Are you off to a fast start pursuing the high priority, high pay off areas of your business? Or are you still bogged down in last year’s stuff? As business owners managing your time and the productive work is the game you play daily. In order to move forward you need to understand what keeps you productive.
Productivity takes being engaged in actions that are leading you towards your goals and results so you can daily focus on the work to get there,
The “trick” then is deciding what you’re going to work on at some point other than in the moment. When you know what produces the most value and commit to it on an ongoing process you follow throughout the day, you practice that high-priority work over and over so it becomes natural, habitual and automatic.
Planning on a yearly, quarterly and monthly basis has been an important aspect of Mind Masters from day one – but having a way to filter those plans into productive action needs a tool that would help get the results you want.
The key is to categorize your high priority, high payoff items first, both business and personal. They can be referred to as:
- Goals
- Activities
- Results
- Projects
- Commitments
Some of the things you do are routine, but still need reminders about them, while projects or results require a more detailed list for completion along with time frames. It helps balance everything you do – in your work, home and personal life.
On a weekly basis, when you do your planning, it is easy to choose the things from each list that must be done within that time frame. Each day, based on your schedule you can easily funnel specific actions down knowing you have allotted the time to complete them.
During our San Diego 2015 Mind Masters Summit we had the privilege of presenting awards to several of our members –Here is how they were described ….
The Bootstrapper Award
When you have owned a successful business but then must start over, where do you begin? You look at your experience and say others must need what I did before. I could help managers, sales professionals be more effective and successful in their business operations and financial growth. What stood out for me in working with this person over the year was her willingness to do the work, then tracking of what worked and what didn’t work. She set goals to move into bigger projects. She is open to learning, while coaching others and openly shares her experience and knowledge with her Mind Masters group. So I am pleased to honor
Jolene McDonough, Systems Success with our Bootstrapper Award!
Emerging Business Award
Is given to a person who came to Mind Masters with a focus that was not feeding her passion. Recognizing that something needed to change as parts of the business were getting stagnant, it meant stepping out of the shadows –taking some risks, learning new skills, beginning to market, and show up in a new arena. Of course her Mind Masters team helped get her started and now new better paying business is coming in the door. Teri Wilder is an outstanding singer, songwriter and performer, but now she has incorporated her passion for sound, with her Gong, and is transforming lives with a new depth of vibrational experience.
The Game Changer Award
I feel like I have come full circle with this person, having taken several workshops with her early in my career while she was also off doing consulting with Fortune 500 Companies. Then she disappeared to the hills of Tennessee, but saw the need to help business professionals be more powerful and influential using her unique set of skills. Now one of the top curators in the country on business storytelling, she is leading the way in raising the bar for leaders to use stories to move others into action. A sort after writer and soon to be a sort after speaker, Karen Dietz of Just Story It!, is our Mind Masters Game Changer!
A Special Recognition Award – The Founders Award
This special Mind Masters award is created periodically to recognize a member who runs a successful business, is able to plan ahead and also able to manage the many parts of the business and understand how they relate to each other, while still meeting the challenges of a changing marketplace. As a past year’s Entrepreneur of the Year this person has been able to stay on top in an economic environment that has changed due to technology. Putting his house in order with new services to offer, and his continual pursuit of customer satisfaction, he has continued to expand his network of referrals and opportunities. He has also been influential in contributing to members of his Mind Masters weekly group. Our Founders Award goes to Mike Mance and his team at Mance Creative.