3 Tips For Saving Time
I actually don’t know how long it used to take me to write a blog post. It was divided into way too many steps. I would rely on inspiration to chance upon me before I would move forward. And when I did get started, I was a bit scattered and slow… afraid to put constraints on creativity.
Can you relate? Is there an activity in your business that you don’t have a grip on?
Here is the thing that I’ve learned: “Focus makes things go faster.”
Therefore I recently began to block off time on Monday morning for blogging. Since then, my writing process takes less than half the time it used to!
Between me and you, I’ve known that this is something I should be doing for a long time. I’ve been preaching it to my clients. I’ve been practicing it in other aspects of my business. But for some reason, blogging was one area where I excused myself of this rule.
It took me a while to for me to become willing to be honest with myself. Why wasn’t I willing to give blogging a slot of time in my weekly schedule, when I knew that doing so would save me so much time?
Once I figured out what was holding me back, things shifted quickly:
In order to for me to commit to blogging during a specific hour of the week, I needed to trust that I will have what to share. I need to trust my creativity.
I need to trust that inside me there is a fountain of knowledge and inspiration that won’t let me down.
I also needed to know that if once in a while I try and fail -- I will be okay. It wasn’t a waste. It’s still a worthy use of my time.
Why? Because this block of time demonstrated commitment to myself and to my business. Even if I didn’t complete what I wanted to, I surely accomplished something. And If I can’t get one word down, I can still learn something from the experience.
For the practical side of things, I have set up a system to give me the best chances of success. It’s so simple, you may think it’s obvious. But the solution is that I never start with a blank page. I keep a running list of ideas so I never have to wonder if I will randomly be struck with inspiration.
The list is based on my personal process, questions that I get from my clients, responses to my email newsletters, and all sorts of random things… Hey, if you have topic that you want me to cover… now you know the trick ;)
With a balance of the above three ideas - I can feel good about consistently setting aside time on my calendar to focus on what matters.
And you can too. Give your priorities the privilege of having a place on your calendar. It doesn’t need to be a forever commitment. As you might know by now, I’m a big fan of experimentation.
Trust yourself, because you can totally do this!