Creating Your Action Button

The last blog covered making plans about wanting to get things done but not doing anything.  It addressed the common problem of getting stuck before you’ve even begun to work toward goals, projects and ideas.

Sometimes we’re thinking about the end game (project, goal, idea) which seems big and complicated.  Other times we revert to overwhelm where there are too many things to get done.  You’ll know this is happening when you wake up in the morning, think about the day ahead and want to pull the covers over your head hitting the snooze button.  Here are some strategies to create your action buttons (they may be very familiar to you but worth repeating).  These strategies apply equally to your personal or business life.

Strategy 1:  One thing at a time.  Pick one area of concentration in your personal life and one area of concentration for business.  The size of the project or goal will determine the amount of time for your concentrated efforts.  For example, this month is devoted to de-cluttering the house (personal) and the first quarter is devoted to finding a new computer system (business).

Strategy 2:  One part.  There are steps to every project.  For your selected area of concentration, brainstorm all the steps involved in completing the project.  Select one step – de-cluttering the house, start with the left hand corner of one room or the top shelf of one closet – finding a new computer system you’ll want to list all the possible systems you want to research.

Strategy 3:  Habit.  Create a habit to work on your goal each day.  You may set aside 5 minutes or half the day, you decide.  Schedule the time in your calendar.  Make this a commitment.  If it’s 5 minutes, use that time to decide what task related to the goal you will work on the next day.

Strategy 4:  Eliminate distractions.  Close your door, go to a coffee shop, sit in a park, tell your employees or family members that you will be available at a certain time – until that time, you shouldn’t be disturbed.  Turn off your cell phone, computer or tablet if you’re not using it to work toward your goal.  If you are using a device, make sure you close any programs that you aren’t using – such as email or social media apps – which can be notorious distractors.

Strategy 5:  Do less.  Plan on completing only one to three things a day.  Anymore and you’re less likely to get anything done.  If you find yourself done with your one to three things, you can always look at tomorrow’s tasks for something else to do.

Strategy 6:  Plan ahead.  On Sundays plan out your week.  If you’ve got a day filled with meetings, don’t plan on getting anything done.  Be realistic.  Carrying around a giant never ending list will not be productive.  Choose those items on your list that you can realistically accomplish over the next week.

What do you do to create action buttons?  Any other strategies that you’d like to share?  Leave your comments below.

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