Happy New years.
The new year is always a great time for me to sit down and optimize
the way I run my business and my life. I don’t know if it’s the
entrepreneur in me or what but I’m always thinking how can
I make this process better, more effective and more efficient?
Maybe you already do the same..but if you don’t I encourage you
to read on and hopefully implement some of the ideas below
into your own life.
As an example, I already have a full time employee and another
starting in January but I don’t think I’m using them to the best
of my ability. So I asked myself what are some of the tasks that
I do on a day to day basis and I came up with a list:
Check emails, Customer support, Affiliate payments, Product
creation, Tech stuff , Research, Grocery shopping, Laundry,
Marketing, Graphic design, Video creation, Content creation
(email auto-responsder ect), Admin tasks, Hiring freelancers,
Finding jv partners, Running my affiliate program, Marketing
consultation , Writing sales copy ect..
Then I asked myself which of these tasks could another person
easily do? And I was surprised to see that the majority of them
could be accomplished by someone else.
I’m sure you probably have tasks (household tasks or business
related tasks) that can be outsourced in your own life. I’m also sure
that many of you have been reluctant to outsource tasks in your
life because of fear of the costs associated with outsourcing.
But lets try and think about this a little differently. Right now at
your current job how much do you make an hour? Is it $15, $30,
$100? More? I know exactly how much I make an hour, and I know
that for what I’m making an hour I’m spending far too much time
on tasks like laundry or administrative duties (thus losing
potential income) when I could outsource these tasks for
$10 an hour to an English speaking virtual assistant who
lives in Canada or the United States.
Going forward in 2011 I’m going to really make an effort to
constantly streamline my business and life. And I encourage
you to do the same.
Here are a few of the changes I’m going to be implementing in 2011:
1) Create a detailed outsourcing plan. Define who is going to be
doing what and when and for how much (in business and in life).
2) Constantly measure my results…not enough people do this..
heck I don’t do this enough.
3) Make EVERYTHING I do a contest. Do I Win or do I lose?
How long did it take me to do this task last time? Did I do it faster?
Better this time? This ties into measuring my results too.
I think most entrepreneurs are pretty competitive by nature,
they have to be as they are the people pushing their businesses to grow.
4) Write my goals down every single day so that I’m
accountable to what I want to achieve in 2011.
5) Creating a structured schedule to follow each and every day
(that includes a balance of lifestyle, well being and business
activities).
6) Setting specific days each month dedicated to 1) product creation
2) bulk writing blog posts 3) bulk creating email content
4) Marketing 5) strategic business development 6) ect
These are just a few of the things I will be working on in 2011.
Have you thought about what your 2011 looks like? I know for me
I’m going to have a big year and I know EXACTLY what I want to
accomplish in 2011, and EXACTLY how I’m going to go about
achieving it (of course plans change, modify and improve over
time but the point is I have an initial path to achieve my goals).
Make sure you take some time today or this week to really sit
down and think about how you want your 2011 to shape up.
Literally ANYTHING is possible. You can achieve anything you
want in 2011 and beyond. You just need to sit down and define
what it is you want, and break it down into actionable steps. .
I’d love to hear your 2011 new years resolutions and goals.
If you’d like to share them with me feel free to comment on this post.
I wish you the best of luck, health and happiness in 2011
Happy Holidays
