When it comes to getting things done, most people work themselves just too darned hard. They unnecessarily take on too high expectations of themselves and work themselves into a stressed out mess. And when things go awry, instead of turning things around…they just make it worse. I've got a solution to all of this for you.
Here's an Excerpt from Our Minimize to Maximize Training That You Might Like
People often ask me how do you get so much done? And my answer is “by doing less!”
This is a philosophy I carry everywhere I go and with everything I do.
In session 1 of the Minimize to Maximize Your Life Training, we discussed hourly worth and outsourcing tasks and that’s just the first part of this. I outsource most business tasks, leaving me to focus on product planning and marketing. In my personal life, I have a housekeeper and happily hire people to do things that reduce my hourly worth or just plain old don’t like to do them. And of course, I have children for chores and if I’m putting something together in my personal life, I have learned to ask for help, instead of just trying to do everything myself. It took me a while to learn that lesson that people are often happy to help, but I'm getting there.
BUT here’s how I manage my daily life…outside of what I’ve hired or enlisted other people to do.
It’s so simple, but it’s something most people don’t think about.
BE OKAY WITH LESS WHEN IT GETS YOU THE RESULTS YOU WANT.
Let me explain.
We all make these grand plans. Whether we’re throwing a party, preparing for a product launch or organizing something at work. We imagine the ideal and we make plans around that.
And then when we put the plan into practice and find it’s not going well, we usually do a few things:
• Stress out like crazy
• Postpone and move deadlines
• Try to complete as much of our plan as possible, without bothering to make adjustments…resulting in an unfinished result.
Here’s what I do instead:
• Make the original plan.
• See how it is in practice. If I see I’m going to run out of time, I make drastic adjustments that will still result in a good end result instead of a half finished one (I’ll give an example in a second)
• Then I learn from the example and stop overdoing it when I do something similar next time.
Let’s go through a couple examples…
• Arranging a party – I used to be really horrible for this. I TOTALLY overdid things and wanted everything perfect. Then I’d become a nightmare as the date came closer. I’d expect things of my husband and would get frustrated when he told me all this wasn’t necessary. I thought he was telling me that because he just didn’t want to help, but really he was RIGHT.
If you’re throwing a party, all that really matters is that your guest have a good time. That can be done with simple food, drinks and a guest list of fun people…and for you to be fun and connect people at your party while they’re there. If you’re too busy running around, you can’t even do that. Decorations aren’t necessary or just keep it simple.
Here’s how I run parties now. I don’t cook, even though I actually love cooking. I order platters that get delivered from my grocery store or order dinner in. Now that comes with an expense, so if you’re on a budget, do a potluck and have everyone brings something small. Or if I do cook, I’ll make something that can be made ahead of time…like lasagna or something that doesn’t need me in the kitchen watching during the party.
And dammit, I’ll use paper plates and compost them if there are a large number of guests. Plastic cutlery goes into the dishwasher and gets used again.
It is more important that I’m part of the party than I try to impress my guests with food, decorations and everything else and then end up busy the whole time.
Think about the things you overdo in your life. Can you see some of the tendencies I just mentioned in what you do and how you can simplify things and fix them?
Now, let’s look at an example from my business.
• A product launch – Whenever I launch a new product, there is a ton of stuff involved. I have to come up with the product idea and marketing plan. The product needs to be made, I have to make a sales page and the marketing plan needs to be executed.
Of course, you can bet I’ve already outsourced a lot of this and through experience, I know how much time is required to complete each piece, so I can confidently plan that. But I wasn’t always there. Sometimes I did the work…and I’m not always totally reliable to get busy work done (eye roll)… or I didn’t have a reliable team so I’d have to make adjustments. And really, when I first started creating products, I approached it like I did my parties, I overdid it. I imagined the most perfect, ideal product, but it wasn’t really feasible.
So I’d have to adjust. I’d have to look at everything I wanted included and figure out what was a must have, a nice to have, a not needed and change the plan. What would make my customers happy to pay the amount of money I was asking for? That’s all I needed to do. I could add stuff later and surprise my customers if I wanted…which is a great idea for customer satisfaction and strengthening a product offer later.
But most people would probably just postpone their launch deadline, working way harder than they have to and delaying their profits, so they could actually afford to give more to their customers.
I never change my launch dates. Okay, never say never, but it would be a very rare case where it needed to be done. Instead, I change my plan to meet the deadline and that is how you get stuff done without all the headache and stress.
We are our worst critics and we have the highest expectations of ourselves. Think about the people you’re serving instead…they probably really don’t care about all those little details that have you in a tizzy.
