Do you ever feel like you don’t have control of your time?
I’ve just come back from a 3 week break. I’m calling it a sabbatical because I’ve never taken so much time off work. Ever!
And I really needed the headspace that 3 whole weeks away gave me. I think I’m pretty clear on what I want, and reasonably good at staying focussed, but the volume of noise, pressure and distraction that surrounds us had taken its toll last year.
So I totally disconnected from email, Facebook, Twitter, I didn’t do any more courses, or work on the business. I did however do lots of reading – about ways to make things simpler so that I can do more of what’s most important, and help my clients do the same.
Living an Auto Pilot life – like my days aren’t my own
I do sometimes feel that my days just aren’t my own. No matter what I plan, some days get hijacked by an endless stream of emails, social media distractions, people telling me what marketing I should be doing, what books I should be reading, what podcasts I should listen to and the latest must-watch Ted Talk.
Pressure to be something I’m not, but apparently should be.
And I talk to so many business owners who say the only time they can get anything important done is out of hours. That work time isn’t the time to get the work done! This is crazy isn’t it?
Do you ever feel that you’re running your business and living your life to suit other people’s agendas?
I know I’ve talked about this before. It’s something we need to find ways to overcome if we’re not going to have our attention and focus shattered into so many slithers that we end up with a life of mediocrity at best.
I train and coach my clients to create the financial future they want using their business, but the biggest barrier they have is finding enough time to do the important work without distraction.
Discovering Minimalism
Bored one evening I was searching through Netflix documentaries and found a brilliant film called “Minimalism: a documentary about the important things”
Wow! This was a game-changer for me!
I won’t attempt to precis the whole film – but I heartily recommend that you watch it yourself.
The principles are letting go of all the clutter, distraction and trappings, letting us live a simpler life with less pressure. The guys in the film embraced the principle down to letting go of the high pressured jobs, fancy cars and huge houses, to live a life of more meaning. But from watching the film and doing a lot of reading I see how we can take this idea of minimalism to take the clutter out of our businesses too.
Reclaiming our lives and freeing time for what’s important to us.
Be deliberate. Be conscious. And live with purpose
Something about reading these words really hit me.
They made me realise how often I don’t do things deliberately, as a conscious choice – more in reaction to events, emails, distractions (and I’ll admit, new shiny exciting ideas!)
I realised I needed less moving parts in my life and business, so there were less things to take my attention.
So these are the practical steps I’m working on:
- Quit Facebook, for good. Honestly I think it’s toxic and a huge time waster. Instead keep in touch with the important people in person! It’s far more fulfilling.
- Quit any other social media (unless it brings in customers – then use it mindfully and deliberately)
- Stop replying to email on demand – decide how many times a day you’ll check email – then stick to it.
- Plan days when you’ll work on important stuff. Remember I talked a lot about Deep Work last year? Plan when you’re going to do those deep work days. Turn email off, don’t answer your phone. Ideally don’t even go to the office on those days.
- Have fixed days when you do certain things, and don’t book anything else on those days. I have days where I do client work, and days I need to handle calls, emails, project management, keeping in touch with the team, and marketing. I’m being really disciplined this year about not letting those days get taken, otherwise things that are important to me and my future won’t get done.
- Unsubscribe from anything that doesn’t genuinely add value to your life – declutter your inbox. That includes my blog – if it’s not useful to you, please hit unsubscribe!
- Turn off notifications and distractions from your phone. I’ve taken off social media, email and any apps that I don’t use regularly or that mindlessly distract me.
- Turn off all notifications from your computer too – keep focussed on what you’re working on right now.
- Be sensitive to where distractions come from and see if you can shut them down.
- Don’t over-cram your day with things you “must” get done. Do a few important things really well instead.
- Say NO a lot more!
- And don’t check your email as soon as you wake up – a sure way to get your day off to a bad start – set some boundaries please!
As un-natural as it will seem at first, you really can take charge of your own days and weeks (or at least parts of them) but you must know exactly you want to do, and guard your time – it will get stolen all too easily if you let it.
In future posts I’m going to be talking about decluttering and minimalising different parts of your business – all things that will help you increase profitability and improve cash flow, whilst freeing up more time!
I would just add as well that we’ve done an enormous declutter of the house and office over Christmas and I really feel like I can breathe more freely – I totally recommend this minimalism lark!