Time to protect your own headspace

What do you want to achieve in the next few months? Have you set your self goals? Are you really focused on what you’re going to get done, and how?

Something really struck me this week, and I feel the need to share it with you.

I want to talk about the importance of your personal management system right now, and for the need to protect yourself and your own time – even though it may seem like time is all you have plenty of right now.

One of the things I’ve noticed over the last week, particularly on social media and in the online groups that I’m part of, is the overwhelming amount of support, and offers of help, in posts, and Facebook lives and videos. There is SO much out there for us all to consume, and get our heads round and work out what it means for us and our businesses – how it can help us.

Of course we’re also all reciprocating by sharing our own offers of support and help, engaging with posts and watching videos – making sure that we won’t miss out on something that may help us through this unique situation we find ourselves in.

And as a result of all of this activity, there’s a very real chance that we will find ourselves at the end of this crisis, not having moved forward because we are so overwhelmed by the mountain of content, and like headless chickens, trying to keep up with everything that’s out there and trying to take too much of it in at once.

So I want you to pause, and to breathe, and to really think about what goals you want to set yourself for the next three months. What position do you want to be in at the end of the next three months, and what does that mean in terms of a concrete plan?

Is there one part of your business that you’ve always wanted to master? Something that you’ve dabbled in, but never really given it the focused effort it needs for you to really get to grips with it?

Maybe it’s your sales and marketing system – your CRM perhaps. Maybe it’s your accounting software. Maybe you’ve always wanted your own podcast, but never had time to get into it. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to achieve consistency in your business, but systems have always seemed like a dark art to you.

What is it that you want to achieve, personally? Is there a new skill that you want to master? Is there something that you want to do for your business that you’ve never had time for but you really want to grab this opportunity to get it done?

Get really clear about what that is. Take a break from social media, have a social media holiday, maybe even for a week, while you work out what it is that you want to achieve, and what help you need to achieve it.

Say you decided you want to set up a podcast and launch it with 7 interviews under your belt. When you come back onto social media, that’s what you then focus on – getting the help you need to achieve this goal. So you’ll listen to other people’s podcasts, you’ll offer to be a guest on a relevant podcast so you learn how other people set up their interviews, you’ll watch you tube videos showing how to set up your tech and where to post.

Focused, goal driven, time well spent.