are achieved. For instance, your long-term goal might be to have a list of 100,000 subscribers.
So, your short-term goals might be:
…and so on.
Each time you’re able to look at your list and cross off an item that you achieved it helps you build momentum toward reaching your ultimate goal. Whatever your goals are, you shouldn’t let them just sit there as nothing more than an internal dream that you have.
You need them around visually so that they can help remind you of what you desire out of life. You need to be able to see whatever it is that your goals are so that you’re reminded to take action.
You can create a vision board with pictures that will help keep you motivated. Or you can write them down in a notebook and list the reasons why you want that goal.
Reaching any goal will require you understanding what it is that you already possess that can help you meet that goal. It also takes you understanding what you lack in reaching that goal so that you can level up your skills to achieve it.
If you wanted to run a marathon and you were in fairly good shape, you would understand that your physical condition was something you already had. But if you were out of shape, you would understand that you couldn’t run a marathon until you got into shape.
You would understand that you lacked the physical conditioning. Defining that would help you set mini goals of getting fit, so that would then feed into your larger goal of the marathon accomplishment.
You can dig down and create mini goals for as many sub-levels as you want, too. For example, physical conditioning is a mini goal to competing in the marathon. But what are some mini goals for the physical conditioning?
Creating mini goals helps you focus all of your energy on the bigger goal. Focusing on the bigger goal can make you feel overwhelmed and cause you to talk yourself out of trying.
Each mini goal that you set needs to be specific, too. This means that you divide these up into tasks. You would need to use a calendar in order to set a date for reaching each task that falls under your mini goal heading.
You then break down the date by the time that you have to work on the goal. When you have goals that have a conclusion date, it helps you stay on track to reach the bigger picture.
Goals, even mini goals with a conclusion date of “whenever” rarely get finished. You need to know when you should start that mini goal and when it needs to be completed.
Give each task under the goal a deadline. For example, a mini goal of walking a 15-minute mile within 15 weeks might require you (if you’re starting from a 30-minute mile) to shave one minute off your time each week.
That’s a doable mini goal, and the timeline is specific enough for you to have clarity in reaching it. Everything that you do under a mini goal should be something that matters. The more specific it is, the better it will be keeping you on track.
Mini goals need to be created in such a way that you’ll be able to see progress. If your goal is to start your own business, then one of your mini goals might be to write a business plan.
Next, you would write down when you need that plan finished by. Another mini goal could be having a mentor look over the plan and give you tips on how to further polish it up.
Each step that you take should have a purpose that propels you toward the end result of your bigger goal. If you can remove the mini goal without it impacting the overall goal, then odds are high that the mini goal may not be needed.
List the deadline that it needs to happen by. Make notes under the mini goal that tell you what you must learn to reach that goal. Is there a class you need to take? A book you have to read or a seminar you must attend?
All of those should be listed under the mini goal. Make sure that you understand if completing the mini goal can be done alone or if you’re going to need someone else’s help with it.
You should list all of the possible roadblocks that could happen during the course of trying to reach each mini goal. After you list the roadblocks, write down all of the ways around them.
What this does is help you be prepared for whenever a setback crops up. They will – and it’s always best to have your offensive strategy in place before you need it.
Before you can take any action, you want to brainstorm ways to achieve your goals and mini goals. You want options, not a single path that you think will work. It allows you to think outside the box.
Some people refer to brainstorming as creatively solving a problem before it happens or while it’s ongoing. Without brainstorming, most people come up with between two and four ways that they can reach their goals.
When you start brainstorming from a research perspective, you often find better ways to do things, shortcuts and money savers. Don’t be afraid to network with others and ask for their best practices, too.
As you write down your thoughts, you may start to see how some of them are connected and might possibly overlap one another. This will help you see how you may need to prioritize or even group certain action steps.
When you brainstorm, you’re free thinking – and that can often let your mind pinpoint a better way to do something. Some people find it helpful to brainstorm on their own, while others can’t seem to move their mind away from a certain focus in order to come up with action steps.
If this happens, it can be helpful to brainstorm with someone else who understands the end result that you want. Brainstorming with someone else is as simple as having a conversation.
You simply tell them what you want to accomplish and say that you’re trying to come up with action steps that you need to take. Many times, having someone else to bounce ideas off of can yield new ways to get things done that you may not have thought of on your own.
Brainstorming can also be helpful when it comes to seeking a solution about an action step. Some action steps require more effort than other ones do. You may end up needing to do more or find additional help.
If you don’t have someone to connect with as a personal contact or even an online forum friend, you can start researching the best way to achieve certain goals online.
Be very specific when you search. For example, if you needed the mini goals to build a list, you might type in “steps to build a list” and see what came up. You might discover a blog post or infographic that details these steps:
Maybe you didn’t have one of those listed in your mini goals, but now that you’ve seen it online, you can add it. It’s easy to forget all of the small steps involved in achieving a larger goal, and you don’t want to forget something important along the way or feel caught off-guard if you realize it in mid-stream and have to reorganize your goals on the fly.
It shouldn’t require much time to brainstorm – or research. If you’re visiting other sites, just pop in quickly, scan the resource to see if you already have those steps on your list, and jot down anything that might be missing.
Once you’ve finished, it’s time to take action. You’ll be putting into place the ideas that were generated from your brainstorming session. When you begin to implement change, you have to understand that it’s normal to feel a sense of unease.
Most people are resistant to change. Just know that it’s normal and don’t let it throw you off course.
Create motivation as you start making changes. You have to be your own biggest fan when it comes to what you’re doing. Celebrate all of your small milestones. It doesn’t have to be expensive or huge – just recognize your efforts and honor your accomplishments.
The fact that you’re working toward a goal and doing things to get you to the finish line is something that should be respected and admired. Sometimes, there’s nobody there but you to toast to your success.
As you implement change, make sure that you monitor what happens as you make the change. You want to be alert to head off any negative situations or obstacles that arise from implementing your action steps.
There will be some obstacles that you can’t foresee and that you can’t head off. For those, you’ll want to try to get to the root of the problem quickly. Understanding why there’s a difficulty implementing a change can help you know how to get back on track.
You also want to keep in mind that while you’re implementing change now, you’ll see some small benefits right away. However, seeing the end result of some of the other changes may take a little time.
As you implement these changes, make sure that you’re continually revising your goals because as these changes take place, your goals will also change. It’s okay to fix goals along the way, too.
Sometimes, when you’re on the path to something greater, and you’re educating yourself, you discover fantastic new ways of doing things! This might mean changing a mini goal, or even altering your large goal completely!
One thing you shouldn’t do, though, is allow yourself to get distracted by too many good possibilities to the point that you’re forever chasing a shiny new object and never following through on the action steps you’ve mapped out to reach one milestone in your personal or professional life.
Having a strong mindset is critical to any goal setting strategy, so click on the featured resource below to get a free report on how to develop a strong mindset. Download, it read and take action 🙂
People want to succeed in life. Success is often a result of planning. But what if the items you have on the plan are wrong? This could lead you to a place in your life you didn’t expect and not for the better.
Besides, it means that you have wasted your time. That’s why you need to focus on your priorities in life. These will be a better guide in helping you map out your journey and will influence the kinds of goals you will need to set to reach them.
After you have listed out your important items, use the number scale to rate the items. You can choose how you want the scale to be measured, but suppose it is 1 being the lowest priority to 5 being the highest. You can do this in a spreadsheet so that you can resort after you have done this for all the items.
Sort from highest to lowest. These are going to be the focal points of your goal setting. You can choose to try and include all the items on your list or you can decide to eliminate any that are below a certain number like all the items that have a priority of 1 or 2.
That is up to you. But you do want to make the list as manageable and as meaningful as possible. If they don’t really mean that much to you they won’t motivate you to achieve them or help you to keep going when you hit an obstacle.
For each of the highest priority items, the next step is to figure out what it will take to achieve them. List out high-level mini goals for each item. You can choose to prioritize these in much the same way, but at this stage of the process, it is not completely necessary.
If it’s enough to be defined as a work unit, i.e., a task that you can easily perform, then you probably have gone far enough down. If the item can be broken down into further sub-tasks, then that is the next step.
By using this list-prioritization process, you have a much better chance of containing tasks that are the right ones to meet the objectives of your goals.
Now when you have these goals, it’s time to come up with a plan. And it is really useful to come up with a yearly plan before anything else and we’ll have a look at this in more detail now…
Many people don’t believe they need a yearly plan. They believe they know enough about themselves or their businesses to bypass any planning process. Some people can get away with doing this. But, for most, having a plan and updating one on a yearly basis is essential to keep on track.
The plan lets you see what needs allocation of funding. You can see how your expenses are affecting your bottom line.
If you have employees working for you, a yearly plan can help manage them. You can find out what vacations they are planning, and you can ensure that they are scheduled for training that you may require of them.
You can’t account for everything that they may encounter over the course of the year. But, as long as you have the major events on your plan, you can make alternative plans.
There are going to be changes, and as the year goes on, you may find some initiatives are no longer relevant. But, overall, a plan is a great tool to help your company.
Without a plan, people and companies tend to flounder. They spend more money than they should, and they start projects that they often don’t complete. They have no way of knowing whether those projects are even going to help the company at all.
It’s difficult to work as a cohesive unit when everyone is off doing whatever they feel like doing. Even if you have a manager who delegates the jobs, without a plan, the manager will also create projects as he or she goes.
It is important to get everyone to participate, but once you get an agreement, they need to be held accountable. Business is difficult enough without having some kind of plan or map to guide you in the right direction.
Once you have your yearly plan, it is fine to break this down into smaller, more manageable chunks. In fact, this may be advisable as a yearly plan may seem too big to achieve. By breaking it down into monthly, weekly and even daily goals, you can keep on track and reward yourself along the way and before long you will have reached your yearly goal 🙂
Of course, using goal setting exercises and plans takes a lot of self-discipline which many of us lack, so if you want to learn about how to harness the power of self-discipline, please download the featured resource below, read it and take action 🙂
When we think of goal setting, we usually think of goals that envision a specific outcome. Some examples include:
Of course, these are just a few of the more common goals that people set for themselves.
And this is a big mistake if you really want to achieve the best things in life! Setting goals is critical to your success and can act as a motivator to keep you going and you can also reward yourself for hitting milestones along the way 😊
Ok, as shown above, many goals are oriented around hitting a specific outcome or target.
But what if we based our goals on changing behaviors instead of obtaining a specific outcome? Could we modify or completely change behaviors that would lead us to the desired outcome quicker, healthier, and with less stress? Some experts certainly think so.
Behavior-based goals focus more on the behaviors we want to strengthen rather than the negative actions we want to remove.
The difference may appear to be subtle, but it does make a difference to the way you approach goal setting and the intended result.
In strengthening the positive behaviors, we change the way we act and react in many situations – not just situations surrounding a goal that is outcome-based. The ripple effect of creating more positive behaviors in our lives is wide-reaching, affecting far more than just what we may have had in mind when creating the goal.
Many businesses today are focusing on behavior-based goals rather than outcome-based goals, because of this ripple effect. Smart companies know that when behavior changes for the positive, the employee is happier not only at work but in their personal life and family life as well.
This type of goal setting isn’t seen just in the office, either. Personal trainers, life coaches, psychologists, therapists, and so many other professions are adding behavior-based goal setting to their repertoire of techniques. This helps those in these industries to help their clients reach success, whatever that may mean to them.
Goals that change behaviors can be seen as a kind of intermediate goal that helps one achieve outcome-based goals easier, faster, and with more residual positive effects. A positive behavior that is strengthened in order to reach a goal is going to be strengthened in every situation where that behavior is utilized.
Now, when you are looking at setting some behavior-based goals, it pays to make them “SMART” when doing so.
Not sure what we mean by “SMART” behavior-based goals? Well, let’s take a look at that now…
When you’re discussing goal setting, SMART has nothing to do with your intelligence. (But it is smart to use this technique!).
So, let’s get into what SMART really means!
While behavior-based goals can be harder to quantify than outcome-based goals, by focusing on the specific behaviors that need development or strengthening, we can see that clearly defining these behaviors is possible.
For instance, “I will close or turn off all electronic notifications while working on this project”, is basically stating that the habit of becoming distracted will be curbed in order to achieve more productivity.
To be effective, the road towards achieving a goal must be able to be measured.
In the example in the above paragraph, the measure would be how much more of the project one is able to accomplish by turning off all electronic notifications.
You want your behavior-based goal to be attainable, i.e. not so overwhelming that you start out feeling as if you can’t do it. That defeats the entire purpose of the exercise.
Build on these small successes and before you know it, you’ll be achieving your big goals, as well!
Set yourself up for success right from the beginning by setting goals that are realistic to your personality and your lifestyle.
Start with easy behavior changes that are easy for you to accomplish, and fit your lifestyle and personality. Once you’ve mastered those, you can ramp up to changing behaviors that might be more challenging to you.
Giving yourself a time limit on achieving a specific behavior change can often spur more action toward that goal. But there’s a fine line between too little and too much time.
Changing behavior patterns often takes time, so make sure that you’ve accounted for this.
So, what are you waiting for? Start setting your SMART behavior based goals today and see what a difference they can make to your life success.
Of course, you will certainly be aware that setting and achieving goals requires a lot of self-discipline, so if you want to learn about growing your own self-discipline then download the featured resource below which is a free report all about the power of self-discipline; download it, read it and take action 😊
Building a business can be an exciting time in your life. It can also be one of the most stressful and frustrating times for you. Any time that you start to do something – to move forward – things will crop up that stand in your way, threatening your success.
The problems overlap between your personal and professional lives. For example, problems at work can cause hostility at home, and vice versa. You need to become a master at handling obstacles with ease.
There are what seem to be a million tasks to get done every day in a business. You have to keep up with the day-to-day tasks while trying to juggle the new things that pop up.
Trying to grow your business while maintaining what you already have can quickly become overwhelming. This is why you need to have a schedule for when tasks need to be completed.
You need a task list. Every single thing that you have to accomplish each day for your business should be on this list. Whatever impacts your business the most should be at the top of this list.
By doing this, you can prioritize the tasks in order of importance. The first few tasks on your list should be whatever it is that you have to get done in order to keep the business functioning.
You have to keep the doors open or the site operational, keep the sales coming in and the payroll going, and keep the customers happy for positive word of mouth and steady growth.
However, if it’s something that won’t make a difference immediately, you can put that off until a later date and time. Some business owners find it helpful to use one of the “year at a glance” calendars to keep track of the tasks that have to be done in the future for their business.
If you’re dealing with feeling overwhelmed, then it’s highly possible that you’ve taken on too much responsibility. In order to stay on track with productivity, you’ll need to find a way to delegate or outsource what can be passed on for someone else to do.
It can be easy in any business to take on too much. The shiny new object syndrome can make you feel a need to try something different in the hopes of improving your business.
Then before you know it, you have twenty different things going on that, instead of helping your business, is slowly grinding it to a halt. If any task manager or any organizational tool takes you longer to actually use it than the benefit it offers, get rid of it.
This could be contributing to the obstacle of being overwhelmed. Simplify anything you can to keep productivity moving along when you’re struggling. That means if you spent money on a software tool that is too confusing to use and has a steep learning, stop using it.
Chalk it up to a lesson learned. If you have to simplify things by turning to a spiral notebook and a pen or pencil, then do that – if you find that you make more progress that way.
One of the biggest issues in a business that can trigger being overwhelmed to the point that it slows productivity is clutter. If you have a cluttered office or a cluttered system online, it can make it difficult for you to find what you need when you need it.
Keep everything organized as you go along to prevent this from being an obstacle. Sometimes that means letting go of projects you once thought were viable, but never have time for.
Taking on too much at once can lead to a time crunch. So can procrastination. The problem in a lot of businesses is a lack of planning for every step of a project – especially if the project isn’t due right away.
It can be too easy to think that you have plenty of time, so you do other projects first (or, if we’re honest, waste time on social networking site). Then before you know it, you’re suddenly faced with this deadline or launch date – and you’re not sure that you’ll have enough time to get it done.
A simple way around the obstacle of time management issues that slow your productivity is to make sure that each project you have going on has a detailed list of action steps.
You don’t want to tackle a big project all at once. It can lead to you feeling overwhelmed. The best way to handle this is to break down the project into mini tasks.
Use a calendar or other means to divide the project up into chunks. If you have a project that you know is going to take three months to complete, then do a little bit of work on it each week.
This way, when the due date arrives, you can be finished up with plenty of time to have done the job thoroughly and professionally. Rushed jobs can often affect the quality of the finished product and you don’t want to present work that’s less than your best effort.
You can still get the work done, but free yourself up to do other tasks. If you’re in the business of supplying information products and you handle everything from the writing to the graphics to the formatting, you can easily hire someone else to run this area of your business.
If you put out a lot of information products, it might be worth your money to hire someone who keeps up with making sure the product is completed the way that it should be.
This way, you remove several tasks from your own to-do list. That would include sourcing freelance ghostwriters and graphics providers, evaluating deliverables, and getting the end product launched with JV and affiliate partners.
This saves them time and money and allows them to be more productive. Focus on the skills you excel at and enjoy most – and find others to take over the tasks you least enjoy.
Other businesses allow an outside phone service to take care of their incoming calls. This way, they can focus on running the business and still have good customer service.
You might hire a virtual assistant to handle your customer service issues online. It’s all about freeing you up for the most important money-making and personally gratifying tasks.
This obstacle is one that hits a lot of business at some point during their operation. Having financial struggles can be detrimental to the business itself and it can affect morale negatively, too.
It can be difficult to want to keep on going when you’re facing cash flow obstacles. But what you have to do at this point is to remember what your dream was in the beginning.
Don’t lose focus during the hard times. So often, a business will go through a rough patch financially – only to turn around in the blink of an eye. Yet too many business owners get so discouraged when the cash isn’t flowing, that they slow productivity.
This slowed productivity then affects the overall business, which contributes to the cash flow problem. There are short-term and then there are long-term cash flow problems.
So just like that, your profit is slashed. If the obstacle is a short-term cash flow, you can turn this around in a short amount of time by picking up some easy jobs that your company can do to bring in money.
The faster you can bring in the money, the quicker you’ll solve your cash flow problems. If you’re used to making $300 an hour consulting for businesses, cut your price by a percentage.
You could bring in several smaller companies or individuals who couldn’t afford your services at the higher rate. Running a special to give our business an injection of cash helps you survive during the next planning phase.
Long-term cash flow problems are a bigger obstacle to keep your productivity on track with. When you have this kind of financial issue, it can lead to a lack of supplies, not having enough to pay yourself or your employees and struggles to pay your typical overhead expenses.
If you allow other companies or individuals to pay you in arrears, several slow payers could hurt your business. If this is the case, then you would need to cut off the company having access to your services until the debt was settled.
Never risk your business’s viability over someone else’s lack of responsibility. Take care of the matter and if necessary, replace a slow or non-paying client with someone who is reliable.
Every business will always have an area where there’s a money drain. Go over every section carefully to see where you can cut costs. If necessary, have a mentor look over your day-to-day business operations and make suggestions.
If you’re a start up business and cash flow is an obstacle because you don’t have any at all, then barter what services you do have to get what you need. It’s also a good idea to consider working on other cash-generating ideas like freelancing or an offline job if you need money to pursue your dreams.
Your friends and family can be your biggest supporters when you own a business. But they can also be obstacles. People who care about you can fail to understand and not respect your work schedule.
They can drop by to hang out at the office when you know you should be working. Or if your office is at home, they can interrupt you several times during the day.
You must treat your business like a business and respect it – or others won’t either. Sometimes people who work in a similar field will show up unexpectedly to talk, and this can temporarily slow you down.
Other times, they come by so often that it becomes an issue. If this is a problem, you’ll have to take control – and it can be as simple as saying, “I’d love to chat, but I have a deadline, so I have to get back to work.”
Employees can create productivity problems when they don’t do their job. When one person fails to do what he’s supposed to do, it can have a trickle down effect. The project could slow down until someone goes back to complete the original task.
Things get missed during a workday or a workweek. Mistakes are inevitable. Repeat mistakes and repeated issues of not completing assignments on time affect your business negatively, slow productivity and cost you in long-term profit.
Sometimes, it’s vendors that can slow your productivity. They don’t deliver a product when they’re supposed to, so that can slow down the time a shipment needs to go out or a launch needs to take place.
You can work through this by finding a replacement vendor. If someone makes a commitment to you to have something to you on a certain day by a certain time, that commitment should be kept – otherwise, your business is the one most affected.
Sometimes, in an effort to save money and offer goodwill, business owners hire family members or friends. Working with people that mean a lot to you can be a great opportunity.
In order to protect the family or friendship, you might not want to give that person a boot from the business. If that’s the case, move that person to an area where what they’re doing won’t impact the productivity.
Let them answer phones or handle email or do other tasks that help. But don’t be afraid to put your foot down if there’s nowhere else to put them. You’re in charge of turning your business into a success, and you need to adhere to your own responsibilities.
How you feel impacts how your business runs. If you’re experiencing something in your personal life, it can slow productivity. For example, if you’re dealing with a family situation that causes you to lose sleep at night, it can be hard to keep your mind on the tasks at hand the next day at work.
If you have to deal with something out of the office that impacts your productivity, you need to take a step back and let someone else handle what you normally take care of in the business.
It can be a problem if you don’t have a second in command who can run things for you. If that’s the case, then you have to find a way to clear your head and push through.
Having the mindset that you’ve learned all there is to know can be a productivity obstacle. In this case, people will continue to do what they’ve always done – even if there’s a faster and less expensive way.
Not being teachable can easily cost you in terms of less productivity. Companies who produce tangible items or even strategies for you to learn from are counting on your ability to be open to growth through learning.
You’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you turn a blind eye to opportunities that can help you be more productive just because you’re comfortable with the status quo.
Obstacles are a given in life. You have to strengthen your ability to handle them without panic. Once you learn the right way to navigate toward your goal, you’ll find that the once intimidating obstacles put in your path look less frightening over time.
Want to learn more about productivity? Then, download the featured free report below, read it and take action 🙂
