Working From Home
Congratulations
Congratulations: if you have been a loyal follower you know now 27 ways to get more done in less time!
Let’s quickly recapped just some of what you learned:
• You learned how eliminating distractions and unnecessary tasks saves time. For example, you discovered tips related to turning off your cell phone, blocking out uninterrupted periods of work time and choosing to work when you’re the most alert and productive.
• You discovered how to use systems, routines, automation and shortcuts to save time (and money).
• And you learned that outsourcing and delegating is one of the best ways to get more done in less time.
Your next step is easy: Start implementing these tips immediately.
If you put this report aside and tell yourself that you’ll implement these tips “later,” then you’ll have to reread the report to refresh your memory. And guess what?
That wastes time!
Instead, you should start implementing these tips right now while they’re all still fresh in your mind.
Just choose three or four tips to start using over the next few days. Then choose and apply a few more tips later this week.
Keep doing this until you’re fully utilizing all the advice. By that point you’ll be saving hours every week – which frees your time to focus on whatever is most important in your life. Enjoy!
Biggest Time Saver of All
Here is one of the biggest time-savers of all:
Outsource and delegate work that you don’t personally need to do.
Generally, there are two big stumbling blocks that prevent people (especially business owners) from taking advantage of this productivity booster:
1. You think you need to do it all yourself. However, once you start outsourcing, you’ll find that others are able to do just as good of a job as you. And in many cases, putting your tasks into the hands of a professional means you’ll get an end product that’s even better than you can produce. (This is especially true if your skill level is competent but not above average.)
2. Secondly, some people look at outsourcing as an expense. However, it’s actually an investment, since outsourcing means your time is free to work on other important tasks. In addition, if you figure what your time is worth per hour, you’ll likely find that a professional can actually complete the task for “cheaper” than the cost-per-hour it would take for you to do the same task.
You can delegate outsource anything and everything, both personally and for your business.
Example: At home you can split the household chores up among all the family members (including the kids). When you’re working on your business, you can outsource things like customer service, content creation, product creation and much more.
Automation Tools and Other Shortcuts
Imagine if I told you to dig a 3 X 3 X 3 foot hole. The first thing you’d probably ask for is a shovel. And that’s because you already know that a good tool can make almost any job go a lot faster.
Likewise, there are a number of tools you can use to make your personal and business tasks go a lot more quickly.
Let me give you an example…
Example: Let’s suppose you wanted to start a blog on your site. If you wanted, you could accomplish this by creating a special HTML page. Then you’d regularly edit this HTML page and upload the newest version to your website.
As you no doubt know, there’s an easier way. Instead of taking the time to upload, download and format HTML files, all you have to do is use a content management script or blogging script like WordPress. This blogging software does all the work for you, so that all you have to do is compose your article and click “post” to make it appear on your website.
Here’s an example of using a shortcut…
Do you find that you spend a lot of time answering emails that are very similar? If so, there are two things you can do:
1. If this is a business email, then create a FAQ page (frequently asked questions) where you address this issue. For example, if you often get questions about how to open a zip file and read a PDF file, you may provide instructions on your site (including on the download page).
2. If it’s something that needs to be answered privately (such as a refund request), then you should create template emails that you can copy and paste. Clearly label and organize your template replies and you’ll save hours of time every week.
If you’re doing a task on your computer, chances are there is some sort of tool or software you can use to automate the task.
Examples:
• You can do your bookkeeping and taxes quickly by using financial software like Quicken.
• If a certain task requires you to use a series of keystrokes repeatedly, you can create macros or “shortcut” keys to perform this task. For example, if you want to create a macro when you’re using Microsoft Excel, go to “tools,” highlight “macro” and then click on “record new macro.”
Get Organized
Have you ever sat down to a do a specific task, but then wasted time looking for a tool or document you needed to complete the task?
Example: Maybe you set aside time to pay the bills, but then you wasted ten minutes searching for your checkbook and another ten minutes rounding up all of your bills. If something like this has ever happened to you, then you can already see the value of getting organized.
To be as productive as possible, you need to get organized both personally and professionally. However, do note that NOT everyone has the same definition of organization.
Example: Some people think that “getting organized” means that all documents should be neatly filed in a file cabinet and cross referenced. To other people, organization means taking these same files and stacking them into specific piles on a desk.
Here’s the thing…
You need to get organized in a way that makes sense to you using a strategy that’s comfortable. Some people prefer to stack files on their desk within easy reach. If that’s what makes you the most productive, that’s fine… just as long as you organize these files and piles into a way that makes sense for you.
Here then are five general organization tips:
⇒ Sort your email into folders. If you’re not deleting an email, then sort it into a folder (such as “friends and family,” “customer inquiries,” “orders” and so on). Even if you run searches to find emails, you’ll be able to complete the search quicker if you know what folder to look in.
⇒ Put your bills in a special place immediately. As soon as the bills reach your mail box, put them all immediately into once place. This might be a file, a basket, a box or even a special drawer. But the point is, you should put them all in once place so they’re instantly accessible.
⇒ File documents immediately. While you may set aside time once daily (or once weekly if you don’t have much paperwork to file), this is something you should take care of as soon as possible. The longer a document sits someplace other than it’s file folder (or box or special “pile”), the better chance it has of getting lost. As such, you should file it away as soon as possible so that you can find it instantly when you need it again.
⇒ Organize your computer files. You may be saving all sorts of things on your hard drive, including pictures, videos, personal documents, business documents, ebooks, reports, software and a whole lot more. You should create a file system on your computer where you sort these items into intuitively named folders. That way, you can access them immediately when you need them.
⇒ Back up important files. Finally, here’s a time saver I hope you never have to use. But if your computer ever crashes (or you have a fire, flood or similar), you’ll be happy that you followed this tip of backing up your hard drive regularly.
At a minimum, you should back up your computer files to a removable disk, such as a CD or thumb drive, at least on a weekly basis. You may individually back up your most important files (such as new documents) daily.
In addition, you may consider backing up your most important documents to a remote storage area, such as a secure folder on your website. Alternatively, you may create a copy of your CD or thumb drive and store in a location away from your computer.
For example, you may store your office computer CD at home. The reason is that if something should ever happen to your office – such as a fire – your computer and your back up CD would both be destroyed. But if you have a copy in a separate location, you can retrieve your files easily.
Handle Tasks Quickly
Usually the best and most efficient way to handle any task is “touch” it once and take care of it rather than taking the time to try to organize the task for later completion.
Tip: Although note that you shouldn’t necessarily take care of tasks as they come in, as doing so will likely diminish your productivity. Instead, you should take care of them at some specified time.
For example, instead of returning phone calls the moment you get a message, instead you can return all your calls during a scheduled block of time that you set aside just for that purpose.
Now let me give you an example of what I mean by “touching” a task once and finishing.
Let’s take email. Sometimes people sort their incoming email into different folders by priority, such as family (non urgent) email into one folder, urgent business email into another folder and then non urgent business email into a third email.
Basically the priority is like this:
High: Urgent business email.
Medium: Non urgent business email.
Low: Non urgent family/friends email.
However, it’s usually NOT a good idea to sort urgent email.
That’s because in order to sort the email, you need to read it and take the time to determine that it’s urgent. Then you continue sorting through your other email and putting them into their proper folders. Finally, you return to your non urgent emails to answer them.
But you’ll need to read them again and then compose your answer. And that means you’ve handled the same email twice in order to reply to it – that’s a waste of time.
Instead, set aside a specific time to answer your email and then read one, answer it and move on to the next email (without sorting). That way you “touch” each email just once, which saves time.
Tip: The exception to this rule is if you do indeed have family and friend emails mixed into your business emails. In that case, in that case, you may want to save your family and friend emails for your non-work hours.
There are two ways to make sure you don’t handle any of these emails twice.
1) You can use a completely separate email for your personal and business emails.
2) If you get personal emails into your business account, then set up your email account to automatically sort personal emails into a “friends and family” folder. Then you can deal with these emails during your free time.
Ask for Advice
Here’s an easy way to boost your productivity: Ask for advice from knowledgeable others about how to complete a task in the most efficient way.
Example #1: Let’s suppose you want to do something you’ve never done before, such as set up a blog. If a quick Google search doesn’t return the results you’re seeking, then ask knowledgeable bloggers how they’d set up a blog if they were brand new to blogging.
Example #2: Perhaps you’re trying to set up a new business while taking care of a new baby. If you worked at it long enough, you’d probably learn through trial and error a few tips that would make your business time more productive. But you can save yourself by going straight to the source and asking other work-at-home parents how they juggle family and work.
Example #3: Let’s suppose you want to learn how to create and upload promotional videos on YouTube. Instead of fumbling around with lighting, audio, software and your camera, you should instead search Google or ask for advice to find out how to quickly and easily put together videos. Asking will not only save time, it will also likely save you money as well.
Distractions Procrastination Perfectionism.
All of these things can hinder your productivity. But one way to keep on track is to reward yourself as you cross things off your to-do list and meet your goals.
In order for this to be a useful way to increase your productivity, you need to set up rewards that you truly want (and not something you would do for yourself anyway).
Secondly, your reward must be proportionate to your goal.
So small steps deserve small rewards, while meeting bigger milestones and goals should result in bigger rewards.
Example: Let’s suppose you want to complete and publish a book. You may set up a smaller reward for yourself for finishing the book, such as splurging on your favorite bottle of wine. Then you can set up a bigger reward for making your first 100 sales, such as going out of town for the weekend to your favorite vacation spot.
This won’t work for you’re the type who’s tempted to enjoy the reward without actually meeting the goal. For example, maybe you decide to buy the wine anyway even though you’re only half finished with the book. If this sounds like you, see the next tip (Tip 18) for a different type of motivator.
Tip: You can make this tip even more effective by telling your accountability partner about your intended goals and associated rewards.
Get Someone to Hold You Accountable
There mere act of publicly stating your goals is one way to motivate yourself to achieve them, which in turn makes you more productive. But here’s another way:
Recruit someone to hold you accountable on a daily or weekly basis. (In return, you can do the same for him.)
Here’s how it works…
Let’s say you decide to touch base with your accountability partner three times per week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).
On Sunday night or early Monday morning, you tell your partner what all is on your to-do list for Monday. On Monday night, your partner contacts you and specifically asks you what you accomplished.
After you tell him what you did or did not accomplish, then you tell him what’s on your to-do list for Tuesday and Wednesday. Again, he contacts you on Wednesday night and you tell him what you did or did not do. And again, you tell him what’s on your list for Thursday and Friday. And so on.
You can see why this works.
Most people feel embarrassed telling their accountability partner that they didn’t finish the tasks on their to-do lists. And if you’re like most people, you’ll feel even more uncomfortable lying.
So in order to ease this psychological discomfort and embarrassment, there’s only one thing for you to do: Take action.
Tip: Be sure to choose a partner who’ll reliably contact you and hold you to your to-do list. I say this because sometimes if you tell a friend you watched TV instead of outlining a chapter, he might say something like, “Oh, that’s ok – you can do it tomorrow.”
You don’t want someone who’ll rationalize or make excuses for you (or let YOU get away with making excuses). You want someone who’ll hold your feet to the fire and strongly encourage you to stay on track.
Down Time To UP Time
If you’re like most folks, you probably spend a lot of time waiting…
• Sitting on the train, waiting to get to your destination.
• Stuck in traffic, waiting for the congestion to clear.
• Waiting at the doctor’s office, waiting for the mechanic, waiting for the parent-teacher conference to start, waiting for the commercial to be over so you can get back to watching your favorite TV program, waiting to pay at the grocery store…
You can manage your time better by turning your downtime into productive time. For example:
⇒ Answer emails on the train.
Tip: If you don’t have a connection to the Internet, then download your emails into an email client like Outlook Express before you get on the train, answer them and put them in your outbox so they go out the next time you connect.
⇒ Create your to do lists while waiting for a doctor’s appointment.
⇒ Use a voice recorder to create verbal to do lists, get organized or make notes while you’re stuck in traffic. You can also catch up on your “reading” by listening to iPod books or books on CDs.
⇒ Pay bills online or create your shopping list during commercial breaks while you’re watching TV.
⇒ Return short phone calls while walking between a parking lot and your office or store.
Bottom line: If you have (involuntary) downtime, you probably can fit a small task into that timeslot.
Uncover Your Personal Time Wasters
We’ve talked about some of the most common ways to fritter away your precious minutes, such as by surfing around online, checking email, answering unnecessary phone calls, replying to unnecessary text messages and so on.
But you probably have a few time-wasters that are unique to you. It’s your job to uncover (and overcome) them.
One way to do this is to just keep a log of everything
you do every day for the next week or so.
To do this, stop every half hour and record EVERYTHING you did in the previous 30 minutes. You should also note when you don’t do anything at all.
You might uncover time wasters such as:
➢ Daydreaming. You might be reading something and a page or two later you realize you have NO idea what you just read. Or maybe you’re about to write something, but you end up staring at the blank screen, daydreaming.
➢ Getting distracted by something trivial and needing to “fix” it. For example, if your chair squeaks, you might find yourself running off to get oil to fix it.
➢ Getting visually distracted, such as when you look out the window and see cats fighting in your yard.
➢ Getting distracted by noise, such as when you find yourself sitting near an open window, trying to eavesdrop on the neighbors. ☺
➢ Feeling restless or uncomfortable. You might think your clothes are “scratchy” so you change clothes. Or maybe the room is too hot so you turn up the A/C.
➢ Remembering suddenly that you have something even more urgent to do, like pay the phone bill or set up an appointment. Instead of making a note of these things and doing them all at once, you waste time by breaking your focus to do them at the exact moment you think about it.
These are just a few examples.
Obviously, you’ll uncover your own time-wasters that aren’t on this list. If you have any troubles eliminating these distractions, see the section later in this report on moving past procrastination.
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